Renewables: only fuel change

In The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin recovers the reinterpretation of human evolution by anthropologist Elizabeth Fisher. Instead of the story of the hunter-man who, with his weapon, kills mammoths and conquers the earth, she invites us to imagine that perhaps the first human tool was a bag: a container for gathering, transporting, storing, and sharing food. It is coherent.

I wonder if the energy transition proposed by the administrations is not written with the same old script of the hero-dominator man: is it not a new technological epic that will save civilization from the climate crisis that this very narrative has generated? Are large renewable energy parks the latest chapter of the same feat?

In Catalonia, this debate is very much alive regarding the implementation of PLATER, the territorial sectoral plan for the implementation of renewable energies, provisionally halted following protests from the territory. More than 300 rural municipalities have requested its reform; Unió de Pagesos (Farmers' Union) has also expressed its rejection, and about sixty entities, under the umbrella of Pobles Vius, have mobilized with a clear message: "The rural world is not for sale. We want living villages. No to PLATER". On the other side is the administration, the business sector, and initiatives like Renovem-nos.

A good part of the differences centers on where to install the infrastructure, which landscapes must bear it, and how to distribute the costs and benefits. These are legitimate questions. Territories must be able to decide and defend themselves against unfair implementation. But, returning to Le Guin, there is a prior question that is too often left out of the conversation: what narrative of society lies behind these projects? What do we want all this energy for?

It is the key issue: the energy transition proposed to us keeps the paradigm of economic growth intact. Salvador Illa expressed it forcefully regarding the macro-photovoltaic park in Alcarràs: "Catalonia cannot afford to stop". We are changing fuel to continue traveling along the same road of the "imperial mode of living" that Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen describe in the eponymous book.

I make it concrete with a series of uncomfortable questions: green energy to support more airports, larger ones, and more tourism? To feed more mega-farms and, therefore, more soy imports and more deforestation? To install in rural areas data centers and artificial intelligence gigafactories that drain water resources? To make the "great revolution" of the electric car possible?

There is a second fundamental issue that also does not occupy a central place in the debate: the material and energy cost of panels, batteries, wind turbines and infrastructure, and above all who assumes the consequences. If a significant part of the mineral extraction and ecological impacts is shifted to the territories of the Global South, while the benefits and consumption are concentrated in enriched countries, the old colonial story does not disappear just because electricity is called green. A bag that is only filled with what has been taken from others is not a bag for sharing. We cannot sustain our consumption at the expense of the plundering of other peoples' resources, the destruction of their ecosystems and the loss of their livelihoods, and then be surprised when the affected people are forced to leave.

The debate about renewables here or there, the technical discussions, are managing to displace the real debate, the one we seem unwilling to face: we need to transform the way we inhabit the territory and move towards another civilization, less dependent on so much energy and materials and on the exploitation of other territories. I return to make it concrete with a series of uncomfortable questions: is it necessary to deindustrialize a good part of an economy oriented to produce more and more unnecessary goods? Should we ruralize our societies? Is it necessary to guarantee food through small agroecological farming? Should we deurbanize and deglobalize our minds?

Faced with climate chaos, talking about transition falls short. We need to talk about economic, social and cultural transformation.