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[cameron:] this is max, and we've been doingenvironmental activism for at least five years now. green energy is a topic that's beenreally important to us, because in trying to find effective solutions, a reallygenuine response to the environmental crisis, green energy has comeup 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 forpielc it's something we should do. we're probably going to talk for about 40minutes, and then we'll do a little q & a and then we'll call it a day. i'm going to passit 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 thatyou're probably familiar with already as environmentalists. but we might also be talking about some things thatare surprising or even shocking to some of you. first we're going to introduce you tothe world of industrial production. this is a world that's completely hiddenfrom most of us in our everyday lives. almost no one understands how industrial productionhappens, but today we're going to lift back that veil and try to examine what'sgoing on behind the scenes. do you all want me to stand up?[audience:] yes, please. i don't usually like to stand up, soi might be a little awkward, but...

second, we're going to take that information aboutindustrial production and apply it to green technology. for the purposes of this talk i cameup with a term for green technology which i thought somewhat appropriate,which is "the great green hope.” i think that describes the relationship manyenvironmentalists have with green technology. thirdly, we're going to talk about theimplications of this focus on green technology. very serious implications of people putting all theirfaith into this as a solution to the problems we face. then if we have time, we might get around to talkingabout solutions, which is obviously a huge subject. obviously we're starting with false solutions, sohopefully we'll get around to some real solutions. space bar doesn't work. arrow doesn't work.i have to click it...there we go.

so we're going to start by lookingat industrial production. this is a highly simplified chart i put together to illustratethe process of producing something in an industrial manner. this is looking specifically at some sort of greentechnology like a solar panel or a hybrid vehicle. this is going to look a little bit different dependingon what industry, specifically, you're examining but for the purpose of this talk, we're going toexamine the materials required for a wind turbine. this is a 1.5 megawatt wind turbinemanufactured by general electric. it's one of the most commonly usedwind turbine designs on the planet, and i think there are over 20,000 of these specific unitsinstalled around the world in use right now, today. the nacelle of the turbine isthe portion up in the top here.

that weighs 56 tons, while the tower weighsin at 71 tons and the blades at 36 tons. so we're talking about a verylarge piece of equipment. but, this particular model ispretty small by modern standards there are turbines around today that can be threetimes taller and use eight times as much materials. but we're going to use this particular wind turbinemodel as a gateway for our exploration today. so...what are these materials? according to general electric's figures, oneof these turbines is about 60 percent steel so it requires around 100tons of this material; 35% of the weight of the generator is copper,which is about 15 tons in this specific model.

this wind turbine also requiresaround 700 pounds of neodymium. neodymium is a rare earth metalthat's used in many technologies, from hard drives to cell phonesto these sorts of things. so let's focus on these three materials:steel, copper, and neodymium. you can't have a wind turbine without these materials,or without replacements that are very similar. not many people think about thesematerials. how boring is steel, right? these chairs might be made of steel. (they might be aluminumor something else. i don't really know anything about chairs.) [audience laughter] but it's all around us ― ourcars are made of it, this building is made of it, there are girders in here that are madeof steel. but we never think about it.

tonight we're going to do a little basiceducation on steel and these other materials. where do they come from?so let's get into it. this is where iron ore, which is theraw precursor to steel, comes from. this is the carajã¡s mine, which is thelargest iron ore mine on the planet. it's located in northern brazil, inthe heart of the amazon rainforest. the environmental impacts of the mine, as youmight guess from that picture, are enormous. first and foremost, to reach the ore, theyobviously have to clearcut the rainforest. they also clearcut more forest for waste piles, storagefacilities, transportation facilities, roads, rail lines, etc. that's anotherimage of the mine.

the statistics right now are that they cut down more than4,000 square miles of rainforest around this mine every year. that's an areabigger than chicago. another impact of this specific mine is that mercurycontaminates 90% of the fish downstream of this area. in addition to the environmental impacts, iron ore mines in theamazon have displaced tens of thousands of indigenous people. they've decimated newly-contacted indigenoustribes through the spread of infectious diseases, and they've flooded these remote areas with thousands ofworkers, networks of roads, and all the associated impacts in terms of poaching, logging,economic and sexual exploitation, etc. so...moving on...to copper. this is a copper mine, one of thelargest copper mines in the world.

i chose to show you this one because i live in salt lakecity, utah, and this is about 10 miles from my house. this particular mine is called the binghamcanyon mine. it's owned by rio tinto, and it's the largest man made excavation in theworld, visible from space with the naked eye. to give you a sense of scale, i'd come up to about the hubcap on that truck [points to blown up picture of truck] and that's the truck in the mine. [points to tiny image of truck actually in the mine] basically what you're looking athere is a mountaintop removal mine. there are two mountainsmissing there. we're used to hearing aboutmountaintop removal coal mining, but i don't hear very much aboutmountaintop removal copper mining,

and i think we need tobe just as outraged. another image of the mine. the impacts of copper miningmirror that of steel production. it's strip mining: we're talking about land clearance, soil erosion,toxic tailings, air pollution from the vehicles and machinery, huge releases of dust, mercury and other heavy metal contamination, habitatloss, soil and groundwater contamination, greenhouse gas emissions, etc, etc. from beginning to end it's just a nightmare.and another example of how toxic it is... ...that's salt lake valley...the worstair quality in the united states. worse than la, worsethan new york city. and the number one source of pollutionin the valley is the copper mine.

