All language subtitles for Bright.Green.Lies.2021.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

[light dramatic music]

Provided by explosiveskull
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[Max]
I'm here outside Bend, Oregon.

Uh...

and there's a big old
solar facility right here.

"High voltage. Keep out.
Authorized personnel."

What's going on back here?

They don't want you
breaking into these places,

but I'm in the facility now,
so you can see this up close.

You'll notice this is all dusty.

So, these... these things have
to be cleaned pretty regularly.

So, most people don't realize
that solar panels

and solar power facilities
are actually huge water users.

Um, and they like to
install them in desert areas,

where water use
is already a big problem.

Um, these elements are made of
silicon, which is mined and refined,

using extremely high temperature
destructive processes.

Then they're mounted on
these big steel pipes here.

Look at this. I mean, this is just an
industrial energy production facility.

It... it has nothing to do with
saving the planet whatsoever.

Uh, it may have a slightly lar...

lower carbon footprint
than fossil fuels,

but of course, this all
requires fossil fuels to create.

Um, the steel was
all made using coal.

All this material was trucked here
using diesel... diesel trucks,

extracted all over the world using
massive mining trucks, powered by diesel.

Uh, smelted using fossil fuels.

Assembled at plants
likely powered by fossil fuels.

And, uh... And all of this
destroys the planet,

no matter where
the power comes from.

So, this shit ain't green.

[melancholic music]

[Julia] We are told that we can
have our cake and eat it too.

That we can maintain
a high energy lifestyle,

without destroying the planet.

We are told that solar,
wind, hydro and biomass

are clean,
green and sustainable.

What they don't talk about,
are the unseen harms

caused by these technologies.

The processes
which take place out of sight.

People rarely question the solutions
they are taught to embrace.

But with all the world at stake,

we must start
asking the right questions.

There is a push
for a 100% renewable world.

And after the research
I've done for this documentary,

I want no part of it.

I did not become
an environmentalist

to protect my way of life,

or the civilization
in which I live.

I did it because I am in love
with life on this planet,

and because the world
I love is under assault.

This film is for
those whose allegiance

is with the living world.

Those who would do
whatever it takes to defend it.

[Lierre] The environmental
movement used to be

a very impassioned
group of people who cared deeply

about the places we loved
and the creatures we loved.

What's happened, though,
in my lifetime is that,

this movement that was
so honorable and so impassioned

has turned into something
completely different.

And now it's about protecting
a destructive way of life...

while it destroys the creatures
and the places that we love.

It's all become, "How do we
continue to fuel this destruction?"

As if the only problem, was the
fact that we were using oil and gas?

[Derrick] You will have
hundreds of thousands of people

marching in the streets of
Washington or New York or Paris.

And if you ask those individuals,
"Why are you marching?"

They will say,
"We want to save the planet."

And if you ask them for
their demands, they will say,

"We want subsidies for the wind
and solar industries."

That's extraordinary.

I can't think of
any time in history,

when any mass movement has been
so completely captured...

and turned into lobbyists
for an industry.

Frankly, solar, hydro, all them,

do a great big fuck all
to stop global warming.

But what they do is,
they make us think

we are accomplishing something,

while certain sectors
of industry... get rich.

The natural world isn't really
part of the conversation anymore.

You know, Kumi Naidoo,
the former head of Greenpeace,

I was watching him
being interviewed the other day

and he was saying, you know, "Look,
the planet's going to survive,

the oceans are going to survive,
forests are going to survive.

It's really about,
'Can we save ourselves or not?'"

And I just saw that and I'm thinking,
"What the hell are you saying?"

This is somebody
who is considered to be,

you know, one of the top environmentalists
in the world and he's saying,

"We don't have to worry
about the forest or the oceans."

I mean, to me, that just betrays
a complete lack of empathy

and connection
to the natural world.

I don't know how
you could possibly say that,

when we're in the midst of
the sixth great mass extinction.

And it's being caused
by industrial culture.

It's being caused
by the same institutions,

the same economies, the same
systems, the same raw materials.

The same extractive mindset

that is being used for these
renewable energy technologies.

[Derrick] Bright Green environmentalism
is founded on the notion that

technology will solve
environmental problems

and that you can,
through 100% recycling,

through wind and solar power

have an industrial economy
that does not harm the planet.

Deep ecology is the belief
that we need to radically change

the way society functions,
in order to be sustainable.

[light dramatic music]

[Julia]
I'm in New Hampshire,

getting ready to film
a clear-cut.

The activist I'm meeting
sent footage he captured,

of animals
who live in the forest.

[light dramatic music]

All these creatures
who live here...

their homes are being destroyed,

to provide so-called
"green energy,"

in the form of biomass.

[Derrick] Biomass is one of the
big, dirty secrets

of the Bright Green movement.

What biomass is, is simply
a fancy word for burning stuff.

What they're doing is, they are cutting
down forests all over the world,

and burning them
and calling this biomass,

calling this renewable,
calling this carbon neutral.

They will talk about how, "Oh, renewables
are growing X percent every year."

But what they never talk about
is that, for example,

in their German miracle,
majority of the increase

in so called renewables
is biomass.

It's not wind and solar,
like they talk about.

That's because they don't
really want to talk about

the fact that their so-called
"renewable energy"

is simply cutting down forests.

[engine rumbles]

- [Frank] So they sell these timber sales?
- [Julia] Yep.

Last year, they got revenue

- of about $550,000.
- Okay.

[Frank] Their timber
program costs at least

three million dollars
to implement.

Not only are they
removing our trees,

not only are they removing
the only thing we have

to sequester carbon
on this Earth...

- but we pay for it.
- Wow!

- That's insane.
- It is insane.

It's completely insane.

And people don't...

You t... explain that...
you tell people that,

and they're like,
"No..." Yeah! Absolutely.

- We... we, the US taxpayers...
- [mechanical whirring]

...subsidize these guys,
to kill trees.

The problem we have right now,
and... and the thing I always

fight these guys on is that,

- we have a carbon problem right now.
- Yeah.

- You know, we're at 400 parts per million or whatever it is.
- Yeah.

So, you know, that...
and they'll say, "Well,

yeah, but that tree
will regrow."

Yeah, but that's
100 years from now.

- Mm-hmm.
- Where are we going to be then?

- 600 parts per million? I don't know.
- Yeah.

But if you
leave that tree there,

that tree is going to continue,

not only to sequester the carbon
that's in it right now...

- Mm-hmm.
- ...but the carbon that, in the next 100 years...

- Right.
- ...that it would have taken to rep...

you know, 100 plus years
to replace that tree.

- It's sequestering that much more carbon in that one tree.
- Mm-hmm.

- Yeah. Just totally sets you back to remove it.
- So...

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
So, I mean, that's what...

that's what makes...
you know, so then you go

to the whole thing
of whole-tree harvesting,

where not only do they take
the bole of the tree,

they take everything, you know,
that's removing everything

from the... from the...
the equation.

