Hugo Cordeau, a doctoral candidate in economics at the University of Toronto, writes:
Protecting natural areas such as farmland is a fundamental aspect of environmentalism. However, safeguarding these lands may inadvertently increase the cost of renewable energy just as the transition to clean energy has become critically urgent.
I like to think about this as a fight between the local and global environmentalists.
Local environmentalists prioritize land protection and stewardship. They see the transformation of forests and agricultural land as harmful to biodiversity and local habitats. As a result, they oppose projects such as solar installations on farmland, transmission lines and even initiatives by climate leaders such as Northvolt, a company at the forefront of clean battery production for electric vehicles.
Global environmentalists focus on greenhouse-gas emissions. This perspective acknowledges that substantial new mineral resources, power lines and renewable energy are necessary to reduce emissions and will come at the cost of some farmland and forests. In the meantime, it implies a reduction in activities such as fracking and oil production, which are known to cause serious health issues through air pollution.
Given the worsening climate crisis, the global environmentalist perspective may be the one of least harm. Indeed, unless we adopt a degrowth narrative, it is not feasible to protect all our natural landscapes while also achieving net-zero emissions.
What a contrast: land protection and stewardship versus a focus on greenhouse gas emissions. The latter, however, which Cordeau speaks for, are clearly not environmentalists, but rather monomaniacs. They dismiss the environmental costs of new mining, power lines, substations, and wind and solar facilities as inherently necessary in their minds, which is completely in line with every industrialist who has had to face the concerns of environmentalists. They never have to prove that reducing CO₂ emissions from energy production and consumption has a meaningful effect on the climate or on ecosystems otherwise ravaged by human encroachment, or indeed that new mining, power lines, substations, and wind and solar facilities reduce CO₂ emissions by a meaningful degree (never mind the 100s of years of accumulated CO₂ that will persist for 100s of years more).
Cordeau invokes “net-zero” – a mirage that justifies every depredation not just on the environment, but also on the budgets of rate- and taxpayers and on the social fabric and even economy of rural and coastal life. He does support some limits, including a 2-km setback from homes, but “net-zero” – as intrinsically unattainable – will always require abandoning such concerns as merely provisional lip service to the notion of balance. “Sacrifices must be made for the greater good,” as Cordeau pleads, seemingly confident that it will never be he who is called on for sacrifice.
Hugo Cordeau is not an environmentalist. He is a shill for industry, for corporate grifters and the NGOs and consultants who love them.