on to neodymiium is this starting to look familiar? how long will it take us to see the pattern? this is the largest rareearth mine in the world. this supplies about 50 percent of the worlddemand for rare earths. it's located in china. the problems with rare earth mining areexactly the same as the previous two: we're talking about toxic tailings, massivepollution, water pollution, habitat destruction and in china, of course,you can add slavery. china supplies 95% of the rare earth minerals that are used in cell phones,hybrid vehicles, wind turbines, and other "advanced" technologies. the reason i talk about slavery specifically is becausea substantial portion of the chinese workforce ―

especially for these dirty jobs that are likely to result incancer and other issues ― that workforce comes from tibet. what happens there is the military forcibly disbandscommunities and sends them to these labor camps to dig coal mines, uranium mines,and rare earth mines like this. at this point, one fifth of the tibetanpopulation has died in mines like this. that's 1.2 millionpeople, and counting. this is absolutely heartbreaking, this is a letter that a woman from oregonfound inside her plastic halloween decorations that she got from kmart. i'm not sure if you canread it, but it says: "if you occasionally (sic) buy this product, please sendthis letter to the world human rights organization. thousands people here who are under the persecution of thechinese communist party will thank and remember you forever.

this product produced by unit 8, department 2," ... somelabor camp in china that i can't pronounce, i'm sorry. the letter goes on to explain thegrueling long hours they work, the verbal and physical abuse they face, thetorture done to the inmates of these labor camps. so this is where the consumer goods of thewest come from. many of us know this already, but we don't know that this is alsowhere green technology comes from. this is a group of rare earthsmelting facilities in china. the story is the same throughout theentire process of refining these metals, fabricating them into the sheets, pipes, fixtures, magnets, andall the things needed to assemble these green technologies. it's the same when the turbines are installed, which requires pouringthousands and thousands of pounds of concrete into huge foundations.

it's the same throughout the whole process:you've got heavy industry, habitat destruction, toxic chemicals, poisoned water, exploitation of thecommunity, greenhouse gases, public health issues, etc. just between concrete and steel we're talkingabout 10% of greenhouse gas emissions globally so these are massive industries. from beginning to end, theprocess that results in that... ...requires environmentaldevastation on a huge scale. the story is the same, from electriccars to solar panels, and beyond. this gets it about right:signs of insanity: dig up nonrenewable metals, ship them around the world,transform them, call it "green" and "sustainable."

[audience chuckles] pretty well said.this is the critical point: there is no way to produce industrialtechnology without industrial devastation. green technology requires global trade, global exploitation,global destruction of the land, the air, the water. you can't do it any otherway; it's impossible. and it just goes on and on. this is the new ivanpah solarthermal power plant in california. i think it's the largest solarinstallation in the world. this slide shows some of the habitatthat was destroyed for this place. it's habitat for thethreatened desert tortoise.

the solar company had to get aspecial permit to bulldoze this area and the reports say it's likely they killed 3000or more of these threatened desert tortoises. most of them they didn't even know because they probablyjust rolled them over with bulldozers and they were killed. that's just the destruction causedby the installation, of course. solar panel production is now among the leading sources ofhexafluoroethane, nitrogen triflouride, and sulfur hexaflouride, three extremely potent greenhouse gases which areused for cleaning plasma production equipment. as a greenhouse gas, hexaflouroethane is 12,000times more powerful than carbon dioxide. it's 100% manufactured by humans, and it survives10,000 years once released into the atmosphere. nitrogen triflouride is 17,000 timesmore powerful than carbon dioxide,

and sulfur hexaflouride is 25,000 times morepowerful ― the most powerful known greenhouse gas. just as an example, the atmospheric concentrationof nitrogen triflouride in rising at 11% per year. what about the otherend of the process? what happens when these panels and these windturbines and this green technology breaks? or it's done ― it doesn't work anymore?this is e-waste. the silicon valley toxics coalitionreleseed a report saying: "as the solar industry expands, little attention is being paid to thepotential environmental and health costs of that rapid expansion. the most widely used solar pv panels have the potential to create ahuge new source of electronic waste at the end of their useful lives. new solar pv technologies are increasingefficiency and lowering costs,

but many of these use extremely toxic materials ormaterials with unknown health and environmental risks including new nanomaterials and processes." it's interesting how you see environmentalists really worriedabout these new technologies and these gmo crops and such, but when it comes to basically applying the same technologiesto solar panels and green energy, they're cheering along. my message is that wehave been lied to. we are the victims of an extremely sophisticated publicrelations and advertising campaign that stretches from general electric to the department of energy to the white houseto the un to the sierra club to apple to greenpeace, and beyond. and that brings us back to where we started,with this wind turbine from general electric. i'm sure you've all heard thisterm "greenwashing" before.

this is general electric'scorporate structure. how did we ever think that a technologypromoted by a company like this, a $700 billion dollar corporation that is involved ineverything from weapons production to nuclear power, a company with a dismal environmental record and a history of leaving behind superfundsites for the public to pay to clean up, or to never get cleaned up at all more likely ― how could we ever think this business would act inour best interest, in the best interest of the earth? the lie we have been toldhinges on this one big hope. it's the hope that we can maintain the americandream while we save the planet at the same time; it's the hope that we won'thave to give anything up; it's the hope that our lifestyle can continue without beingthreatened by little distractions like killing the planet,

and it's been bought into by the middle class, anxiousto maintain the comforts and elagencies of modern life. it's also been bought into by many of the poor, who havebeen told this story that the green energy revolution will also mean a revolution in livingstandards and a revitalization of community. in response to that,i like this quote: [slide:] "the most efficient way of rendering the poor harmless is to teach themto want to imitate the rich. that is the poison with which capitalism blinds." meanwhile general electric is walking away with a new $10 billiondollar contract. they know is's not going to change the world. what it will change is their bottom line; businesses existto make profit, not to make the world a better place. and at this point, most governments around the world simply serveas their corporate proxies in this never-ending revolving door from lobbyist to consultant topolitician and back again ―

all with a hefty salary, a comfortableretirement package, and a nice set of bonuses. i'm more interested in this... and this... and...this. if we truly want a livable planet, we're goingto have to stop listening to these deceivers. we're going to have to break thespell that's been cast on us. that's going to be hard, because we're not only fighting thosein power, but we're also ftghting heir proxies, their pawns, these people who have been so deeply internalizedinto this longing for a green technotopia that they can't see thecontradictions inherent in that.

we're also going to have to start thinking for ourselves and confrontingthe systems of power that are destroying the planet, face to face. i'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news today,but there is no easy way out of this mess. of course, that's not to saythere's nothing to be done. i think there's much we can do tosave the planet, to fight for justice. i'm going to talk about that in a bit here,but i want to pass it off to cameron for now, who's gonna take a slightlydifferent angle on the same issue. [cameron:] thank you max. we've just heard from max why green energy is notreally a solution, and it's not really so green. now what i want to talk about is how greenenergy plays into environmental activism,

and i hope to convince you that it shouldhave little to no place in our activism. i also want to give you a fewways to talk about this issue to use in your own life, indiscussions with other people. everything i'm saying should beseen through the lens of activism because that's what interestsme, and that's what matters. of course, what matters most is thematerial effects these technologies have which as we've justseen ― they're harmful. they're harmful to the earth, but i thinkthey're also harmful to environmental activism. the first danger i see with green energy is theway that it takes the environmental crisis,

in all of its complexity, and it reducesit to an issue of technology only. i made a really remarkable paintrendition of this. [audience laughs] that's what it looks like. of course technology is an issue; we need differenttechnologies, but we need many other things as well: we need new stories, new institutions, newrelationships with each other and with nonhumans. many of you have experienced this, how environmentalism,at its core, leaves no stone unturned. it asks us to reexamine really everything in our lives ― theeconomic, the social, the spiritual, the psychological. but when the problem is reduced to one of technologyonly, all of those other questions are blotched out. they're made invisible, and wedon't even think to ask them.

a friend of ours wrotesomething i think is great: "often, we never question why weneed new technologies and resources and we never think about what problems theypurport to solve or conceal entirely.” what green energy concealsis the depth of the problem. it's not only technological:it's stories, it's our language, we could go on and on with this, and we *should*go on and on with this. it's part of our work. in short, the problem is total,but green energy conceals this. this concealing, wecould call it illusion: green energy responds to a realproblem, a very real problem,

but it responds in the wrong way, and inthat, it itself becomes part of the problem. so how does this happen?how does this play out? one of our friends tells a story of a meetinghe went to with some other environmentalists, and they were saying "we needto ramp up solar, really fast." he said "have you thoughtabout resource depletion? there's not even enough silver to build theamount of solar panels you're talking about." one of them, who's a prettywell-known organizer, responded: “don't worry about that, there's more thanenough silver, it's just underneath china.” so picture that: you have a major environmental organizeradvocating large-scale mining to build solar panels.