Yeah, and then
you burn it for biomass.

- And then and then you burn it and it goes poof!
- [chuckles]

And all that carbon
is instant released

into the atmosphere that's
already overloaded with carbon.

It's kind of like a spider web.

You have
all these trails going off.

That's the beginning
of the clear-cut.

I mean, you walk out the thing

and... and it's going
to hit you in the face.

An old forest has carbon
as part of the trees.

The soil, the branches.

That's all carbon that is...
is currently sequestered

and is not going out
into the atmosphere.

You cut that tree down.

Not only does it
stop sequestering carbon,

but it actually starts emitting
carbon from the soil that's left,

because the soil
has been disturbed.

To generate
a unit of electricity,

biomass will release more carbon
than coal will...

and coal's plenty dirty enough.

We're looking at the aftermath
of a 245 acre...

whole-tree harvest
liquidation cut,

where effectively, they removed
all of the above ground biomass.

Almost all the trees. They left
a couple of pine here and there,

uh, one or two little patches
that they didn't cut,

but effectively,
it's a 245 acre clear-cut.

To call it carbon neutral,

you have to do some
pretty dishonest accounting.

For instance,
the European Union...

doesn't count the carbon
it released in its burning

in its calculations,
whereas the American forests

that are supplying the carbon

don't count the carbon they're
releasing during the harvesting.

Now, the justification is,
we don't want to count it twice,

so we don't count it at all.
And now it's carbon neutral.

We got to count at once, folks.
And when you count at once,

it doesn't matter whether
it's the carbon released

from the burning of it,
or whether you count

the carbon stored in that forest
that you've liquidated,

because now
it's going to be burned

and it's going to be released.
So, uh, I guess I...

I'm not comfortable with
an industry that deceives me,

about something
as important as climate change.

[light dramatic music]

[Derrick]
As forests get older...

they sequester
more and more carbon.

They sequester more
and more carbon per year.

Every time
you cut down the forest,

you are
removing lots of biomass,

and you're
removing lots of nutrients.

You're completely
stressing out the forest.

You're removing
all those who live there,

and you are somehow
expecting it to recover.

I love the line by John Livingston,
"There is no surplus in nature."

Every tree that's taken out
was a home for someone else

and was food for someone else.

[light dramatic music]

[music fades]

[waves crashing]

[Julia] Bright Green environmentalists
love pointing out examples

of countries that have switched
to renewable energy,

but there are a lot of
inconsistencies in these claims.

One problem is that they
will often imply this energy

comes from solar and wind,

when the majority of this
so-called "green energy"

comes from hydro.

[Derrick]
Hydro is incredibly destructive.

Dams destroy
the regions below the dam.

They destroy
the river above the dam.

They kill the fish, who can no
longer move up and down the river.

Dams increase
the water temperature.

And then to sort of
top all this off,

dams are claimed
to be carbon neutral,

but that's been known
for decades not to be true.

But there are those
who call dams "methane bombs,"

because they
release so much methane.

One of the reasons they produce methane
is that, when the reservoir first rises,

it will, of course,
inundate the land above.

And when the forest
has been inundated,

it then decays
in anaerobic conditions

and produces methane.

It is almost a prototypical
Bright Green lie,

in that they claim
it is good for the environment,

when actually it is harmful
for the environment,

and it is harmful for
even global warming purposes.

It succeeds on no level.

[music fades]

[Max] One of the pioneering
writers in this field

is a guy named Ozzie Zehner,
who wrote a book called Green Illusions.

And he starts off the book
with a story,

from when he was working,
doing solar installations.

And he was in Washington, D.C.
and these politicians

wanted to install solar panels
on their roof.

So, he went to their house
to check out the site and...

and see what it would look like, so he
could give them a... you know, a quote.

And he got there
and assessed the situation

and he went back
and talked to them and he said,

"Look, you've got these
beautiful old oak trees

growing on the south side
of your house,

and if you want to put in
solar panels on your roof,

we're going to have to
cut these trees down.

And I would actually recommend that
you don't install the solar panels,

because both in terms
of greenhouse gas emissions,

and, uh, your electricity bill,

these trees are providing
a greater benefit

by shading your house
in the summer,

by protecting it
from winds in the winter, uh,

than the solar panels would."

And the people said,
"We don't care about that.

We actually want you to
go ahead and cut them down

and install the sol...
solar panels anyway."

And I think that really
gets to the fundamental issue

with these technologies is that,
for many people,

they're more about
a status symbol

and an indication of a...

Some sort of
greener than thou...

uh, mindset that's going on,

than they are
an actual solution.

[Derrick] If you can install
a solar panel on your roof...

you may not
directly be seeing any smoke

come out of any smokestacks...

but that doesn't
mean it's not happening.

You can't produce
a solar/wind infrastructure

without fossil fuels.

[Max] To produce solar
panels, you need...

extremely high-purity silicon.

It's something
like 99.999% pure.

And that's not found in nature.

But what you have to do is,
you have to go find

the purest silicon deposits
that you can.

And this is usually
in the form of sand mining,

and this happens
around the world,

and it's highly,
highly destructive.

[Derrick] Because of the
demand for high-quality silica,

there are islands off the coast of
China that have disappeared completely.

They have mined the island
out of existence.

They require rare earths and
much of the rare earth minerals

come from Baotou in China.

And Baotou is, essentially,
devoid of wildlife,

and there is a, basically,
19 square-mile tailings pond,

tailings lake,
in which nothing can grow.

So, don't tell me
this has no effects.

Don't tell me this is
environmentally neutral.

[liquid rushing and splashing]

[dark dramatic music]

[Julia] Mining, pollution,
carbon emissions.

The production
of renewable technologies

has obvious
environmental impacts.

I wanted to see what mainstream
environmental organizations

were saying about
so-called "green energy."

[fast typing]

NRDC. Our work. Climate change.

"Fighting climate change
by cutting carbon pollution

and expanding clean energy

is the best way
to build a better future

for our children."

Policy solution.

"Increase renewable energy.

Bolster global
clean energy financing."

World Wildlife Fund. Climate.

"Create a climate-resilient
and zero-carbon world,

powered by renewable energy."

Sierra Club.

They're advocating
for people to sign a petition

telling members of Congress
to support a Green New Deal.

David Suzuki Foundation.

"Canadians overwhelmingly
support a quick transition

to efficient,
zero-emissions energy."

"Clean energy." "Clean energy."

"Clean energy provides
a wide array of services."

"Clean electricity
will replace fossil fuels."

Okay, this is Greenpeace.

"Renewable energy
is cheap, sustainable

and already making our planet
more green and peaceful.

It disrupts
corporate energy systems.

It's great for our health, and there's
nothing better for our planet."

[jovial music]

[David] You know,
why don't we imitate a forest

and try to do
what the forest does?

