Alternative energy sources such as biofuel do more harm than good, according to a Wellington academic.
And carbon offsets envisioned in the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) simply recycle existing environmental conditions.
These and other comments came in a lecture from an environmental veteran, Mike Joy.
Joy is Senior Research Fellow in the School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences, at Victoria University of Wellington, Te Herenga Waka.
The remarks came during a special lecture at his university which was so pessimistic, he actually described himself as Dr Doom in his introductory comments. But he made no apologies for condemning "ecocidal growth" and he called for honesty and intellectual rigour in facing up to climate change.
During his talk, Joy produced a mountain of evidence showing human life on the planet is completely profligate in environmental terms. He included a suggestion that maintaining industrial civilisation so far surpasses the output of the average person, that “energy slaves” are maintaining our lifestyle for us.
“In 2018, the world ran on 17 trillion watts of energy. That’s equivalent to (the energy needs of) 500 billion human workers. Contrast that with four billion actual workers on the planet. That’s 70 energy slaves for every human,” Joy said.
“But it’s not spread equally, of course. In the wealthy world where we live, we have at least 200 energy slaves each. That is more than any slave owner ever had before.”
Joy’s argument is that the amount of energy required to support an affluent lifestyle is multiple times greater than the energy needs of an ordinary person living a simple life. And all that energy emits carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, constantly.
And he argues this is rarely reported properly. Instead, the state of countries’ economies get constant scrutiny. Yet this reporting misses the point.
“Compared to the real value of the earth and its organisms, our miniscule annual economy is like the flea on a dog,” he quoted from the American academic Tom Murphy.
“Yet we lavish all our attention on the flea.”
Joy argues there is a need for simpler lifestyles, with less consumption of unnecessary goods. And he concurred with a questioner who suggested people were just as happy in the 1960s as now, without two cars and a second bathroom.
His speech had a provocative title: “What do net-zero, the green energy transition and the tooth fairy have in common?” The answer appeared to be a blend of myopia, day dreaming and childish hope.
For example, the green energy transition was based on false assumptions. Biofuel might have lower emissions when burnt. But those emissions had to be augmented by the emissions of all the machinery needed to get a crop in place and to convert its output into fuel. A similar problem was caused by the intermittence of wind or solar energy, while biodiesel and green hydrogen were even worse.
“I am not saying use the gas (for electricity generation), I am just saying, ‘get real’. We are not making renewable (systems) out of renewables.”
Joy also finds fault with the sort of carbon offsets envisioned by the ETS. He argues it is all very well to plant more trees to soak up CO2, but the gain is limited, because vegetation was already there before the ETS was ever thought of. As a result, total tree numbers, and their CO2 absorbing capacity, would not necessarily increase.
“Some wood gets locked up in buildings for a period of time, but pretty much everything else just gets recycled. The whole thing is just a big game, it’s a big delusion, we are kidding ourselves. Maybe some people do think we can have more trees than in the pre-industrial era, but I just can’t see that happening."
“The process of trying to transition to 'clean' energy will mean more and more mining and fossil fuel use, pushing teetering planetary boundaries over the edge," says Joy.
Joy says the real need is for people to consume less, live simpler lives and face up to hard facts.
“We need to learn humility, or we will be humbled,” he says.
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