Renewables sow the seeds of nature’s destruction through green washing, mining, and destruction of indigenous groups.

On a technological as well as a policy level, the instruments for reducing global warming are a part of the problem, rather than the solution. Because emissions reductions are designed to enable the con- tinuous economic growth on which capitalism is predicated, “going green” means, more than anything else, a shift from fossil fuel energy to renewable energy on a massive, industrialized scale. But renewable energies on an industrial scale are also extremely destructive.

Hydroelectric power is currently the foremost renewable energy source. Hydroelectric dams are extremely destructive to build. They require a huge amount of concrete, production of which is one of the main greenhouse gas emitters, they cause the loss of huge amounts of forest and farmland, they kill off riverine species such as salmon, they disrupt natural flooding cycles necessary to many ecosystems, and their reservoirs emit large quantities of methane.

Photovoltaic cells capturing solar energy—solar panels—frequently use toxic heavy metals such as cadmium, gallium, and lead in their construction. On a localized scale, houses in most climates could be heated, cooled, and provided with warm water through efficient design capturing solar energy. And if people were willing (and able) to alter their daily habits and limit their electricity usage, photovoltaics free of heavy metals could play a role in this. Many of the problems arise when we take the current energy economy and assume we can keep on operating in the same way, but with different inputs. To meet current energy usage, huge swathes of land would need to be appropriated, denuded, and fenced off for solar farms. And since photovoltaics are only productive during sunlight hours, we would have to construct an enormous infrastructure for energy storage and global high-voltage direct current power lines, meaning more toxic mining, more land grabbing, more energy expen ditures, and more cancer and other illnesses. Solar panels also present a waste problem, as the typical panel only lasts 25 years. At current growth rates, by 2050 we could have 78 million metric tons of junk panels, and there is currently no good way to recycle them at an industrial scale.25 Andrea Brock and other researchers argue that, far from a “paradigmatic break,” solar energy “is merely the latest iteration of an industrial growth model” characterized by “undemocratic and unsustainable industrial processes, the concentration of corporate power and profits, and exter- nalized waste and pollution.”26

Geothermal energy, aside from having a low efficiency, requires extensive drilling that can contaminate groundwater. The technol- ogy uses pentane, a highly toxic, flammable liquid. Geothermal plants release small amounts of methane and the toxic gas hydrogen sulfide, which causes acid rain. In accidents, geothermal plants can release large amounts, such as occurred at a single Hawai’i geothermal plant during a drilling blowout in 1991, in 2013 after an equipment malfunction, and later in 2018 when the plant was damaged by a volcanic eruption.27

Nuclear power is not a renewable energy, given that it expends its fuel source, uranium, though there is a huge lobby seeking to promote it. Countries began adopting nuclear energy in the first place not for its energy benefits, but because it advanced their nuclear weapons programs. Nuclear plants come with a constant risk of meltdown, releasing large amounts of deadly radiation into the atmosphere and potentially making the territory uninhabitable for millennia. In the West, pop cultural rep- resentations of the Chernobyl meltdown ascribe the disaster to Soviet incompetence, but meltdowns and near meltdowns at Fukushima, Japan, Three Mile Island, United States, and Loir-et-Cher, France, shine a light on Cold War propaganda and show that no regime is immune to disaster. In fact, over one hundred nuclear accidents have occurred since 1952, the largest share of them in the US. But the daily, effective operation of a nuclear power plant may be even worse than a meltdown. In 2011, 75 percent of US nuclear power sites were found to be leaking radioac- tive tritium.28 Depleted plutonium rods have a half-life of 24,000 years, which, for reference, is far longer than agriculture or wheels have existed, more than 40 times longer than the longest lasting state survived, and roughly 500 to 1000 times longer than your typical nuclear storage site goes without experiencing a major leak. Nuclear proponents argue that the rods constitute a small volume of toxic material compared to mine tailing from coal production, for example. They tend to leave out the Wind power is the second most widely used source of renewable energy. To be able to fully appreciate the kind of damage wreaked by green energy on an industrial scale, we can turn to research detailing the consequences of industrial wind farms in Oaxaca, Mexico. La Ventosa was one of the first towns in Oaxaca to be impacted by wind turbine construction, and is now more than 80 percent surrounded by giant turbines.30 Turbines were largely constructed on farmland bought up from farmers facing dwindling returns in agriculture. In other words, a precondition for the land grab was forcing local residents from a subsistence economy, in which communities fed themselves and preserved Indigenous practices of commoning, into a global monetary economy that systematically drives farmers out of business.