Take this clean, free energy

and... and use it.

And, um, that, to me,
is the opportunity.

I think that every bit of our
clothing should be a solar panel.

Uh, you know, I... I've got a backpack
that's got a solar panel on it,

and I can charge my laptop
and my cell phone,

right from the, uh...

My... my, uh, backpack.

I think that hats
and everything... [chuckles]

You know, um, in France now,

they're building
1000 kilometers of highway,

and the highway
is a solar panel.

And that highway,
1000 kilometers,

will service I don't know
how many 100,000 homes.

And, um, the same thing
with concrete sidewalks.

It should... our buildings should
be wrapped in solar panels,

not just have them
up on the roofs,

but everywhere
that sunlight hits,

let's grab that and use it
the way that a forest does.

[Julia] It's hard for me
to see many similarities

between forests and solar
energy generation facilities.

We all know solar panels
don't grow out of the ground.

They require
a global supply chain

and a functioning
industrial economy.

With all the mining,
shipping, manufacturing

and environmental harms
inherent to these processes.

While forests sequester carbon,
provide habitat,

and promote biodiversity.

Solar electric
generating facilities

require habitat destruction,

both at the site
where they are installed,

and around the world, where the
materials to make them are extracted.

While editing this film,

I researched
the solar highway in France.

Turns out it broke,
shortly after it was installed.

One publication described
it as a "total disaster."

Solar and wind have been called
alternative fossil fuels,

because they require
fossil fuels

at every stage
of the production process.

So the mining, the shipping,
the manufacturing...

- Yeah.
- ...it might be less than fossil fuels,

but it still
adds up to quite a bit.

You don't get
anything for nothing.

Yeah, you know, to lay the asphalt,
uh, highway that France is,

- you use a lot of fossil fuels.
- Yeah.

Um, and that's the, uh,
the dilemma we're in.

It seems to me that we have to
get off the... the deliberate...

burning of fossil fuels that can
be replaced with electricity,

and, uh, we have to minimize
the, uh, the c...

the carbon that we use
in creating the products

that are really going
to give us a big edge.

But you don't get anything
for nothing.

And there's no question,
you know,

you think of all the metals
that go into a windmill.

Even the servicing is going
to take, uh, fossil fuels

to... to get up there and...

Yeah, th...
but it's a question of...

are they in the long term,

are they going to
reduce our carbon footprint...

in... in a long term way?

[Julia]
That's the real question.

Do solar panels
and wind turbines

actually reduce carbon
emissions in the long term?

There's an assumption that when you add
energy from solar or wind to the grid,

it displaces fossil fuels.

But this isn't what
we're seeing in the real world.

This is really one of the key...

elements in
the Bright Green vision.

Is this idea that, as you bring
more and more green energy online,

you turn off more fossil fuels.

You don't need them anymore,
so you can get rid of them.

And that's just not happening.

If you actually
look at the data,

the increase
in renewable energy,

that power
is generally added on top

of what's already available
from coal power plants,

from fossil fuel power plants,

from nuclear,
from hydro and so on.

Research I've done,
looking at data on many nations,

over time, mostly over
the past five decades or so...

um, shows that there's not
a strong rate of suppression,

when you add
non-fossil fuel energy

of suppressing fossil fuel use.

It takes maybe
four to ten times more, um,

non-fossil fuel energy, to get one
unit reduction in fossil energy,

controlling for
what you'd expect

from growth of population,
GDP and so forth.

If you look at the trends
in all energy sources,

roughly speaking,
they've all grown rapidly.

Fossil fuels,
when you add natural gas,

you don't see any suppression,
per se of coal

or oil consumption.

Nuclear power doesn't seem to have
a strong effect on the others.

Meaning, all energy sources
are consumed

as their production increases.

And so I've called that, um,
the displacement paradox,

just meaning, you know, we might
assume that one would displace another,

it would push another
out in proportion,

and we don't see that,
or we don't see it strongly.

To the extent there is displacement,
it's certainly not one-for-one.

But if you think about it,
most industries,

companies, corporations,
they're trying to make profits.

They're trying to expand
production and consumption.

They're not trying
to conserve resources.

So, that's historically,
new energy sources have just

allowed for more growth, more...

more production,
more consumption.

If we want to
push out fossil fuels,

I think we need to
push out fossil fuels,

rather than just hoping
producing more

wind or solar will do that,
naturally in the marketplace.

[Julia] While these energy
sources are being brought online,

- they tend to add on top of the fossil fuels...
- [phone chimes]

- Yeah.
- ...they don't tend to displace them.

So, it takes, on... on average,
about ten units of... of, like,

solar or wind to displace
one unit of fossil fuel energy.

- That's recently added to the grid... [inaudible]
- Yeah. Yeah.

So, what is the conclusion
from an analysis like that?

We shouldn't do anything?

- No, I don't think so.
- Is it saying it's making it worse,

by trying to
come up with a solution?

No, it's... it's not.
It's not that.

It's just maybe we're looking in
the wrong places for solutions.

That maybe we need to tackle it
on a more systemic level.

- Yeah, there's... there's no question.
- [inaudible]

I mean, our major impact
on the planet now,

not just in terms of energy,
is consumption.

And that was
a deliberate program.

After all... [stutters]
you're way too young,

but, uh, I remember the impact
of the Great Depression.

The 1930s. My mom and dad
were married in the 1930s,

and that was a terrible time
and people learned to live

and, you know,
cooperate and act together.

In many ways, communities were much
stronger and tighter back then,

because you had to.

What brought us out of
the Depression was World War II.

Wars are great
for bringing economies up.

As the war was coming to an end,
the Pr... U.S. President said,

"Holy... we're
going to win this...

but what do we do with
the economy in peacetime?"

So, he asked his
Council of Economic Advisers...

"How do you transition a wartime
economy to a peacetime economy?"

And their answer
was "Consumption.

You've got to make consumption
an American way of life."

Buy things, use them up,
throw them away and buy more.

And it works. 70% of
the North American economy,

now is about consumption.

So, we have a real pickle,
because the economy now

has been so dedicated
to consumption.

And we think that the economy
has got to be kept growing.

Well, constant growth
is the creative cancer cells.

Cancer cells think
they can grow forever.

[tense dramatic music]

[Derrick] What is the
energy being used for?

Within this culture,

production is the conversion
of the living to the dead.

It's the conversion of
living forests to two-by-fours.

A living forest is not counted.

All these fish in the oceans,
they don't actually count.

What happens is,
when the fish get killed

and then
converted into fish sticks...

then that adds to the GNP.

[Max] Alternative energies both
support and are produced by

the industrial system
that's killing the planet.

So, when people talk about
100% renewable energy transition

to save the planet,
to save civilization,

what they're actually
talking about is sustaining

modern, high energy,
uh, ways of life,

at the expense
of the natural world.

I think we often have this,
uh, image that it's...

wind power
and solar power companies

competing with
fossil fuel power companies.

And I think that... you know,
that varies on ownership,

but a lot of times,
it's the same company

that owns wind power
and fossil fuels.

That's the nature
of economies, that...

companies are involved in
these activities to make money.

They're not trying to... to
displace or change other things.

When a... a company
invests in wind power,

it's typically
an economic decision,

and that doesn't mean that they're
then trying to use less fossil fuel.

And the irony is, a lot of times the
profits that come from renewable energy,

can be invested
anywhere in the economy.

That's another misunderstanding
about economies,

capitalist economies.

If you make profits
from wind power,

that doesn't mean those profits
are invested in wind power.

They can be invested anywhere.
So, somewhere the irony is,

those profits can also be invested
in expanding fossil fuel extraction.

[light dramatic music]

[Max] I lived for a number
of years in Salt Lake City,

and the largest
copper mine in the world

was about ten miles
from my house.

And, uh, that mine is called
the Bingham Canyon Mine,

it's been operating
for 100 years.

And it's a mountaintop
removal mine.

It's one of the largest
man-made holes on the planet.

Copper production
is absolutely essential

for green technologies.

A single
wind turbine generator...

maybe a five megawatt design, probably has
something like 1000lbs of copper in it.

So, people like Mark Jacobson,

who are calling for
100% renewable energy...

He's calling for 3.8 million

five megawatt turbines
to be built.

Now, multiply that by
1000lbs of copper per turbine,

and you've got a lot of copper.
I think it would be about

six years of
the full production from...

the Bingham Canyon mine,
which again,

is the largest copper mine
in the world.

So, when people say that wind turbines
are clean and green and sustainable,

I think it's completely
out of touch with reality.

[dark dramatic music]

Um, well,
my goals are to develop

clean and renewable energy
solutions to global warming,

air pollution
and energy and security.

So, I do this by going state-by-state
in the U.S. and country-by-country,

and developing clean
and renewable energy plans,

uh, that result... that require
electrifying all energy sectors,

including electricity,
which is already electrified,

transportation,
heating and cooling,

industry, agriculture,
forestry and fishing.

And then providing that
electricity with 100% clean,

renewable wind,
water and solar power...

and... and also
involving storage,

and, uh, some additional
transmission as well.

[Julia] What percentage
of the electricity

would be from what?
Like solar, wind,

or... like, what percentages
would they take that?

Well, in a 100% clean renewable
energy economy worldwide,

we'd probably have around...

55% solar, maybe 40% wind...

And, uh,

you know, the rest of it is I...

You know, it's going to be
everything else, like,

hydroelectric, geothermal,
tidal wave power

in small quantities...

so...

Yeah, so it's going to be...

you know, mostly solar and wind.

[dark dramatic music]

[Max] Wind energy, of course is
produced by these giant turbines

that they erect in the windiest
places they can find.

And they've been
doing it for a long time now.

One of the first
production-scale wind facilities

was down in California,
near the Bay Area.

And they... they called that particular
place, "The Cuisinart for Birds,"

because it killed so many birds.

And that's
one of the first problems

that these wind turbines cause,

is they kill a lot of birds,
and they kill a lot of bats.

What happens with bats is that,

they'll be flying near
the blades,

and as the blades move,
they're creating such a massive

pressure differential
between the front of the blade

and the back of the blade,
that, um...

that their lungs will explode.

And it's called barotrauma.

It's a pressure injury,
essentially and, um...

I'm sure a pretty horrible
way to die.

And...

So, the impacts
on bats and birds alone,

are reason enough
to never support wind energy.

[Derrick] If you talk to these
mainstream so-called "environmentalists"

about the bird deaths
from windmills,

or the bat deaths
from windmills,

they will oftentimes say, "Well,

there's a lot more birds
die from cats,

or a lot more
birds die from skyscrapers,"

as though that makes it okay.

Buildings kill
one billion birds per year,

and cats kill about
three billion birds per year.

So, it's really a red herring
to talk about birds'...

bit... death
due to wind turbines.

And I think about this
in terms of a medical model,

that if you have someone
in a hospital who has,

for example,
AIDS and they have...

seven different opportunistic
infections are going after them,

You don't say, "Well...

it doesn't matter if we add
MRSA to the mix, does it?"

Just because there's one
bad thing can happen to you,

doesn't mean you don't
prevent the second bad thing.

That's the same with all these
wind energy facilities,

that just because there are birds
who die flying into skyscrapers,

doesn't mean you should kill
200 million more every year

with wind energy generators.
It makes no sense!

You would think... here's
the thing is, if there were

no other threats to them,

then maybe you could
consider this,

except still, for those
200 million birds it'd be bad,

but when the bird populations
are collapsing anyway,

you're adding another threat.
Are you nuts?

This is horrible.

[Julia] So what would be
the impact on birds and bats

if we had 40% wind energy?

Yeah, we would reduce
bird and bat deaths

by about a factor of ten,

compared to what they are
from fossil fuels.

So in other words, fossil...

You know,
wind turbines kill birds.

The American Bird Conservancy
estimates in the United States

about 400,000 to 500,000 birds
per year and were killed.

But we also know that oil,
coal and gas, for example,

they kill birds at a rate
that is ten times higher,

per unit of energy,
than wind power does,

due to not only destroying
their habitats, uh, and...

[stutters]... by all
the mining that goes on.

One of the first rules
of propaganda is

if you can slide your premises
by people, you've got them.

And so, if you can...

frame a question as, "Well...

look, lots of birds are going
to die from global warming.

So instead, what if we only have

200 million birds a year
die from windmills.

Isn't that better?"

Okay, what is inherent in
that question is the notion

that the world
needs industrial energy,

and that...

the choice is between
burning oil and gas and coal,

and having wind turbines.

But that's not the choice,
for multiple reasons.

One reason
that's not the choice...

is because...

there is nothing inevitable
about industrial production.

It is a social choice,

and given that the planet is being
killed because of those choices,

you would think
we would make different choices.

[Julia] Do you think it
would be better for, like,

the natural world
if we just didn't use energy?

Well, I suppose that would
be nice, but, um... [chuckles]

- Yeah, it's not a very practical thing...
- Yeah.

...but it's, uh, it's...
definitely it would be nice

if we didn't use energy,
but then how would we...

You know,
we would not be able to survive.

[Julia] Gosh,
I wonder how humans survived

for the past 200,000
years without electricity?

Could it be that we don't
actually need electricity

for our survival?

[Derrick] Electricity is a convenience.
It is a luxury.

Humans have survived for
tens of thousands of years...

without industrial electricity.

And there's a real question...

as to whether
humans will survive,

with industrial electricity.

What is energy used for when
it's produced in this society?

It's used for the military.

It's used for
producing cheap consumer goods.

It's used for entertainment.

It's used for transportation.

It's mostly used for
these non-essential luxuries

that are destroying the planet,
in one way or another.

[light dramatic music]

[Julia]
This is Ivanpah.

It's a concentrated
solar power system,

located in
southeastern California.

A field of mirrors concentrate
sunlight on a central tower,

heating a fluid inside to
over 1000 degrees Fahrenheit.

The light from the mirrors
attracts insects,

and the insects attract birds.

The concentrated sunlight
burns every creature

who flies overhead.

[Derrick] Before you can
commit any mass atrocity,

you have to have
what Robert Jay Lifton calls,

"A claim to virtue."

And what he means by that,
is that...

no one ever admits
to causing an atrocity.

That internally, you have to make
yourself out to be the good person.

And so,
from their own perspective,

the Nazis weren't committing
mass murder and genocide,

they were
purifying the Aryan race.

And today capitalists
are not killing the planet,

they are...

developing natural resources.

And how this relates
to the Bright Greens,

is the Bright Greens are not
in fact killing the planet,

but they are saving the planet.

Unfortunately, they might have to
kill part of the desert to do it,

and so,
you can see headlines like,

"Harming the desert
to save the world."

That was before they put in this
solar power generation facility,

that caused great harm to birds,

caused great harm
to desert tortoises.

Great harm to the landscape.

It's all a claim to virtue.

The planet itself does not need

solar power
generation facilities.

The planet needs...

to have this stopped.

There are some estimates that

solar energy
generation facilities,

by 2050, they could be
the greatest threat to habitat.

So, that's how many
they want to put in.

It's extraordinary what you can
get by if you've... [stutters]

got a claim to virtue,
as we saw with the Holocaust,

as we're seeing with
the murder of the planet.

I've seen environmentalists,
sort of mainstream,

Bright Green environmentalists,
applauding the construction

of gigantic
battery factories in Nevada,

simply because they're
for electric automobiles.

And that's nuts.

Environmentalists in general...

have... have historically been pretty
decent on being opposed to electronics...

and environmentalists,
historically have been

pretty strong
in being opposed...

to automobiles.

But somehow,

if you combine
electronics and automobiles,

then suddenly it's a good idea.

That's crazy.

Never mind the fact,
that most of the pollution

coming from an automobile does
not emerge from the tailpipe,

it's in
the construction vehicle.

And never mind the fact that

there are about 228 trillion
insects killed per year by cars.

There are about...

two billion vertebrate animals
killed every year by cars,

and I don't care whether
they're electric cars or...

diesel or gasoline engine,
doesn't matter.

And that's only those
who were killed directly.

Roads fragment habitat.

Punching in roads
into new areas,

make it so loggers can follow,
miners can follow...

all sorts
of destruction follows.

And somehow, if it's an electric
vehicle, it's supposed to be okay.

Of course, electric cars, like a
lot of the other green technologies,

are getting huge subsidies.

There are these tax credits.

There are write offs,
there are government rebates.

And this is a public subsidy,

coming directly
from our tax dollars

and going to corporations.

And it's incentivizing them
to build more cars,

to build more factories,
to build more parking lots,

to build more shopping malls, to build
more highways, to build more roads.

To invest in car culture,
as a whole.

[Derrick] There was a
headline the other day

that was pretty funny.
It was about how...

by putting all these
electric cars on the road,

Tesla could reduce

oil consumption in the United States
by about 300,000 barrels per day.

It feels like a lot,
until you realize that in 2015,

U.S. oil consumption
for transportation

was about 20 million
barrels per day.

So, this is a whopping
1.5% decrease by 2030

at the cost of lithium mines
around the world.

At the cost of all these
additional cars being made,

that are going to actually cost,

God knows how many
barrels per day to manufacture.

I know that

the Movement for the
Emancipation of the Niger Delta

and other groups in Nigeria,
have reduced oil output...

by up to 60%, um,
through acts of sabotage on...

um, oil rigs there.

And...

they have done so
with really no time lag.

It's... they reduce
the oil output in real time.

Ask yourself, uh...

from the perspective
of nonhumans...

or of poor humans...

or of any creature going to be
driven extinct by global warming

or by roads or by cars...

you know, which...
which would you prefer.

[ethereal music]

[Julia] I started fighting
for the ocean six years ago.

Since then, I've seen this
world continue to collapse.

The ocean is the foundation
of life on this planet.

The fact that we're losing it
at the rate we are is alarming.

I think part of the reason
we're failing,

is that we ask,
"What is politically possible?"

More often than we ask,
"What is necessary?"

[Paul] We're in the midst of
what's called the Anthropocene,

which is the sixth major
extinction of life on this planet.

The last one
was 65.2 million years ago,

and the most serious one was,
uh, the Permian Extinction,

250 million years ago,
which wiped out 97% of everything.

The Anthropocene has the potential
to wipe out 90% of everything.

It won't wipe out everything,

but we will go along with that
90% that's being wiped out.

So, we won't survive.

At the climate change conference
in Paris in 2015,

I said, "Look, you know,
the only way to do this is

we need a moratorium
on all industrialized,

heavy gear fishing
for the next 50 years.

That's the only thing that's going to
work, we have to shut it down.

Right now, there's ten million
fishing vessels out there...

44 million of them,
40% are illegal.

And there's no such thing. There's no
such thing as a sustainable fishery.

It doesn't exist anywhere.

So, we have to shut it down,
if we care about the future.

[ethereal music]

[Marketa]
I don't think people realize,

how intimate the connection
we have with ocean is.

It's the very
foundation of life.

People think that the oxygen comes
from the rainforest and trees,

which is true,
but it's only about 28%.

The rest of it
comes from the ocean.

The photosynthesis that are
usually done by plants and trees,

are actually
done by phytoplanktons,

which are these
tiny microalgae organisms

that are living in the ocean.

It takes the carbon dioxide
and releases oxygen.

So, it's very important for humans to
actually protect the phytoplankton.

And that's where the population
of whales come into picture.

Whale feces are very rich
in iron and other nutrients

that are very important
for phytoplankton to be healthy,

and whales are moving
from depth to the surface

and provide nutrients
through all these layers.

So, all that balance
in the ocean,

every species
depends on another.

It's very important.

We have to keep
all this balance together.

[light dramatic music]

[Paul] Since 1950,
there's been a 40% diminishment

in phytoplankton populations
around the world.

And when you couple that with the fact
that we're destroying the world's forests,

then really what we have is
that this planet has two lungs.

One is blue and one is green,

and we're destroying both
the green and the blue lungs.

[Julia] What would it take
to actually save the ocean?

What would it take
to actually save the oceans?

Well, shut down all

heavy gear industrialized
fishing operations.

Stop sonic testing in the ocean.

Spracking military
sonic testing.

Stop dumping chemical pollutions

and radioactive materials
into the ocean.

Uh... [blows out] stop dump...
dumping agro, um...

waste from both the, uh...
you know, the meat industry

and also from
the production of vegetables,

of pesticides
and everything like that.