i heard some gasps; you see the problem.you can not destroy the world to save it. this is where greentechnologies take you: you start out on the right path – environmentalism– but you end up in the wrong place – extraction. this is why we callit an illusion. another example, as max was talkingabout, the ivanpah solar project, that's the largest solarsite in the world. it's a solar thermal site, meaning that allthese mirrors are aimed at this water tower. they concentrate the sun's energy,which heats up the tower, the water boils, generatessteam to run a turbine.

it not only heats up the tower; it also heats up the areasurrounding it. so they've already found several dozen birds that have had their wings burned andsinged and they've fallen to their death. there's two ways to respond to that. you could say either"well, this is to save humanity, so what are a few birds?" or you could really open your heart and seethat says something about this technology. is that who we are?that's not who we are. then we have someone from greenpeacesaying about this project: "the clean energy revolution is notonly possible, it's happening now. take a moment to reflect on this newsamerica: our movement is stronger than ever." this project is owned by three corporations, one of thembeing google. so i hope this is not our "movement."

how has this happened? how have environmentalismand green technologies come to go hand in hand? it's hard for people to think ofone without thinking of the other. it's very strange. it seems like it'sobvious, but if you think about it, environmentalism at its core challenges destruction,and yet green energy continues it, it depends on it. environmentalism challenges industrialism, butgreen energy relies on it and continues it. i think there are at least two reasons why these two oppositeshave come together, and they've been sold in one package. the first is: like any system of power,capitalism is good at taking any kind of threat taking that energy andturning it to its own uses. we've seen how corporations dogreenwashing ― we all know that.

the second reason, which is more interesting tome, is that green energy offers an easy way out. if you believe in green energy, you get to both clear your conscience ―you can 'live green" ―and you get to hold on to the industrial fantasy. you get all the comfortsthat come along with that. as max said, we've been lied to.and we have bought into that lie. and environmentalists continueto perpetuate that lie. and that's how in this really creepy sort of way,some environmentalists have worsened the problems, by maintaining an illusion and not allowingpeople to see things as they really are. when we talk about green energy we'retalking about more than just green energy. i see green energy ― so much is loaded into it ― i thinkof it as the last straw of the industrial fantasy.

everything we've been told since birth, about our relationship tothe natural world, that we live above it and separated from it ― for many of us, that story has itslast support in green energies. which is why there's a point at whichrational argument reaches its limit, that there's no amount of information you could tell to someoneto convince them that green energies are not sustainable. they're going to continue believing it, because theyhave to believe it, because if they stop believing it, their whole understanding of this world, the industialcivilized world, would collapse in on them. and that's a very painful thing to go through,as i'm guessing many of you in this room know. so green energy becomes a kind of defense, it's a liewe tell ourselves to protect ourselves from the truth, the hard truth that this way of life is notsustainable, not here and there, at its core.

and we can continue to tell ourselves that lie,and protect ourselves from that painful process, but think of everything that we lose,especially in terms of activism. there's a really great interview between terrytempest williams and tim dechristopher. tim dechristopher is the man who bid on all the parcels ofland at the auction; he had no intention of paying for them, and he ended up savingover 20,000 acres of land. she asks him, how did you get to this position whereyou could do something so creative, so risky? he goes back several years, telling a story of howhe was at a talk by a major climate scientist. she gave the story that it's largely irreversible; there's nothingwe can do ― whether that's true or not, that's what she said. he went up to her afterwards to ask her about it,and she put her hand on his shoulder and said,

“i'm sorry my generation has failed yours.”and he tells terry tempest williams: "once i realized there was no hopein any sort of normal future, there's no hope for me to have anything my parents orgrandparents would have considered a normal future— i realized that i have absolutely nothing to lose by fightingback.” later on he says, “my future was already lost." this is what interests me, what has to happen tosomeone that they become an environmentalist. it's a lot of things, as you all know: it's love, it's relationshipswith the natural world, with other people, but for a lot of us, it's about having that view of the world, of the industrial world, of oiland everything that goes with it ― it's about having that shattered. there's nothing nice about it – it's painful, it'sdifficult – but in its place you find something else: you find stronger relationships, real relationships, you findpassion, and you find commitment to something larger than yourself.

and that transformation,that's a really amazing thing. it's something that should be protectedand celebrated and guided and honored. what does green energy do? green energy, as far as i'veseen, and i'm guessing many of you have seen this, works to stunt and head off thattransformation, it domesticates it. it takes all this passion, this energy and redirects itback into the very system that was being challenged. as i showed, it makes a very complex situation into a falsechoice: either we have fossil fuels, or green energy. that's not true, and weneed to break out of that. and when we break out of that, then we can find somethingnew. we can make something new and put that into practice. so that's our challenge: how can we think and practicean environmentalism that doesn't rely on green energy?

some people here might say, “ok, of course it's not perfect, butisn't it better than the alternative, better than fossil fuels?" that still seems wrong to me. i think modern environmentalism has almostalways relied on a strategy of moderation. it has said let's find something less bad,let's find something less destructive. but there comes a point where we haveto say ― where you have to decide ― do i only want to slow destruction,or do i want to stop it? and it's in making that choice, making that stand,and deciding "i, we, are not going to allow this." that's what a movement depends on, and it's, ithink, what life on this planet depends on. i'm going to pass it back to max, and give him thevery difficult section of "what needs to be done."