The combined impact of “economic liberalization” like NAFTA and “climate change legislation [that] promoted foreign direct investment (FDI) in Mexico” led to a boom in wind turbine development.31 Additionally, the system of caciques and coyotes was vital to organizing land acquisition on the ground, with all the attendant corruption, fraud, and threats of violence.32 Overall, it was an involuntary process, with the state building high-tension power lines and other infrastructure in residential areas without even consulting residents: “the people are never fully informed, unless they find out and if need be, stop it for themselves. Otherwise development happens.”33

Turbine construction damages soil, depletes groundwater, causes erosion and flooding, contributes to deforestation, and the turbines themselves kill off both terrestrial animals and birds, and frequently leak oil, contaminating the soil and drinking water.34 Local farmers have reported their cattle dying off or no longer reproducing, and residents who live closest to the turbines report “headaches, dizziness, digestive problems, vomiting, nose bleeds, exhaustion and insomnia” possibly due to the noise pollution and vibrations caused by the turbines, as well as fumes from the leaking oil.35

Most jobs connected to the wind turbines disappeared after construction was finished, and the best jobs were reserved for foreign experts. Similar to the “man camps” that spring up around fossil fuel extraction sites in North America, leading to a sharp rise in violence against Indigenous women, foreign experts working for the wind farms also embodied predatory practices towards local women, frequently marrying into local families to acquire land titles, shifting those titles to the wind industry, and then moving back to their “real” families in Spain or the United States, leaving abandoned women, children, and broken communities in their wake.36

Energy produced by the wind farms in Oaxaca goes to major companies like Walmart, cement producer Cemex, and major food processing and mineral extraction companies, thus allowing some of the most destructive industries and consumer lifestyles to appropriate the language of sustainability and paint themselves green. Their use of wind energy also allows these industries “new possibilities of receiving ‘climate’ and ‘clean’ technology funds and loans.” In fact, the “La Mata and La Ventosa Wind Park became the World Bank’s leading Clean Technology Fund (CTF) project in Mexico.”37

Energy production is also being linked into “an energy export-oriented model that seeks to power industrial zones, private industry and other countries,” providing the electricity for the “maquiladora corridor” envisioned as part of the much-criticized Plan Puebla-Panama that favors the US consumer economy through environmental degradation and the exploitation of workers in sweatshops throughout Central America.38 Wind energy development in Oaxaca has further integrated locals into the global economy, but the results have been an influx of drugs, a much higher cost of living, rents skyrocketing by up to a factor of ten, and, ironically, more expensive electricity.39 Most residents reported no social benefit from the development, and bitterly recalled the promises made by major corporations like Iberdrola that resulted in little more than photo-ops.40

The kind of development brought by the wind farms has also gone hand in hand with counterinsurgency interventions, for example the “participatory mapping” of Indigenous territory and resources in Oaxaca, organized and funded by the US military with the aid of geographers from the University of Kansas. The mapping was officially carried out with a green capitalist logic, but its primary intention was to “gather intelligence on emerging and asymmetric threats to the United States for the purpose of preparing for conflict.”41

Ironically, one of these asymmetric threats blossomed and forced the cancellation of the mapping project, when the people of Oaxaca rose up in 2006 and took control of most of the state, organizing in a horizontal way largely informed by Indigenous traditions. Similar conflicts and ecological destruction connected to industrial wind farms have been documented in Scotland, Wales, Sweden, Spain, Greece, India, Kenya, Brazil, Chile, and the United States.42

Green energy is often used to give extremely destructive corporations a better image, and also win them access to the subsidies that are the main weapon of climate change legislation from Paris Agreement targets to the Green New Deal. Renewable energies are often directly linked to fossil fuels. Germany is destroying the ancient Hambacher and Dannen- röder forests in order to mine lignite—the dirtiest form of coal—in some of the deepest open pit mines in the world. Yet they tout their use of green energy to run pumps and other infrastructure at the coal mines, and they have recently announced they will turn one old coal mine into a giant hydropower battery for storing excess solar and wind energy.43

Justin Trudeau, the progressive prime minister of Canada, entered office with promises to respect treaty rights and improve relations with Indigenous peoples, but the central push of his administration has been to deforest and eviscerate the center of the country with highly contam- inating tar sands extraction and enforce the construction of oil pipelines through unceded Indigenous territory. Trudeau tried to improve his image by promising that the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, slated to pump 890,000 barrels of oil a day through highly sensitive ecologies, would come with tax money that would be dedicated to green energies.44 Green energy is also used as a justification for unregulated, ruinous mining on the sea floor, with the argument that the destruction of the very foundation of the marine ecosystem will produce the minerals necessary for batteries and other renewable energy infrastructure.45 Meanwhile renewables are being used to justify the privatization of energy in South Africa.