You know,
there's so many factors.

Can we stop them?

You know, a few years ago,
I was at a...

oh, man, quite a few years ago,
I was at a discussion in Toronto

about pollution
in the Don River...

and the Union people were there

and the environmentalists
were there and, uh,

everybody's saying,
"We've got to solve the problem.

And how are we
going to solve the problem?"

And I just, uh,
was very unpopular,

because I said, "Do we know
what's causing the pollution?

Do we know what factories
are... are doing this?"

"Well, yes, we do."

"Well, stop doing it."

And they all looked at me
like I'd just...

said something completely outrageous
and blasphemous, you know.

"Just stop doing it.
Just turn off the taps."

But no, they wanted a solution,

without really
getting a solution.

[Julia] I'm on my way to
the Green Living Show.

Basically, it's an expo with
people selling eco products.

You know,
it all centers around this idea

that we can shop our way
to sustainability.

And there's a great line
from Endgame, which is,

"Within an industrial economy,
buying good things

isn't really
doing good for the planet,

so much as it is doing
something not quite so bad."

I think this all really
serves as a distraction,

you know, it points people's
attention towards themselves,

and towards
their personal habits,

so that they're not looking

at the root causes
of these problems.

They're not
looking at the systems

that make this culture
functionally unsustainable.

Instead, it's putting
the blame on individuals.

And I'm not saying individuals
don't have responsibility.

They do,
but our responsibility is not

to find the most eco-ethical
toothbrush and buy it.

Our responsibility
is to stand between industry

and what's left
of life on this planet.

Our responsibility is to deprive
those who would destroy life

of their ability to do so.

And shopping for green products
does not threaten those in power.

It takes people's very real
concerns about the environment,

and diverts that into
a way to promote consumerism.

[Lierre] The underpinnings of
these solutions are all about,

you as an individual.
"What can you do?"

And the answer is honestly,
it's like,

don't be an individual,
because as an individual,

you just don't have
that much power.

The only power you have
as an individual is,

"Well, I can buy this
instead of that,

or I can try to recycle
a little bit better."

That's not a lot of power,
given the global scale of destruction.

- Hey!
- How's it going?

- Good, how are you?
- Good, good.

So, is this an electric car?

Yes, this is
a fully electric vehicle.

Um, pretty much
from the whole charge,

it goes up to 383 kilometers.

Um... People love the color.

- Yeah. It's very bright.
- It's very bright,

- grabs your attention. Yeah, very green.
- Very green.

- That's exactly what we wanted.
- Yeah... [chuckles]

- That's great.
- How much energy does it take to make an electric car?

Energy to make an electric car?

Um, well,
the battery is 60 kilowatts.

- Mm-hmm.
- Um...

Uh, to make the car?
I wouldn't want to

- give you false information, because I don't know.
- Okay.

[Julia] "Vote with your dollars"
has become a catchphrase

of mainstream environmentalism.

The 1950s was the first time
that human beings

were called "consumers,"
more often

than they were
called "citizens."

If you can convince people
that their primary means

of social and political action

is through
their personal consumption,

then their choices of resistance

are reduced to
buying or not buying.

But human beings
have a much wider range

of available tactics.

[Max] They want us to
believe that consumer choices

are the only way
we can change things.

But if we accept that,
then that means they've won,

because we're defining
ourselves as consumers.

I don't think we should
let them have that victory.

Because the reality is that,
yes, we consume things.

I have to buy things within
this culture to survive and...

that is not something
that defines me or my power

as an actor in this world.

I... I would say,
much more fundamentally,

I'm an animal and I have hands
and I have feet

and I can walk places
and I can do things.

And I have a voice...

and I have the ability
to speak with people

and to build
a relationship with people.

And I have the ability
to organize...

and I have the ability
to fight if need be.

These are all
much more important

than my ability to buy
or not buy something.

[indistinct background chatter]

[Julia] So, if I'm a person
who comes to this event,

I'm going to come away thinking that to
solve the world's environmental problems,

I need to buy an electric car,

um, buy clothing made out
of bamboo and organic cotton

and get a reusable water bottle
and a bamboo toothbrush.

None of these things
are sufficient to address

the problems
facing the natural world,

and these are all just
luxury items being produced,

that nobody really needs.

[indistinct background chatter]

[Julia] If we're going to tackle
this on a meaningful level,

we need to address
the root causes

of this
culture's unsustainability.

Contrary to what we often hear,

climate change did not begin

with the burning
of fossil fuels.

It started much earlier.

[Lierre] The beginning of
global warming is actually

the beginning of agriculture.

I mean, we've all seen that,
kind of, the hockey stick graph.

Fossil fuel has
this huge CO2 release,

and so it, you know, all of a
sudden, just boom, starts going up,

and that's true, but if
you back that up 10,000 years,

human activity actually
released that much carbon

from the beginning
of agriculture to the year 1800,

as we did from 1800 till now.

So how?
How... what is this about?

Well, huge amounts of carbon
are stored in soil,

and when you do agriculture,

you're destroying
the soil, essentially.

So, as the soil falls to pieces,
all that carbon is released.

We live in
an agricultural society

which makes it really...

hard for us to examine
the nature of agriculture.

To us, it's like air.
It's just what's there.

It's just how things happen,
like, how we get food.

There's not even a question
that there's another way,

because this has been
happening now for so long.

10,000 years is... is how long some
humans have been doing agriculture.

I mean, agriculture started
in probably

14 different places
around the globe.

And it always starts in river valleys,
and there's a reason for that.

The reason is that agriculture
is based on annual grasses,

and where you're going to
get the most annual grasses

is in river valleys.

So, there's two
different kinds of plants.

There's annuals
and there's perennials.

Annuals only live one year.

That's why
they're called annual.

And the perennials
live a long time.

So the annuals, their moment is

when there is a disturbance
across the landscape.

So a fire, a flood,
an earthquake.

What happens is
that the ground is bare,

and the planet recognizes this
as a biological emergency.

So, you know, nature has come up with
ways to fix this as fast as it can.

And the answer is annuals.

When there is no competition,
the annuals spring to life.

So one way to think about it is,
they're the first responders,

or think about, you know,
if you cut yourself

with a knife or a pair
of scissors or something,

um, you're going
to put a Band-Aid on that.

And that's what the annuals are,
they're the Band-Aid.

And eventually, just like your
skin will knit back together,

the roots of the perennials
will come back.

Those perennial plants will close
in across that disaster area again,

and there will be that tightly knit
web of perennial roots once more.

But until that happens,
all you have is annuals.

So 95% of plants are perennials,
on the planet,

and about 5% are annuals.

So, they certainly
have their role,

but there's no landscapes
where it's just annuals.

That's the problem
with agriculture,

is that it's based on
these annual grasses.

