Author and journalist Michael Shellenberger has long been interested in climate policy, but during much of that time he was also a political progressive. These days, he no longer identifies as progressive, but he’s still very much focused on climate policy issues.
And one climate policy issue that he finds particularly troubling is the Biden administration’s full-throated embrace of solar power and intense fixation on getting so many Americans and U.S. industries largely reliant on “clean energy.”
As Shellenberger explores in a comprehensive thread, the “clean energy” touted by the Biden administration is anything but. In fact, it’s downright filthy — in more ways than one:
Many people think solar panels are sustainable but the vast majority of them require 300-600x more land than conventional power plants, are made by Uighur Muslims incarcerated in Chinese concentration camps, and contain toxic elements (lead & chromium) that won’t be recycled. pic.twitter.com/GGNwCMPuLU
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) June 15, 2022
Solar energy money is literally blood money.
It’s now clear that “ESG” (environmental, social, governance) investing, including solar panels, was an elaborate scam.
Governments are cracking down. German prosecutors just raided ESG @DeutscheBank & SEC is investigating ESG scams at @GoldmanSachs
Investors are fleeing. pic.twitter.com/JDjTQyxOkD
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) June 15, 2022
Global elites enriched themselves through ESG scams, financed by taxpayers, while shutting down conventional power plants in their home nations, financing China’s genocide of Uighur Muslims, and paying for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.https://t.co/do1aRG25Cc
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) June 15, 2022
Western elites were in the grip of an ideology that made them incapable of understanding the hard realities of energy production.
China’s Xi and Russia’s Putin took advantage of the delusions of the decadent West, and now we are all paying the price. https://t.co/mbeDadzi7h
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) June 15, 2022
Some in the Biden administration are "now privately expressing concern that rather than dissuading the Kremlin as intended, the penalties are instead exacerbating inflation, worsening food insecurity, and punishing ordinary Russians more than Putin."https://t.co/Z5qTSzPU3Z
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) June 15, 2022
But Biden just approved the continued import of Chinese solar genocide panels.https://t.co/Vtot3Qx2qR
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) June 15, 2022
Because of course he did.
And Biden officials are now demanding that Facebook, Twitter and Big Tech censor critics of renewables. https://t.co/vZCOy8C4DP
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) June 15, 2022
Because of course they are. Can’t let the truth get in the way of a very lucrative narrative, now can they?
That makes sense because a) ESG funds contain Facebook stock, and b) because Facebook, Amazon, Google, and other Big Tech firms receive billions in subsidies from taxpayers for renewables pic.twitter.com/V2cIZgvo9j
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) June 15, 2022
Somehow I doubt Facebook will censor the Chinese government’s renewable energy propaganda, which it happily promotes on its platform. Facebook needs taxpayers to believe that Chinese solar panels are good! pic.twitter.com/C7lYPY1orL
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) June 15, 2022
Big Tech and China like to scratch each other’s backs.
To recap, see if you can follow the grift:
1. Global elites (bankers, politicians, journalists) promote toxic, environment-destroying solar panels made by enslaved minorities as “sustainable.
2. Western elites shut down domestic energy sources and rely on China & Russia.
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) June 15, 2022
3. Western elites transfer wealth in the form of taxpayer subsidies and higher electricity prices to themselves.
4. Elites demand censorship by other elites of anyone who points out the problems with relying on unreliable weather-dependent renewables.
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) June 15, 2022
5. Elites fly around the world applauding each other for their virtue while simultaneously demanding that African nations be denied the reliable energy sources they need to lift themselves out of poverty. https://t.co/9jhkT4ifyH
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) June 15, 2022
6. Elites convince half of all humans that we are at risk of “extinction” and give our children anxiety disorders sufficient to prevent many of them from having their own children. https://t.co/awEKWieM7u
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) June 15, 2022
7. While ESG is definitely a scam, it’s also the suicide of the West, literally and figuratively.
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) June 15, 2022
Well, almost the end … Shellenberger had a little more to add to his thread:
SOURCES
Land use calculationshttps://t.co/9OT4l2NM6Z
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) June 15, 2022
Toxic solar panel waste is being dumped on poor Africans https://t.co/mi4l6kzcUJ
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) June 15, 2022
Look at all that clean energy.
Accounting for the high cost of solar panel waste would increase the cost of solar electricity 4x https://t.co/sx06lNTaxj
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) June 15, 2022
Call us crazy, but it seems like people who are genuinely concerned about the environment and clean energy should be all about embracing nuclear power, which is, you know, clean. This solar power doesn’t sound like it’s all it’s cracked up to be.
Solar panels are worse than wind turbines. Destroying the earth to "save it." https://t.co/QFP1aq7PDk
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) June 15, 2022
There’s something to be said for looking beyond fossil fuels and into alternative sources of energy, but if it’s not really worth the effort if the clean energy leaves behind an even bigger mess.
This isn't sustainable. https://t.co/hTgKQdh1A2
— Pradheep J. Shanker (@Neoavatara) June 15, 2022
Not by a long shot.
***
Related: