Green Hypocrisy: The Flaws in Anti-Green Tech Protests and Socialist Regimes

Seeing reports of protesters storming the Tesla Factory in Germany (Grünheide: Tesla factory protesters clash with police in Germany (bbc.com)) at the start of May highlights 3 of the main issues I see in the “Environmental CRY-sis” debate (pun intended).

• Firstly, I see “climate change” as a problem (be it a very, very serious one) rather than a crisis.  A problem that could be solved should the collective will to do so exist, rather than many seeking to profit from the problem by selling more “stuff”.  It seems that many interests are looking to sell you “green tech” rather than drive for less consumption.   I do not see how more consumption is the answer (be it green-tech or not).  Given Elon Musk ‘s US$56bn Tesla pay package (Is Elon Musk worth his £44bn Tesla pay package? (bbc.com)), I can however see why such people want more consumption.  What we need is less consumption, and to phase over what we do consume to that which is less damaging to the environment (starting with electricity generation, manufacturing, and transportation).  The sting in that particular tail is that regions with the greatest populations (and population growths) are not (and can’t be) doing this – as evident in India’s COP27 insistence on re-wording “phasing out” fossil fuels to the ambiguous (and some might say meaningless) “Phasing Down”.  Indian Energy (India’s dream of green energy runs into the reality of coal (ft.com)) and ever increasing 1.4+ billion growing population (estimated by the UN to reach circa 1.7 billion by 2050) remains firmly rooted in Fossil Fuels.  Whilst countries “going green” (i.e. those with the financial means to do so) do so on the back of cheap goods from those countries who (in the whole) cannot, then this problem will remain… As will the UN catastrophising this debate (with words like “crisis”) and seemingly doing little but making empty speeches and hollow promises (as put more eloquently than I could in Greta Thunberg’s speech to the UN in 2019 – what has changed with the UN since then?).
  
  
• Addressing population growth rarely seems to be central to both the climate change discussion and the proposed solutions.  It is simple maths that to remain at best static (and that is not even good enough), then we would need to half per-capita emissions each time we double the global population.  Sadly, that isn’t a “vote winning” position – perhaps not as “unpopular” as suggesting building more nuclear power plants (as I believe that we should), but not far off.   We do however have a glimmer of hope in that many of the (so called) “developed nations” (“developed” or “non-developed” are not terms that I particularly care for, but for the sake of the discussion, ones that I will have to persist with) also have low or declining birth rates.  One only has to look at the regions with high or increasing birth rates, compared to “developed nations” to see the value and benefits of education and empowerment of women in addressing climate change (in addition to this being generally a beneficial thing to do for us all).
  
  
• The far-left activist group known as Volcano Group claimed responsibility for the fracas at Tesla Factory in Germany.  I would challenge that a competent press would / should ask where and how such groups are funded and invite the members of such protest groups to name a sole Marxist / Socialist country where they could actively “freely protest” and openly hold an anti-government view.  For their benefit, I am happy to provide them with a tick box for simplicity in answering that question (of a few main protagonists):

By way of comparison, the UK has a 4.7 tpp CO₂ emissions, so perhaps climate change protesters would better serve the environmental cause protesting in Russia and China (if only they could)!?

That said, the USA and Australia sit at a shameful 15 tpp; so, all is not rosy in Liberal Democracies either – other than in these countries one can (within reason) freely protest peacefully for change and choose which people are elected as leaders.    Somewhat ironic that people who would choose militant protest within liberal democracies, often desire a socialist regime.   Venezuela is a current example of the consequences of voting in a Marxist government.  Such a regime change can (and did) result in a significant reduction of CO₂ emissions. It does so however by completely collapsing the country’s economy, with the resultant excessive inflation (as has been Venezuela since 2013) and widespread poverty. The other note from Venezuela is that the population cannot seem to easily vote this same Marxist government out of power despite a will to do so.  Data from Data Comms (Venezuela – Place Explorer – Data Commons) makes interesting reading for anyone thinking of voting for the Greens and/or any of the socialist leaning parties in the upcoming Irish and UK elections.  The above mentioned “Our World in Data” shows a similar story (Venezuela: CO2 Country Profile – Our World in Data). 

It is a great shame that some “news” outlets such as the BBC seemingly put more efforts into whipping up football team fans disquiet towards getting their own football team’s managers sacked, than they often seem to do into investigative journalism and unearthing facts.   Based upon the media reports, little mention was/is made towards Volcano Group’s objectives in disrupting Tesla’s production expansion.   One cannot (easily) “electrify the transport network” without building more EVs (Electric Vehicles) and expanding existing facilities that produce them.  Whether EVs are as big a part of the solution as “champions of electrification” would have us believe is one of many questions in this debate.   A recent 7-news report in Australia by Bethan Yeoman (Thousands of electric cars sitting idle inside Tesla graveyard | 7 News Australia (youtube.com)) notes that EV sales in Australia have slumped, so perhaps people are starting to see that EVs don’t deliver the entirety of the promise that “EV evangelists” would have us believe?

It is easy to see why EVs are so heavily promoted given everyone is (seemingly) winner – but for the environment.  Commercial interests all gain profit for selling us “more stuff”.  Governments get their sales taxes, and the associated production generates jobs and commerce (which often translates to votes at the ballot boxes).  It is also easier to look to “green-tech” we build/manufacture (and ultimately pay for) as bacons of “positive change”, than are the things which we can go without.  It is also easier for related commercial interests to profit from consumers buying new stuff than it is from consumers going with less, or without things they already have.  Unfortunately, less cars on the road does not win political elections, nor does it fuel revenue for commercial “Green-tech” interests.  

It would seem for many that it is more convenient (easier) to “buy new stuff” than to go without, or to modify our behaviours to have less / do with less.  I do not subscribe to the belief that those of us who have petrol or diesel cars need to replace them with EVs at this time given the EVs must be built and the hydrocarbon fuelled cars disposed of.  WhichCar (How many cars in the world? (whichcar.com.au)) estimates that there are circa 1.45 BILLION cars rolling about planet earth.  I have no way to validate that estimate, however if true, then with current EV capacity at (est.) circa 15 million (Tracking global data on electric vehicles – Our World in Data), and increasing EVs p.a.; then this equates to 100 years of production at current capacity. We also need to dispose / recycle those 1.45 billion cars responsibly.  The final kicker in the EV discussion is that we also need the “green” electrical generation transmission infrastructure to support these EVs, and that building that required infrastructure (and phasing out current/existing hydrocarbon infrastructure) comes at a heavy cost – both environmental and financial.   It does however represent a significant amount of revenue (and cost for us, the consumers) for all of those involved in the supply chain, and ultimately to the government via sales taxes, etc. 

Ref: The Global Electric Vehicle Market In 2024 – Virta

Surely the more pragmatic path is to use cars less (electric or not)?  Working from Home (WFH) is one obvious thing that many companies are doing to reduce car use.  My direct experiences in employing this WFH model, is that I have reduced my diesel consumption by 40-50 litres per week over pre-COVID working on site / in client office times.   Governments could also do much to make real and meaningful “climate action” rather than forcing us down the path of electrification.  A few examples are:

• Incentivise companies and individual to WFH.  In Ireland, the “tax incentive” of a miserly €3.20 per day for WFH in no way covers my actual costs in implementing WFH (other than my reduced diesel costs of circa €50-80 per week).
• Generally making public transport more accessible and less costly (a constant political promise that is rarely delivered).  Improving cycle routes and cycle-to-work goes hand-in-hand with public transport, as does optimising, licencing and controlling e-Scooter/e-Bike use and mis-use.
• Improved access to child care so as many parents do not have the lengthy pre-school runs that I once did, given no local day-care (I would expect many parents are in similar situations?).
• Foreign aid packages that encourage lowering population growth rates and improvement of living and educational standards in places requiring such aid.  This aid must come with the absolute demand for woman’s rights in those places where women do not have equality (sadly, that is most places).

Unfortunately, little of the above seems to be “sure vote winners” for sitting governments.  Those seeking to become the sitting government often promise similar, but rarely (if ever) are those promises delivered.   Greens on the other hand, seemingly tend to promise economic ruination, and those things that sure up their membership and/or leftist political ideology. In many cases it could be argued that leftist political ideologs have hijacked the environmentalist movement for their own political (rather than environmental) beliefs.

For the most, such environmental activists and protesters (as per the Volcano Group actions at the Tesla Factory in Germany) seem to be “anti” most (if not all) alternatives rather than offering any (viable) alternatives themselves.  It would also seem that they also drive a Socialist/Marxist political agenda – which is odd given most (if not all) Socialist/Marxist regimes don’t allow such protests, nor are they themselves leading the fight against climate change.  Countries like China are however more than willing to manufacture and sell as much attractively priced (but perhaps not overly environmentally responsibly produced) “green tech” as the wider world is prepared to buy – whether there is an actual need or not.  Case-in-point being that EV sales in Europe (and Australia as per above mentioned 7-News article) are being impacted by sales of less expensive EV brands from China (such as, for example, BYD).  This leads me to wonder which “masters” such environmental groups, as per “Volcano Group” (et. al) truly serve when they storm the Grünheide Tesla factory in Germany? 

Say, by way of example, that Tesla shut (or did not expand) the EV facility at Grünheide in response to Volcano Group pressure.  What then?  Most likely another manufacturer (such as, for example, BYD in China) would pick up capacity.  Whether or not an EV factory in China undertakes manufacturing to the same environmental impact standards as a factory in Germany is a question.  I do not see media reports of environmental pressure groups storming manufacturing facilities in China.  I would never advocate anything other than peaceful and orderly protest; however, far-left groups such as the Volcano Group should perhaps put their political ideology to the test and try their protests in China? I would think is more likely such groups will focus upon the EU given the recent noise from the EU around implementing tariffs on Chinese EVs (European Union threatens China EVs with tariffs of up to 38% (bbc.com)) of up to 38%!