[max:] thanks cameron. that's just a nice picture of a bird that cameron putin there, that we forgot to flip to. [audience laughter] i completely agree with that assessment, andthat is exactly the important question: do we want to just slow down thedestruction, or do we want to stop it? here's a headline from one of the most well-respectednewspapers in the world, on that subject. [audience laughs] that's one of my favorite headlines i've ever read. it's amazing howsometimes the fake news is so much more true than the real news. [audience member:]can you read it out? [max:] oh i'm sorry, it's a headline from theonion ― that's why we're laughing. it says:

"millions of barrels of oil safely reachport in major environmental catastrophe" what cameron said is right: we've gotten too comfortablein this mindset of finding a less harmful alternative. and honestly, when you're starting from this god-awful baseline,it's pretty darn easy to find something that's slightly better. and usually that still meansdestruction for the planet. if there's one thing we want you to walk away from thistalk with, it's that green technology is not a solution. it reminds me of aquote from malcolm x, and people like to quote these historical figures withoutreally knowing history very well, so i just want to say that i think it's really important to understandhistory, and to understand these figures and malcolm x had a lot of various issues including misogynyand other things, but he was really smart in some ways.

i love this quote. he said: "if you stick a knife in my back 9 inches andpull it out 6 inches, there's no progress. if you pull it out all theway, that's not progress. progress is healing thewound that the blow made." i think that's exactly what we'reseeing with this green technology. this is sort of a summary ofwhat we've been talking about. on the left we've got fossil fuels, onthe right we've got green technologies. in terms of extraction: fossil fuels require large scaleunsustainable extraction of metals and other resources. on the right: green technologies require large scale unsustainableextraction of metals and other resources. just the same.

in terms of production: fossil fuels ― globalized industrialproduction process requiring energy intensive technologies. on the right under green technology: globalized industrialproduction process requiring energy intensive technologies. pollution: fossil fuels ― extreme pollution released frominitial exploration through extraction and cossumption. pollution is often visibleat the site of consumption. green technology is a little different here: extreme pollutionreleased from initial exploration through extraction and disposal. pollution often invisibleat site of consumption. in terms of human rights: fossil fuels contribute to resource conflicts,exploitation of labor, and human rights violations worldwide. on the right, green technology exactly the same: contributes toresource conflicts, exploitation of labor, and human rights violations. in terms of democracy: fossil fuels ― the technologyis largely controlled by multinational corporations,

they require massive capital to get started, communityscale implementation is largely impossible. on the right, exactly thesame for green technologies. these are just a few of the ways inwhich these are exactly the same. i think we need to start talking about stoppingdestruction. we need to start talking about winning. i don't think people talkabout winning very much. we've gotten so used to being in this running retreat thatpeople fighting for justice have been in for so long. so what's to be done? what's the solution, ifwe can't count on green technology to save us? there are a lot of people out theretalking about solutions, and a lot of approaches, a lot of people doinggood work, but let's just look at a few.

first up we've got the ecosocialists. they have areally great analysis of capitalism and labor. they're doing some really wonderful work. i'm from seattle, wherethey're doing some great stuff getting into the political system trying to raise the minimum wageto something halfway livable. but their program generally seems to be based on theidea that industrial production should continue, and as we've seen industrial productionis a nightmare for the planet. we've seen this in many socialist contries as well, forexample bolivia where left-wing evo morales came into power through a coalition of the indigenous communitiesand the marxists and the other left-wingers, and once he got into power there were huge conflicts becauseall the marxists and the socialists were pro industrialism. they wanted to go in and get oil and gas from therainforest, and the indigenous people were opposed to this.

some people might say this isn't trueecosocialism. that's sort of up to you to debate. i do want to say that, as i go through these models of change, ihave a lot of respect for a lot of people doing this work, so this is meant as afriendly disagreement. next up we've got permaculture. there is alot of good to be said for this method. i know a few people in this audience who arefriends of mine, who are really involved in that. it's completely critical for resisters to build our ownfood networks, to build up our alternative institutions so we're not completely reliant on industrial civilization to eat,and house ourselves, clothe ourselves, keep ourselves healthy, etc. it's the only way we're going to survive as thisculture continues this headlong rush towards collapse. but the problem is that permaculture isn't stoppingany pipelines or strip mines, at least not by itself.

