Archives

Tagged ‘Illusory Green Economy‘

Aug 28

2014

4

Non-Profit Industrial Complex

Green Energy Illusory Green Economy Renewable Energy

WATCH: Ozzie Zehner – Green Illusions

“Ten years from now, will we think of renewable energy as clean and green? Emerging research on the side effects and limitations of solar cells, wind turbines, biofuels, electric cars and other alternative energy strategies will likely transform conventional wisdom about what’s green, and what’s not. Which players will be left in the dust? Who will innovate the next green revolution? And how?

The Sunday Times describes Ozzie Zehner an “an academic who is causing shockwaves.” He is the author of Green Illusions and a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. He lectures at universities and public policy organizations.”

Published on Oct 8, 2012:

Published on Oct 1, 2012

 

Aug 28

2014

6

Non-Profit Industrial Complex

Green Energy Illusory Green Economy

Ozzie Zehner: Solar Cells and Other Fairy Tales

Published on May 22, 2012

This event was held at the Center for Science, Technology, Medicine & Society at the University of California, Berkeley.

“The seductive tales of wind turbines, solar cells, and biofuels foster the impression that with a few technical upgrades, we might just sustain our current energy trajectories without consequence. Media and political coverage lull us into dreams of a clean energy future juxtaposed against a tumultuous past characterized by evil oil companies and the associated energy woes they propagated. Like most fairy tales, this productivist parable contains a tiny bit of truth. And a whole lot of fantasy.

This talk does not expose a scandal or cover-up in the traditional sense, but rather explores a particular alignment of interests and priorities that presents equally provocative questions to the environmental community. Solar cells shine brightly within the idealism of textbooks and the glossy pages of environmental magazines, but real-world experiences reveal a scattered collection of side effects and limitations that rarely mature into attractive realities.”

 

Jul 18

2013

2

Foundations, Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Whiteness & Aversive Racism

Atmosphere Capitalism Colonialism Exploitation Forests Illusory Green Economy Imperialism Oceans privatization REDD UNGEP United Nations United Nations’ green economy programme

The (Illusory) Green Economy – A Critical Analysis by Dr.Joanna Boehnert

The work of environmental scientists supporting the UN’s GEP will give scientific authority the project, but the important decisions will have already been made. The project is a deepening commitment to neoliberal free markets. On a macroeconomic level “the subordination of social and environmental considerations to macroeconomic policy imperatives” is the fundamental basis of neoliberalism (Nadal, 2012, p.15). Once “macroeconomic objectives are determined, every other policy target is chiseled in accordance” (Ibid., p. 15). The lessons of the recent economic crisis in regards to the fallibility of the financial sector are entirely ignored.

 

The architects of the project have failed to acknowledge the most expansive systemic dynamics of capitalism and ignored the political and historic context. Despite claims by the UNEP, the UN’s GEP is not policy neutral (Ibid., p. 23).

 

The UN’s GEP is supported by the financial and corporate sectors because they recognize the programme as a continuation of the neoliberal model, an expansion of the scope of market and also an exceptional opportunity to create entirely new financial instruments. Similarly to the financial deregulation that set up conditions for the dramatic plunder of public wealth during the current economic crisis, the UN’s GEP establishes new markets that will lead to new avenues for financial speculation. The speculative bubble during the 2008-2009 period has been estimated to cost governments globally at least $12 trillion (Conway quoting IMF, 2009) leaving several bankrupt national governments and severe economic austerity in its wake. This is the context in which the UN’s GEP is operating. The designers of the project have closely aligned themselves to the same financial institutions that played leading roles in the economic crisis.

 

Meanwhile, scientific institutions, environmental NGOs and government agencies are working to build institutional infrastructure to give scientific authority to the UN’s GEP. …The historical critique of capitalism presented by John Bellamy Foster (2002) and others describes that the appropriation of the commons is an integral aspect of capitalism. Capitalism is always looking for new means of producing profit from activities that were otherwise not managed through commodity relationships.

 

The Indigenous People’s Kari-Oca 2 Declaration describes the UN’s GEP as ‘a continuation of colonialism… a perverse attempt by corporations, extractive industries and governments to cash in on Creation by privatizing, commodifying and selling off the Sacred and all forms of life and the sky’ (2012, p.1-2). The programme of re-visioning of the commons as sets of commodities ripe for exploitation is diametrically contrary to the environmental rhetoric used to sell the project. →