Now, the only way you're
going to get those to grow

is to clear
the life off the land.

They can't compete
against the perennials.

So, for 10,000 years we've,
essentially, been waging a war.

So, if you think about
what agriculture is

on a really, just basic scale...

you take a piece of land,

you clear
every living thing off it,

and I mean down to the bacteria,

and then you plant it
to human use.

So, it's biotic cleansing.

I mean, we've all heard
of ethnic cleansing.

Well, this is the same thing,
except it's not just humans.

It's every last living creature.

Just gone.

So, it's this massive war
that we've been waging.

And every season
you have to keep it up,

because, of course,
life fights back.

Life wants to live.

The problem now is so bad,

that 98% of the world's
old growth forests

and 99% of the world's
grasslands have been destroyed.

And this is all in
the service of agriculture.

So, humans have taken over

every piece of land that could
be taken for this activity.

There's nothing left to take.

What this means is that
200 species are going extinct

each and every day.

They haven't
just been extirpated.

They're gone forever...

um, and that's what we've done,
by taking up agriculture.

[Derrick] They say that agriculture
increases food production,

but that's completely false.

What it does, it grossly
decreases food production,

but it funnels whatever
food production there is

towards humans.

Um, but in terms
of actual food production,

when you include food production for
all the non humans who live here?

No, it's... it's grossly reduced.

And one of things
that agriculture does

is it commits you to
a path of further destruction,

because you have
more food for humans,

but you do so at the cost
of the health of the land base.

So, you slowly decrease the
carrying capacity of the land base,

because you've overshot it.

And as you destroy
your land base,

you have a choice.
You can either collapse...

or you can continue to find
new frontiers to exploit.

The problem is somebody else
already lives there,

which means your way of life
has to be militarized,

because you're going
to conquer them.

And also you have to destroy the
environment of the places nearby.

[Lierre] So, this is an
inherently destructive activity,

and it kind of snowballs into
worse and worse things.

So, the moment
you clear that land,

that soil
starts being destroyed.

One season of planting
your annual crop,

you know, pick whichever,
wheat, soy, corn...

you can lose 2000 years
worth of top soil.

That's how slowly topsoil grows
and how easily it is destroyed.

When the Europeans
first got to the Midwest,

the prairie soil
was 12 feet deep,

and it can now
only be measured in inches.

So, it's gone.
We blew through it all,

in a very short period of time.

So, that's the nature
of agriculture.

Like, there's not...

a better way to do this.
There's not, like, a kinder,

gentler form of agriculture.

It's literally what it is.

You remove all the life,
and then you draw down the soil,

and in the process,
you also draw down water

and you draw down species

and you draw down
entire biotic communities.

[light dramatic music]

[Derrick] The fertile crescent is
where a lot of these problems started.

And you've seen it now, and it doesn't
look like a fertile crescent at all.

It's treeless,
horizon to horizon,

but that was before
the beginnings of this culture.

That was cedar forests, so thick that
sunlight never touched the ground.

It was like this. Thicker, because
sunlight's touching the ground over there.

And this culture
has destroyed that.

Converted it to agriculture
and then converted it to desert.

That's what happens.

Forests precede us,
and deserts dog our heels.

[Lierre] During the era of
the black plague in Europe,

anywhere from, like,
one third to three quarters

of the population died,
depending on where you were.

So what happened pretty quickly,
was all the agricultural fields

were... were abandoned, because
there were no people left.

And the forest
starts to take over.

And there's actually a dip in
the carbon in the atmosphere,

because Europe was,
at least partially reforested,

at that... at that moment.

So, you can see that, actually,
it responds pretty quickly.

Um, if we could get some plants
back in the ground,

that can sequester carbon...

it could happen.

And this is why I am not,
in any way, out of hope.

If we were to repair even 75%

of the trashed-out
prairies in the United States,

in about ten years,
we could sequester

all of the carbon that we have
released in this country.

Basically, period. We would actually
become a nation that sequesters carbon.

Around the globe, if we could repair
75% of the world's grasslands,

we could sequester all of
the carbon that's been released

since the beginning
of the industrial age till now,

and pretty quickly.

And that's really
all it takes is,

we... we have to just
let life come back.

[rhythmic melodic music]

[Julia] Fish sequester
carbon in their bodies

and excrete gut rocks,

which help balance
the acidity of the ocean.

Industrial fishing
has wiped out 90%

of the large fish in the ocean.

Mangroves, salt marshes,
sea grasses and peat bogs

have similarly been decimated.

And could similarly
sequester a lot of carbon,

if we stop destroying them
and allowed them to come back.

The natural world
is our best ally

for pulling carbon
out of the atmosphere.

Yet, the mainstream climate
movement demands we plunder

what remains of
our already decimated planet,

in order to produce
solar panels and wind turbines,

to add energy to the grid.

Energy which will power the
further destruction of the planet.

The mainstream
environmental movement

has completely
lost touch with reality.

♪ Climate change
has got to go, hey-hey, ho-ho ♪

♪ Climate change
has got to go, hey-hey, ho-ho ♪

[Julia] I'm here at the
climate march in Montreal.

They're expecting
about 300,000 people today,

mostly youth,
who are here marching,

thinking that they're
fighting for their futures

and they're fighting
to stop climate change,

but when you look at
the explicitly stated demands

of the big organizations
who are putting this together,

what they're asking for,
is a swift transition

to 100% renewable energy.

So, that's not going to stop,
or even slow climate change.

It's only going
to make things worse.

- ♪ What do we want? ♪
- ♪ Climate justice! ♪

- ♪ When do we want it? ♪
- ♪ Now! ♪

[Derrick] The thing that blows me
away, is the length

to which people will go

in order to avoid
looking at the problem.

That they will
create all these...

extraordinary fantasies,
in order to do something

that's not
going to help the planet,

so they can avoid
looking at the real issue,

which is that...

industrial civilization itself
is what's killing the planet.

[Lierre] So, this word civilization.
What does that actually mean?

Well, just etymologically,

it means people
living in cities.

Okay, but what
does that actually mean?

Well, it means people living
in densities large enough,

that they require
the importation of resources.

So, just think about this
common sense level.

Eight million people cannot live
on an island called Manhattan.

Right? Where does
their food come from?

Where does the water come from?
Where does the energy come from?

And that's the problem
with cities, okay?

The city has used up its own.

Whatever it is, it's not there.

So, now where are they
going to get it?

Well, from that point forward,
it doesn't actually matter

what kinds of beautiful,
peaceful, nonviolent...

spiritual values
people hold in their hearts.

Your society is now dependent
on imperialism and genocide,

because nobody willingly
gives up their land,

their water,
their trees, their fish,

but since the city
has used up its own,

it's got to go out and
get those from somewhere else.

So, the pattern of civilization
is always the same.

You've got this bloated power
center, right at the middle,

and then it's surrounded
by conquered colonies.