it's part of the solution,but it's not enough. then we've got the mainstream environmental movement, which seemsto be focused on reaching out to as broad a community as possible ― and as we all know, that's code forreaching out to white, middle class people. these are the groups, largely, that areadvocating for 100% renewable energy, and they've gotten so caught up in this idea thatclimate change is *the* issue, the one issue, that sometimes it seems they've forgottenabout nature and the natural world. i'm not saying there aren't mainstream environmentalgroups that do great work, because of course there are, and there are a lot of good peopleinvolved in these organizations. one of my favorites is the center for biological diversity: they suethe crap out of all kinds of places to protect species. that's great.

but these groups are operating withina very strict set of boundaries, which make it possible for them to have small victorieshere and there but never to make very much progress. next up: we've got radicalenvironmentalists and land defenders. there is some really greatwork going on here. this slide is from the unis'tot'en campin canada, north of the border, way up ― how far is the drive past vancouver, like 16 hours orsomething? way up in central bc, out in the middle of nowhere. the unis'tot'en clan of the wet'suwet'enfirst nation has set up a camp. they've reclaimed some of their traditional lands, that they neverceded in a treaty ― they still have legal title to this land ― and they've set up a camp in thepath of a pipeline corridor.

the oil and gas companies want toput in eight or nine pipelines to carry tar sands oil and fracked natural gasfrom the interior out to the coast for export. they moved back onto their traditional territory, they've builtcabins, they've built permaculture gardens, they hunt out there, and they've set up a sort of soft blockade across the road, wherethey refuse to allow in anyone from these oil and gas companies but they do allow you in if you're coming out tohunt or fish or go camping or something like that. for those who can't see, this is a picture of them building a traditionalpithouse, so this is their traditional construction technique. they blacken the timber to preventinsects from eating it and it rotting. i think sam was there helping build this- last summer? [sam:] in the spring. [max:] these people are really brave, andare doing some wonderful, amazing work.

effective as well: we're talking about a small communityof people stopping a continental scale extraction project. this is the way we need tobe thinking, strategically: looking for these bottlenecks where a small numberof people can make a really big difference. i have a lot of hope for theradical environmental movement. we're seeing a lot of serious civildisobedience like this all over the place. but we're also seeing thedifficulties of this approach. in texas for example, we all knowabout the tar sands blockade and the amazing series of lockdowns andtreesits and such that they did two years ago. they shut down construction of that pipelinefor quite a while, but that pipeline's in now.

it's in the ground; it's completed. so theylost, despite all that energy and effort. and of course they have to deal with the hugelegal bill now, and all the consequences of that. so there are repercussions in terms ofthe material reality of organizing. in michigan we see it too; just recently those three women weresentenced to all that jail time for their civil disobedience. you expect this in non-violence, of course.that's how it works: you do non-violence and they crack down on you. inorder for it to work, you need to have numbers. you need to be able to sustain this. you need to have the resources,and the number of people to keep doing this again and again, to build momentum, to bring more people intothe movement until you have eventual success. i don't know if wehave those numbers.

that's the first tar sands mine in the us. that'sin utah, a couple hours from where i live. i've been organizing with some local folks;this is a little road blockade we did. we've been tryingto stop this mine. i think there's a chance that we could stop it, usingaboveground nonviolent tactics, traditional nonviolence. the problem for me is that this mine is in an areathat's the largest oil producing region in utah. there's something like 22,000 oil and frackingwells in the basin that this mine is in, and those are already producing;this mine isn't even producing yet. it's taking the entire energy of the activist community in utahand surrounding states, plus people coming in from outside, tons of money, tons offunds, tons of time,

and we have a small chance of stopping the expansion of oneproject in an area that's already producing huge amounts of oil. we can't even begin to think about trying to stop thatfracking and that oil, because we have a lot to deal with. i don't think that hopingfor the future is enough. i'm not content tojust rely on hope. this map shows major fossil fuel expansions that areplanned or ongoing right now, up to the year 2020. we've got giant projects like coal mining inindonesia and australia as well as western china, we've got oil extraction in kazakhstan,the caspian sea, central africa, we've got offshore drilling in brazil,the gulf of mexico, the arctic, etc. i think that if we had the numbers and the resources, we could fight andstop all these projects using non-violence. it's completely possible.

i have nothing but respect foranyone organizing in that way. but i honestly don'tsee the numbers. like i said, we barely have a chance at winning in this one smallproject in utah, and it's not even big enough to be listed on this map. so i don't know ifwe have the numbers. and then, of course, i think about thefact that 200 species went extinct today. then i think again: "200species went extinct today." and then i just repeat that in my head, because ican't wrap my mind around that and what that means. two hundred entire species. the only strategy that i see that couldwork is somewhat radical and direct,

and what i'm talking about here is directattacks on industrial infrastructure. this probably sounds extreme tosome of you, and for good reason. but you should realize that sabotage is a time-testedand honorable method of political resistance. this is what mandela said whenhe was on trial in south africa: “i do not deny that i planned sabotage. i did not plan it in aspirit of recklessness nor because i have any love of violence. i planned it as a result of a calm and soberassessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny,exploitation and oppression of my people by the whites.” i work with an organization called deep greenresistance, and we actually have a strategy that lays out how small groups of organized and committedpeople could bring down the entire global industrial economy.

