The Michael Moore documentary Planet of the Humans has educated millions about the dark, dirty side of so-called green energy. Producer Jeff Gibbs makes these points about wind power, solar power, and biomass in particular (verbatim):

• … there is no “green,” “sustainable” version of growth.
•  There is no technology that does not come from a profound cost to our Mother Earth.
• The mining, smelting, manufacturing, mountain dissolving, forest clearing, pit digging, air polluting, water poisoning, human exploiting, and fossil fuel burning necessary to bring us our “green” energy are no small matter.
• No “breakthroughs” in green technology will eliminate their significant and growing impact on the living planet.
• Fairy tales of green technology saving the planet protect us from the full weight of just how bad things are and from making a real plan to save ourselves and a planet worth living on. 

Ed. Note: Also see Part I (on wind); Part II (on water, biomass, and geothermal); and Part IV (on energy efficiency) in this series.

Coal, in truth, stands not beside but entirely above all other commodities. It is the material energy of the country—the universal aid—the factor in everything we do. With coal almost any feat is possible or easy; without it we are thrown back into the laborious poverty of early times. (Jevons, below)

Each renewable energy, W. S. Jevons explained, was either too scarce or too unreliable to fuel the new industrial era (see previous posts on windpower and on waterpower, biomass, and geothermal).

The energy savior was coal, a concentrated, plentiful, storable, and transportable source of energy that was England’s bounty for the world.…

Declaring war against natural gas is not enough. New York State has now extended the conflict to grassroots opposition to government-enabled wind and solar projects that cause demonstrable tort.

“We start with the most aggressive climate change program in the country because my friends, the clock is ticking, and it’s ticking faster and faster…. New York has to be the State that stands up and says once and for all, we have to do more and we have to do it faster….” (New York Gov. Cuomo, February 21, 2020)

Frustrated with the slow development of wind and solar projects in the state (grassroots opposition prevailed at Sommerset/Yates, for example), New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has proposed draconian measures to green-light controversial renewable-energy projects.

New York’s plan for net carbon free, 30% by 2030 and 100% by 2050, is impractical on infrastructure and economic grounds.…

“Big polluters must be rubbing their hands in glee that carbon market mechanisms, which further dilute the already weak and inadequate Paris emissions targets, are back on the agenda,” said Dipti Bhatnagar, Climate Justice and Energy Program coordinator for Friends of the Earth International ….

The groups condemned [carbon offsets] as “commodification of the Earth” that enables “climate-destroying business as usual under the pretense of climate action.”

A carbon tax? Emissions trading? Carbon offsets?

Forget all that: climate activists wants something much more comprehensive.

Think global statism from source to sink, even if that means the carbon police ringing your doorbell to make sure you are not using natural gas or firing up the outdoor grill. Remember what Christiana Figueres, former head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, opined back in 2015?…