And the power center
takes whatever it can,

brings it all back in.
Eventually, it collapses,

because we're on drawdown.
We're on overshoot.

Historically speaking,
civilizations had a natural end point.

They were only going to get so big
before they eventually would collapse.

And so that's what you see.
Whether it's South America,

North America, Asia,
Africa, Europe.

It's the same pattern
over and over.

There have been
34 civilizations to date.

They have all ended in collapse.

This one will be no different.

The only difference is this...
this one right now, you know, we've...

we've added this incredible
accelerant of fossil fuel.

[Max] You know,
I grew up in Seattle and...

what is now downtown Seattle,

with skyscrapers and concrete,
as far as you can see,

used to be old growth forest,
with cedar and Douglas fir

and hemlock and maple
and all these other trees.

Old growth trees, thousands
upon thousands of years old.

The trees in the urban areas
of the Pacific Northwest,

for example, in Vancouver, B.C.,

what's now downtown Vancouver,

used to be old growth forests.

And there used to be
trees 400 feet tall there,

and there's records of this.

And those trees, they were
Douglas firs in this case,

those would be the tallest trees
in the world today.

People think the redwoods are
the tallest trees in the world,

and it's only because
the tallest Douglas firs,

who are quite a bit taller...

have all been cut down.

And they were cut down, among other
things, to build these cities.

[Derrick] We, in this
culture, have come to conflate

this way of life
with all life on the planet.

If I say,
"I want to end civilization."

They say,
"Oh, you want to end life."

But the problem is that
this culture is ending life.

And some people have accused me
of being cruel,

because I want
to bring down civilization,

and that will make it so,
people who...

are reliant upon
modern medicines will die.

I have Crohn's disease
and coronary artery disease,

and without...

modern medicines, I would die.

I am one of those people...

but I realize that the world
is more important than I am.

[light dramatic music]

[Lierre]
Um, I think a lot of people...

You know, the easier thing,
is to say things like,

"Well, it's greed
is the problem."

It's like...
Okay, so... [chuckles]

We actually have a society,
that is not just about greed.

I mean, we actually
reward greed on a massive scale.

All right, so, like,
what are the social rewards?

What are the political rewards?
What are the financial rewards?

Well, that system
is actually called capitalism,

at least right now. I mean,
there's certainly other versions of it.

I don't mean to say
it's the only one,

but right now it's capitalism
across the globe,

and that's what it does.

All right,
it takes living communities.

It converts those
into dead commodities.

And then those dead commodities
are turned into private wealth.

And a lot of people think, "Well,
if we just make that into public wealth.

If we all could get
an equal piece of the pie,

that's the solution."
This is the problem,

There's not
going to be a solution,

because you've still got the
first two parts of that equation.

Why are we
taking the living planet,

and turning it
into dead commodities?

Like, that's the problem.

I don't actually care.
in the end...

who gets all the...
all the goodies.

It's the fact that...

like, rivers and grasslands
and forests and fish

have been turned into those dead
commodities. That's the problem.

[light dramatic music]

[Derrick] What do all
the so-called "solutions"

to global warming
have in common?

They all take industrial
capitalism as a given.

The natural world is having to
conform to industrial capitalism.

They've switched the dependent,
independent variables, that...

The world has to be primary
and the health of the world

has to be primary,
because without a world,

you don't have
any economy whatsoever.

And the Bright Greens are
very explicit about this.

What they're trying to save is industrial
capitalism, industrial civilization.

They say this
all the time, and...

that's my fundamental beef,

is that what I'm trying
to save is the real world.

[rhythmic techno music]

[Julia] Bright Green environmentalism
has gained popularity,

because it tells a lot of
people what they want to hear.

That you can have industrial
civilization and a planet, too.

It allows people to feel good about
maintaining this destructive way of living,

and to avoid
asking hard questions,

about the depth
of what must be changed.

[Max] I think that a
100% renewable world

would not look very different
than the one we live in now.

Even if you snapped your fingers
and that happened tomorrow,

I think that global warming would
continue to be a huge problem.

You'd still have all
the emissions from logging,

from concrete production,
from steel production,

from consumer goods,
from global shipping.

From all these things.

And, of course,
that renewable energy

would still be used...

to power this,
to power the global economy.

[light dramatic music]

[Derrick] If space aliens
came down from outer space,

and they were
changing the climate...

and they were
putting in mines everywhere...

we wouldn't care
whether the mined materials

are going to be used
to make windmills,

or to make solar panels

to power the alien economy.

The occupier economy.

What we would do is,
we would stop the occupiers.

We would... we would
do whatever necessary,

to make it so these space aliens
can't change our climate.

And when you change
your loyalty from the system,

to the planet,
it does become their economy,

not our economy.

And it does become a matter
of stopping their economy.

[light dramatic music]

[Max] There's war being waged
on the natural world every day.

Yet, when we talk about
fighting back...

people look at us
like we're crazy... [chuckles]

The vast majority of
environmentalists in this culture

do not perceive that
we are in a war.

They love this culture and they
see that it has some problems.

And I see that we're living
in a culture that is not broken.

It was set up this way.

It was set up
to exploit and to steal

and to use violence
to take what it needs.

That's the history
of this culture,

and I do not see
how to stop it without force.

[Lierre] What I don't understand
is why we're not fighting back.

Because what I do know
is that if there's anybody alive

to look back
100 years from now...

they are going to wonder what
the fuck was wrong with us.

That we didn't fight
when the planet was going down.

Now, you love something or you
wouldn't be listening to this.

Whatever you love,
it is under assault.

But "love" is a verb.

We've got to let our love
call us to action.

[melancholic music]

[Julia] I spent three years
making a film about the ocean.

It is only now that I've learned

that the production of
so-called "green technology"

represents one of the largest
upcoming threats to the ocean.

They want to mine the deep sea,

to provide the materials
necessary for the proliferation

of so-called "green technology."

A recent study estimates
that two million cubic-feet

of sediment will be processed
each day by each mining vessel.

The resulting slurry will be
dumped back into the ocean...

where it will
increase turbidity,

smother and bury organisms

and toxify the food web
with heavy metals.

The ocean, which is
the source of all life...

has become
the next sacrifice zone,

in the name of green technology.

People claim that
the future of electric cars

may depend on deep sea mining.

What if we switched
what is primary

and instead said,
that the future of the ocean

depends on stopping car culture?

Or that the future of the ocean
depends on opposing

so-called "green technology?"

Evidently, this culture
does not care

whether the ocean has a future.

It's more interested
in justifying

continued exploitation

under the banner
of green consumerism.

What we desperately need,
is an environmental movement

that's willing
to put nature first.

That's willing to
put life on this planet

above this way of life.

We need people who will look
honestly at the problems

and have the courage
to ask the right questions.

Most importantly,
we need to get to work.

To stop the destruction

and allow life to come back.

[music fades]

[light dramatic music]

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