Greenwashing

Greenwashing is the act or practice of making a product, policy, activity, etc. appear to be more environmentally friendly or less environmentally damaging than it is.

Greenwashing has largely replaced the green actions of the 1960s and 1970s, when government policies protected huge swaths of land and nature for future generations, and introduced pollution control measures driving impressive improvements in air and water quality.

Today the world’s governments are the biggest enemy to the environment promoting policies that maximize the amount of land, material, and waste required to generate electricity, under the guise of green.
With a lack of rigorous measurement greenwashing is rife and bogus claims go uncontested with a media loyal to ideology rather than truth. Fortunately, an abundance of solid government data showing the facts on energy production exists, which is the focus of this section.

Fast Facts

• Being green used to involve personal sacrifices in terms of comfort and convenience, all in the pursuit of a better ecological state.
• Today, the act of virtue signaling confers green credentials for the most energy-wasteful individual behaviors and government policies.
• For some being green means initiating actions that preserve natural landscapes, safeguard air and water quality, and protect both human health and the environment.
• “Greenwashing” defines actions that are either meaningless or detrimental to the environment, yet are presented as environmentally friendly. 
• The Paris Climate Agreement exemplifies greenwashing as it permits countries to project an image of environmental responsibility while engaging in actions that accelerate the generation of greenhouse gases.
• The Democratic Green New Deal is the US equivalent of the Paris Climate Agreement, trashing the planet and impoverishing people while doing nothing to reduce greenhouse gas generation.
• Climate Action Plans (CAP) provide greenwashing opportunities for local communities that focus on meaningless actions, or better yet, actions that are damaging to the environment.
• The Edmonds, WA CAP is the poster child for greenwashing actions damaging to the environment by focusing on installing rooftop solar, based on superficial simplistic thinking, solar good, rather than math-based physics.
  • Solar panels in the worst location for incident Sun exposure in the lower 48, produce a pittance of unreliable, junk power, that does not replace fossil fuel consumption while requiring energy and materials to manufacture.
• Germany’s energy transition from reliable virtually carbon-free nuclear power to unreliable wind and solar exemplifies environmental recklessness passing as green based on resources consumed, land disturbed, and waste and greenhouse gases generated.
  • Since Germans refuse to reduce or eliminate electricity usage during the 90% of the year when it is cloudy, nighttime, or the sun is low on the horizon, running on solar means running on coal, natural gas, or imported electricity, whenever the wind dies down. 
  • A 100 W solar panel in Germany produces an average of 2 W over 24 hours and zero power for most hours of the winter days.

Background

As a child of the 1960s being green on a personal level meant making sacrifices in comfort and convenience for a better environment. Riding your bike to the store instead of driving, turning your thermostat down to 60 F at night, (or off you were a true environmental warrior) to reduce energy consumption, or making a monthly trip to your recycling center with your car stacked with newspapers, glass bottles, and aluminum cans.

Today behavior is largely separated from social credit, at least among the self-righteous whose green credentials never seem to include one of the few things that matter, like driving a fuel-efficient car. A similar situation occurs with public policies. The most irresponsible environmental bills, when measured by statistics such as material consumption, land area disturbance, or even carbon dioxide (CO₂) generation, are proudly presented for green credentials.

Politicians abuse the term, “green,” to garner votes, companies to sell products, and individuals to justify feelings of moral superiority.

Green

Hyperlink

• https://factsanddata.org/greenwashing/#Green

Preserving Nature

During the 1800s, an era when a single US farmer produced enough food to sustain only 3 to 5 individuals, adopting an environmentally conscious stance meant advocating for the preservation of undisturbed natural lands. The establishment of the inaugural national park, Yellowstone, in 1872, stands as a significant beacon of environmentally conscious action, inspiring over 100 countries to follow suit in creating national parks.

Eradicating Air & Water Pollution

In the aftermath of World War II, the environmental movement shifted its focus to safeguarding water and air quality. The realization of the adverse health effects stemming from the release of hazardous substances into the environment during manufacturing prompted the enactment of laws aimed at upholding water and air standards. These regulations underwent continuous enhancements over the ensuing decades.

The environmental movement of the 1970s played a pivotal role in achieving historic reductions in water and air pollution, as well as in setting aside pristine landscapes for conservation.

