Max Wilbert of Deep Green Resistance Great Basin and Cameron Foley (no chapter affiliation) presented at the 2014 PIELC (Public Interest Environmental Law Conference) on "The False Solutions of Green Energy." Together they debunk some of the myths of "green" energy. Wilbert details the earth destruction required to manufacture, install, and dispose of wind turbines and solar panels, showing their inherent unsustainability as they still rely on large-scale mining, global trade, and global exploitation. Foley discusses the problem of mainstream environmentalism fixating on the illusion of green energy as a techno-fix for the very real problems we face, dangerously diverting us from pursuing real solutions. Environmentalists are really faced with the question of whether we want to find slightly less harmful alternatives to business as usual, or if we want to stop causing harm altogether and even start healing the earth.
Wilbert concludes by describing the strengths and weaknesses of other approaches to addressing the environmental crises, from ecosocialism to permaculture to radical aboveground action such as nonviolent civil disobedience. He makes a strong case for the necessity of adding strategic underground attacks on critical infrastructure to our range of tactics, summarizing the Deep Green Resistance strategy of Decisive Ecological Warfare.
This presentation is an important antidote to the misinformation and misdirection spread by corporations, governments, and mainstream environmental groups. Watch below or read the text transcript, share with your environmentally minded friends, and visit the Deep Green Resistance Youtube Channel or Deep Green Resistance member appearances page to view and hear more DGR and general resistance video and audio:
Transcript
[Cameron:] This is Max, and we've been doing environmental activism for at least five years now. Green energy is a topic that's been really important to us, because in trying to find effective solutions, a really genuine response to the environmental crisis, green energy has come up as an obstacle. We've talked about it always on the side; we've never really come at it head-on so we thought for this year for PIELC it's something we should do.
We're probably going to talk for about 40 minutes, and then we'll do a little Q & A and then we'll call it a day. I'm going to pass it over to Max.
[Max:] Thanks everyone for coming. It's an honor to be here again. Today we’re going to introduce you to some ideas that you're probably familiar with already as environmentalists. But we might also be talking about some things that are surprising or even shocking to some of you.
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