the way they could do it is bytargeting critical structural nodes. that's an importantterm to understand. when i say critical structural nodes, i am talking about the physicalsystems that allow the industrial economy to continue to function ― things like fossil fuel infrastructure, communication systems, electricalsystems, refining, distribution, global finance, transportation, etc. this is not a game, and it's nota position that i take lightly. i take it not in the spirit of recklessnessnor because i have any love of violence. i take it because of a calm and sober assessmentof the political situation that we face after decades of fighting a running retreatthat sometimes looks more like a rout. as a resistance movement, we have to startthinking strategically and tactically.

what are our goals? we need a livable planet, cleanair, clean food, clean water. that's the baseline. in order to have that we need to stop industrial logging,industrial fishing, industrial mining, industrial food production, dams, coal power plants, pipelines, refineries, thefossil fuel economy...the global economy as a whole. this is our onlychance at survival. there are a lot of good books outthere to teach the basic lessons of strategy and tactics, organization, security procedures, and that go over thehistory of resistance movements struggles and how they've worked in the past. so we don't have to figure all this stuffout from scratch. it's been done before. when i say that we want to bring down industrialcivilization, that sounds like a huge job. there's no denying thatthis is a massive system.

strategic sabotage is effective, however.this can be done. it's been used in hundreds ofhistorical conflicts, because it works. when i've presented the strategy to ex-specialforces members who've trained in this sort of thing, they basically say "yeah, thestrategy is sound, this could work." this is a strategy thatcould actually win. there have been a few rumblings lately that somethingmight be brewing, that are sort of exciting to me. last spring in central california, a transmissionsubstation that feeds power to silicon valley was attacked in a "military-styleraid" by unknown persons. the people who did this found an undergroundfiber-optic cable, they pulled up the manhole cover,

they went in there and cut that to disablephone access and cell phones in the area, and then they fired 120 rounds from a hunting rifle into the substation,which shutt it down completely, and it took a month to repair it. this has been called the most sophisticatedattack on the grid in us history which on the one hand makes me very happy ― i'm glad about that ― and onthe other hand i'm like "really? this is the most sophisticated attack?" [audience laughter] [max:] (inaudible) ...anything better than a hunting rifle? [more audience laughter,and applause] one electrical worker stated that the grid ishighly vulnerable to these sort of strikes, and some politicians and military officials have stated that“this looked like a trial run. someone was testing the waters.” this is very heartening to me.

another heartening groupcomes from this area: that's in the niger river delta, and it's an area that royal-dutchshell has been taking oil from for more than 50 years. they've poisoned the air,the land, the water. the people are starving because there are no fish any more; the crops won'tgrow because of the acid rain from all the natural gas they flare off. there was a non-violentresistance here for decades. it was led by the famous poet ken saro-wiwa, widely respectedas a human rights advocate and environmental advocate. after years of agitating in the community inprotest, he and the other leaders of the resistance were rounded up by shell and the militarythat they work with, and they were hung. that was assisted by shell'sprivate military force,

which oil companies have, and also those mining companies thatget the iron ore and the rare earth minerals and the copper ― they also have theirprivate military forces. the latest generation of resistance in the niger river deltais mend, the movement for the emancipation of the niger delta. they use direct attacks on infrastructure, sohere's an example of people using this strategy. they've managed to knock out onethird of the fossil fuel industry. i want us to think about that,because the number is abstract. think about all the environmentalism that hes been done inthis country, all the thousands of people at this conference. wet haven't even managed to slow the growth of fossilfuel emissions, let alone knock out 30% of it. and here we're talking about a few hundred people,a small group, highly trained individuals,

focused, with goals, with strategy, with good target selection,knocking out one third of oil production in a matter of a few years. i think we could learn some lessons there.[audience applause] i'm sure there are people in the audience who don't agreewith this, because it's radical. i understand that. i think it's necessary, and i thinkour backs are against the wall. i think this is a backup plan that weneed because nothing else is working. even if you don't agree, i think there's a lot that can bedone. this is from the dgr book; it's a chart that's in there. this is just a selection of different levers that peoplecan apply their weight to, to try to change the world. but even if you really love your electricity andyou want to keep industrial civilization around, and just sort of ignore the mountain top removal miningthat that takes, and the slavery that that takes,

i think you have to understand that this culture isnot sustainable. we're drawing down every resource. this culture will not last. we might see the end of this way oflife in a generation, who knows? if you're concerned about collapse, andif you're concerned about human rights, and if you don't want to think aboutthese more militant strategies, then i think you need to be doing thework of worrying about human rights, and building local food systems in your community,and building alternatives to this system. as we can see, it's undeniablethat it's killing the planet. there are many ways thatthis can be addressed,