Subsequent concerns centered on the unforeseen repercussions of chemicals discharged into the environment. DDT, an insecticide credited with saving over 500 million lives by combating disease-carrying mosquitoes like those spreading malaria, was found in human tissues, leading to its prohibition in the US in 1972. However, questions have arisen, particularly from those familiar with the dire economic conditions in impoverished malaria-stricken regions, regarding the ethical implications of this ban.

The removal of lead from gasoline and paint stands as another commendable example of environmentally conscious actions. Scientific research demonstrated that childhood exposure to lead adversely impacted cognitive abilities, prompting the elimination of lead from gasoline. 

The introduction of auto emission controls effectively eradicated smog conditions in major US cities.  

Saving the Ozone Layer

In the 1980s, an enlargement of the ozone layer hole over the Southern Hemisphere, a natural phenomenon occurring annually, raised concerns among scientists stationed in Antarctica due to apprehensions about the negative health consequences of excessive ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Recognized as a protective shield for plant and animal life on Earth, the ozone layer was depleting primarily due to chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), utilized as refrigerants and aerosol propellants. These compounds also functioned as potent greenhouse gases. In response, the Montreal Protocol was signed in 1987 by nearly 200 nations, imposing restrictions on CFC production and initiating a phased transition to less harmful alternatives. Although CFCs were swiftly prohibited in aerosol cans, a context where their exceptional performance characteristics were underutilized, their removal from air conditioning and refrigeration systems took longer, with poorer nations receiving extensions to mitigate undue economic hardship.

Around the same period, as the public was absorbing the lesson from the ozone layer depletion, recognizing humanity’s capability to alter the climate, the issue of global warming surfaced in the media. Early computer models indicated that slight modifications in atmospheric temperatures, attributed to human activities, could significantly impact agriculture. James Hansen, a NASA climate scientist, emerged as a prominent voice, delivering testimonies to Congress and serving as a scientific advisor to then-Vice President Al Gore. Although his group’s model-based prediction that “global warming predicted in the next 20 years will make the Earth warmer than it has been in the past 100,000 years” missed the mark, the overarching trend of rising temperatures and widespread glacier melt has proven accurate.

While identifying climate change as an environmental concern indeed represents a facet of being environmentally conscious, the subsequent response has often epitomized the practice of greenwashing.

Greenwashing Defined

Hyperlink

• https://factsanddata.org/greenwashing/#Greenwashing-Defined

The term greenwashing is formed by the union of the words green and brainwashing. It was created by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in the 1990s to describe environmentally harmful practices of big industrial groups. Today greenwashing generally refers to meaningless or increasingly harmful actions to the environment that pass as green.

Effective actions that made a huge difference in the environment have been replaced by greenwashing, with policies that allow the rich to feel guilt-free for their glutinous consumption of natural resources. Limousine liberals who drive their gas-guzzling SUVs or pick-up trucks can now buy an electricity-guzzling pickup truck guilt-free with government subsidies, much of it paid for by endless borrowing. Lower-income taxpayers will even pay electricity surcharges, which make rooftop solar installations that consume natural resources while doing nothing to eliminate coal power plants or alternate greenhouse gas generator production, financially profitable for the wealthier consumers who install them.

Trillions of dollars squandered on actions that increase greenhouse gases, while trashing the planet, and disturbing massive amounts of nature, at a huge financial cost to the taxpayer is greenwashing at its worst. Climate treaties and action plans that reward behaviors that increase greenhouse gas generation, and environmental destruction, come in at a close second, the starting point of this section.

Paris Climate Agreement

Hyperlink

• https://factsanddata.org/greenwashing/#Paris-Climate-Agreement

After enduring complaints about the US “withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement,” I decided to examine the document myself and observed an abundance of virtue-signaling greenwashing. 

This accord allows its signatories to lay claim to zero emissions for energy generated through the combustion of biomass (wood), even though wood burning generates more CO₂ than coal and releases a slew of noxious combustion by-products.

Astonishingly, the affluent elites, who lecture energy-deprived Africans on the perils of coal burning, intend to fulfill 60% of their renewable energy objectives by burning wood.  Wood from trees felled from ancient forests, and healthy forests at their peak capacity for removing CO₂ from the atmosphere, not just wood scraps left over from processing lumber.  This practice produces approximately 2.5 times the CO₂ emissions of natural gas. 

The focus on renewable energy targets rather than CO₂ reduction underscores how the document caters to ideology and special interests profiting from this rather than pursuing a valuable goal.  

