Holy Industry or Holy Revolution

The environmental crisis is crying out for an energy transition. We cannot continue consuming fossil fuels, or planet Earth will become uninhabitable for humans. Extreme weather events remind us of this with increasing frequency. We must accelerate the development of renewable energies: solar panels and wind turbines. How are things standing? Data: globally, between 2012 and 2022, the combined share of wind and solar power increased from 1% to 5% of total energy consumption. This is significant growth, but we are still far from replacing hydrocarbons. In fact, the increase in growing global demand has only been partially offset by the integration of immensely populated countries like China and India into the global economy. Furthermore, contrary to popular belief, the consumption of coal, oil, and gas has continued to grow in the 21st century, including the current third decade.

Let's focus on the local level. A few days ago, we published information about The opposition of forty municipalities in the Girona region to the installation of solar and wind farms Within their municipalities, the cry of "Renewables yes, but not like this" is echoing. This resistance movement, which identifies as environmentalist, includes ecologists, farmers, small rural tourism businesses, vacationers, and others. On the other side are the demands for large-scale renewable energy from the EU, electricity companies, the government, and the global movement against the climate crisis. Both sides want to save the planet. The problem is how.

Ernest Garcia, a Valencian expert in the sociology of the environment, former communist activist, and emeritus professor at the University of Valencia, says: "If forty years ago someone had told me that in every town there would be environmentalists protesting against solar panels, I would have replied that this was incredible, that this would be a world turned upside down." He writes this in the essay The ecological transition (Afers, in Catalan), where he puts his finger on the sore spot of the contradictions caused by the environmental collapse resulting from the greenhouse effect. The industrial era experienced a great acceleration between 1950 and 2010: we have added 4.379 billion more people, primary energy use has increased fivefold, fertilizer consumption has grown more than tenfold, the number of motor vehicles has multiplied sevenfold, and international tourism, thirty-sevenfold. In 1971, for the first time, the consumption of natural resources exceeded the planet's regenerative capacity.

A radical solution would be to curb population growth, no easy task, although there are signs that point in that direction. In any case, if we look at Catalonia, the Valencian Community, and the Balearic Islands as a whole, where the ecological footprint is three times greater than what would be sustainable, according to Ernest Garcia, we would need "a 66% reduction in population, or a similar reduction in consumption, or a tripling of the eco-efficiency of production techniques, or partial combinations of all three." Not easy, of course. In fact, we are heading in the opposite direction. And we also have a large transient tourist population.

Environmental tension manifests itself as follows: on one side, there are the climate change deniers, entrenched in a fabulous contradiction: between the denial of science and a blind faith in technological progress. On the other side, there is a diverse bloc in which Ernest Garcia sees two religions: Holy Industry and Holy Revolution. The former are the techno-optimists who believe that the climate crisis can be addressed by maintaining economic growth with a green capitalism; the latter are the idealists of Less is morewho believe in local solutions and a change in lifestyle.

It's hard not to be skeptical of the faith of both sides. Simply putting solar panels on every roof won't be enough, but there's no doubt they're absolutely necessary. Riding a bicycle is all well and good, but it's not enough. It's also hard to believe that people will give up having a mobile phone and internet at home, traveling by plane, or enjoying a protein-rich diet (reversing progress is never easy). And all of this implies a massive energy consumption on a global scale. We need large and small solar and wind farms. We need everything: Holy Industry and Holy Revolution. They won't be easy to reconcile.