and if your personal morality doesn't want you tobe involved in anything that is more militant, then this is a way thatyou can contribute. i really think we need all that. i've heard that in los angeles, when the power goesout, the police stations start getting phone calls, panicked phone calls from peoplewho've never seen the stars before, and they're not sure whatthey're seeing up in the sky. that's not the way it'salways been, obviously. we're animals, just like allthe other animals around, and our natural state is to live in balanceon this planet, in embedded communities,

embedded in the land, living withall the other life forms around us. there's so much evidence that this isthe natural state of human beings. all you have to do is look at land-based cultures aroundthe world, and you'll have the evidence you need. this is a saying fromthe people in malaysia: "the land is sacred. it belongs to the countless numbers who are dead,the few who are living, and the multitudes of those yet to be born." it's hard to imagine life without the modernluxuries we're used to: the heated room, the lights. sometimes it's even harder to imagine life withoutthe exploitation required for these things. as i said earlier, i live in salt lakecity, and the winters are very cold there. it's below freezing for amonth or two months on end.

it's tough to imagine living without civilizationthere; it would be a hard life to live. but then i remember that half the worldpopulation lives without electricity. and the more i think about it, the more i realize that it canbe done. we don't have to live in this modern, industrial way. i have friends who live in homesthey built out of natural materials. one good friend of mine raises goats andchickens. [audience laughs at slide] [max:] that's some baby goats of hers with the guard dog,who's very noble looking in that picture. great dog. i know people whocook with wood alone. this woman preserves her harvest, andlives off the land almost year-round. another friend of mine is a member of the ely-shoshone.he hunts turkeys, deer, and elk with a bow and arrow.

another friend of mine keeps alive the herbal medicine traditionsof her community that have been passed down for generations. it's even in my own family: one of my aunts weaves beautifulbaskets from cedar bark and cattails and other materials. another aunt of mine and my mother are both potters.that's a tradition that's 30,000 years old, sort of a fundamentalhuman skill of survival. if we're willing to live in balance, earth will provide whatwe need; earth will provide from abundant, beautiful life. these sorts of skills ― like basket weaving, herbalmedicine, fire-making ― these in a way are technologies. they're not like these green industrial technologies we'vebeen talking about, but they're very complex technologies. i'm sure if you've taken a pottery class or a basket-weavingclass, you know these are complex. they're not simple. they've been passed down from generation to generation. thereason they've lasted so long is because they're functional.

they work. they workin the long term. and they don't requirethe world to be killed. those are some basketsmy aunt made. the techniques she uses herecan be used to produce: clothing, backpacks, bedding, storage baskets, hats, rainjackets, waterproof baskets, all sorts of other things. that's probably like less than 10% of the thingsi could remember if i sat down for a while. there's some amazing stuff out there about the basketry traditionsof the pacific northwest, which is where my aunt lives. incidentally ― i was pretty shocked to learnthis ― you can cook in these waterproof baskets by heating rocks in a fire, and then you put the rocks in the water in thewaterproof basket, and it doesn't burn through the bottom through some...mystery

[audience laughter] [max:] and you can boil water and cook foodin there, and you don't have to destroy a mountain to do so. i don't think that this more simple life is nasty,brutish, and short, as we have been led to believe. i want you all, if you can, to try toimagine living life in this sort of way. imagine living life nestled inside aforest, or a grassland, or a wetland. imagine life with no clocks, no cancerepidemic, no wage slavery, no drones, and global warming just some fading myth of theculture as the land soaks up all that toxic air. i think this life is not only possible;i think it's our only real option. i think it's really justright around the corner. i don't mean to glamorize the situation too much,because we've dug ourselves into a deep hole.

or more accurately, others havedug a deep hole, and we're in it. modern medicine is prettyamazing in some situations. but when the choice is the end of the world, or the end of someof the things we like and rely on in this modern civilization, then i think that's an easy choice. it's a hard choicein many ways, but it's an easy choice in the end. i think life without gas heating would bereally hard in salt lake, but it would be life. that's more than can be saidfor modern civilization. the inevitable conclusion ofcivilization is barren fields, saline soils, silent clearcuts,enslaved and conquered peoples. so the question is: which side are youon, and do you want something different?

we started this talk on thesubject of green energy, and we ended it by talking aboutbringing down industrial civilization. so we've come a long way.[audience laughter] [max:] i don't think we madeany huge logical jumps there. it just goes to show that all these issues are highlyinterconnected. if you really start digging, it spiderwebs out. it's really hard to look at these things ― you know, we'retaught to look at green energy in this very linear, siloed way where we look at the point of consumption only, and we say "oh,this is sustainable. this is good. this is just. this is right." this was a talk about green energy, so that'sthe main point i want you all to take home. we have been sold this lie, and i think we need to stopbelieving what we'v been told about green technology.

at this point, i thinkthat's our only chance. so...that's it.[audience applause]

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