In one key omission, the agreement excludes China, a nation that authorized the construction of over 100 new coal-fired power plants in 2022, rendering the agreement irrelevant to anyone genuinely concerned about climate change. However, signing the agreement is already a meaningless gesture since each country independently selects its own emissions targets, with no penalties for failing to meet them.  

The Paris Climate Agreement is the virtue-signaling alternative to the only practical and proven means to dramatically reduce greenhouse generation during the next decade.  Making nuclear energy so cheap that it becomes the preferred power choice for every energy-deprived country worldwide.

While climate change agreements are notorious for their greenwashing traditions, the Montreal Protocol stands out due to its focus on effective intelligent actions that meet a goal vital to life on Earth. 

Green New Deal

Hyperlink

• https://factsanddata.org/greenwashing/#Green-New-Deal

The biggest risk from climate change is moronic responses like the Democratic New Green Deal, which squanders money that could be spent on an effective means of reducing greenhouse gas generation and accommodating the impacts of a warmer environment.

During my engineering career, my group often declined offers for free engineering support from university students due to their poor grasp of reality. Stanford engineering professor Mark Jacobson’s absurd claims regarding the practicality of running the US on 100% unreliable wind and solar puts him in the same category as the engineering students.

Empowered by the rampant censorship of any facts disproving Democratic narratives on COVID, race, and energy, Mark Jacobson sued for defamation the parties pointing out absurd claims and errors in his paper. Jacobson’s lawsuit is an appalling and unethical attack on free speech and scientific inquiry unheard of in the technical community.

Climate Action Plans

Hyperlink

• https://factsanddata.org/greenwashing/#Climate-Action-Plans

Few things convey a sense of environmental virtue as effectively as a climate action plan (CAP) at the local level. Yet, to truly embody greenwashing, such a plan must prioritize actions that are void of significance, or even better, actions that contribute harm to the environment. An illustrative case can be found in Edmonds, a suburban area north of Seattle, which exemplifies a CAP typifying greenwashing. This plan’s recommendations are rooted in simplistic and romantic ideals, “solar good,” without considering fundamental practicalities. Solar panels require massive amounts of material to produce a pittance of unreliable power, virtually none during winter when most people prefer running a home heating system.

If citizens eager to work on a CAP showed a similar fervor for STUDYING the issue they would soon discover the Seattle/Edmonds region is very cloudy.  Or they could merely look out their windows and notice the dreary overcast skies occurring 9 months out of the year. 

You need numbers to make intelligent decisions that matter, like reducing greenhouse gas emissions with an acceptable financial and environmental impact.  Rooftop solar electricity generation is based on incident solar load, information readily available for most major cities, including Seattle.  Plotting the solar flux data for the shortest and longest days of the year, winter and summer solstice, provides a quick estimate of the magnitude and reliability of power produced from rooftop solar in an area.  

I have surge protectors all over my house because small variations in the current or voltage of power entering a home can destroy electronics.  The constant oscillations in power entering utility grids from rooftop solar installations are a danger to grid stability.  This junk power, in sufficient quantity, drives the inefficient use of gas turbines to respond to this unstable power, burning more fuel in the process.

Rooftop Solar

Hyperlink

• https://factsanddata.org/greenwashing/#Rooftop-Solar

Since heating is the biggest energy use in Seattle, winter power production is the key factor in determining the value of rooftop solar. Reliable electricity to power heat pumps is needed to support plans to outlaw gas furnaces.  Otherwise, more turbines powered by natural gas will be needed to power the added heat pumps, defeating the purpose of banning gas hookups. Unless excess hydroelectric power is available which defeats the purpose of installing rooftop solar.

How does rooftop solar work in a location like California, which has some of the sunniest areas in the US? The data shows a 4-fold seasonal variation between the sunnier long summer days and shorter cloudier winter days.  Since the power use varies little between seasons, a billion-dollar battery backup design to level out a daily swing in solar power is useless when it comes to dealing with a seasonal variation.  Consequently, ratepayers continue funding their existing reliable power system, typically natural gas turbines, in addition to an insanely costly and environmentally damaging battery backup.  

Environmental Impact

Hyperlink

• https://factsanddata.org/greenwashing/#Environmental-Impact

The rooftop panel that produces almost no power during the dreariest winter days does not grow on trees. It takes massive amounts of material, relative to the amount of unreliable power it produces. Over 30 times as much as a nuclear power plant which produces reliable 24/7 power and more than 100 times as much metal

The US Department of Energy looked into this issue and came out with the following data on material requirements for different energy sources in 2015.

Recycling panels is a non-trivial task typically costing more than the value of the materials captured.  It is often cheaper to throw the panels away, allowing toxic chemicals to leach into the surrounding soil.  Although Europe is adopting guidelines designed to prevent this waste stream from poisoning the developing world.  The initial rooftop solar panels installed in Germany are just now reaching the end of their 25-year lifespans, leading to a tsunami of this new electronic waste stream.    

Costs

PV Solar makes no financial sense in Seattle, or almost anywhere else, due to the small amount of power produced relative to the resources required to manufacture and install them.  Massive government subsidies, therefore, are required to encourage its use and complete the cycle of virtue-signaling greenwashing.  Subsidies paid for by taxpayers through higher utility bills.  

Germany

Hyperlink

• https://factsanddata.org/greenwashing/#Germany

The champion of environmentally damaging greenwashing is GERMANY.  In 2011, Germany adopted an energy policy that proposed replacing all of their nuclear reactors and coal-generating power plants with unreliable wind and solar.  

Germany closed nuclear power plants producing reliable power requiring no backup, to replace them with solar, which produces about 4 times the greenhouse gas, which is then backed up with gas and coal power which produces between 80 to more than 200 times the greenhouse gas emissions. 

Natural Gas Furnace Bans

Hyperlink

• https://factsanddata.org/greenwashing/#Natural-Gas-Furnace-Bans

The latest trend in Greenwashing is forcing consumers towards electrification, by banning natural gas stoves and furnaces, conveniently ignoring the additional natural gas that will be burned to generate the additional electricity necessary to power the heat pumps and electric stoves.

Washington state customers are dependent on natural gas generated electricity 12 months out of the year. This means electrification of homes transfers the burning of natural gas from the homeowner’s furnace, water heaters, and stoves to natural gas turbines generating the additional electricity.

The same people pushing natural gas bans promote wind as a replacement for gas generated electricity ignoring the basic facts of nature that a 5 years should be able to understand. The wind is erratic.

While heat pumps are known for generating more thermal energy than the electrical energy it consumes, the efficiency of generating electricity from natural gas must be accounted for. A quick response natural gas turbine, which is typically used to backup unreliable wind energy, has an efficiency of around 35%.

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Hall of Shame

Hyperlink

• https://factsanddata.org/greenwashing/#Hall-of-Shame

Early in life, I noticed that those earning social credit from friends or followers by complaining the loudest about a problem were usually the biggest contributors to that same problem.  

Here we honor the stellar leaders and organizations of climate change and environmental hypocrisy, starting with former vice-president Al Gore.

Al Gore

In his documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” the former vice president calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.  The day after Gore received the Academy Award for his film a Tennessee researcher obtained copies of his energy bills through the Freedom of Information Act, which exposed him for the energy glutenous fat cat he was. While lecturing the average American on the need to reduce their energy consumption, he was consuming 20 times as much as the average household.

In response to this hypocrisy which threatened his credibility with those who lived by principles rather than idol worship, he initiated multiple expensive green modifications, such as installing rooftop solar panels and a ground source heat pump. After these expensive upgrades, which are estimated to cost a minimum of $250,000, his electricity bill increased to 34 times the national average. All for 1 individual who owns a 2nd mansion in California.

I found this especially appalling having voted for Gore for president.

Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders exemplifies the biggest risk in dealing with climate change. Idealogues lacking the intelligence, wisdom, and or character to review math-based data before initiating policies detrimental to the environment. Championing closing the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, which produced virtually carbon-free electricity to replace with natural gas turbines, which produce 80 times the greenhouse gases.  

Green Colonialism

After abandoning their colonization of resource-rich nations for self-determination starting at the end of World War II, the ugly head of colonialism arose with a new set of self-righteous elites who fought to keep reliable cheap energy from the desperately poor, in the name of green.  Wealthy countries continue burning massive amounts of hydrocarbons while imposing bans on the poorest countries, which are also the lowest emitting countries, in a type of “green colonialism.”  International lenders are pressured to stop financing hydrocarbon projects are part of a “double standard.”