Many years ago I was called into an executive boardroom where angry housewives calling themselves environmentalists had gathered to “educate” the C-suite and senior management on why our investments in fossil fuel projects were bad. This was after they had blocked access to the gate.
With nary a discernible science or engineering qualification among them, they began to “educate us” on how SA was lagging behind the energy revolution and needed to “run on 100% renewables like California, Brazil and Germany”. One woman went even further, saying: “People don’t have to run dishwashers; they can use their hands.”
I will never forget those words, because in her head she genuinely thought I was criss-crossing the continent handing out luxury appliances. The audacity. I work in Africa, where 60% of people have no access to electricity; where that lack of electricity affects infant mortality, children’s academic progression and women’s economic participation.
I was working on electrification projects that meant thousands of women no longer had to give birth by candlelight, and girls could walk home safely on well-lit roads.
The irony of them driving to our offices in diesel-powered cars and going home to wood fireplaces, with gas ovens to cook dinner and later retire to warm showers from electricity most likely produced by burning coal, was lost on them. They had neglected to mention that they didn’t care about the eight-year-old girl mining cobalt to power the cellphones, tablets and laptops they carried.
They were not worried about the nimble fingers of children used to assemble semiconductors for electric vehicles; they didn’t care to know that the battery value chain includes nickel and lithium, which are mined with the blood of young boys in Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo.
They didn’t consider that their fast fashion and dumping of old solar panels was creating a problem for East and West African nations that have become a dumping ground for other countries. I doubt as they sat drinking their hot chocolate that night, that they considered how the cocoa beans were harvested by children who were trafficked into Ghana and Ivory Coast to work as cocoa slaves.
Every year I tell my energy economics students to own their contribution to the energy value chain and make informed choices. We all contribute to unjust societies through our choices, but the harm must be minimised. This can be done by reducing our consumerism, buying higher-quality clothing and keeping it longer, driving or flying less, using mass public transport, practising demand side management by using less water and electricity, and by buying sustainably sourced goods.
Many people like to think of themselves as eco-warriors who are concerned about the planet when in reality they are clueless about any laws of physics and engineering and teeter dangerously close to the absurd.
The most dangerous of these, are the funded eco-fascists who combine environmentalism with authoritarian and often racist ideas. Though they have legitimate concerns about environmental degradation, their solutions are often extreme and grounded in hatred of other groups.
They believe in an authoritarian government to control the population and enforce environmental policy. They believe certain ethnic groups and immigrants are leading to environmental degradation by using up resources or polluting excessively. This leads to discussions akin to eugenics, and a belief that overpopulation, particularly by nonwhites, is an environmental threat.
These eco-warriors can quickly become eco-terrorists who hold AGMs to ransom and employ sabotage, arson and threats against people or organisations they believe are polluting. They scale buildings, spray-paint priceless works of art and threaten to shut down listed companies, all under the guise of being frustrated with what they deem to be government or corporate inaction on climate change.
We should worry greatly when these eco-terrorists infiltrate our academic spaces and government hallways, influencing policy decisions that are funded by questionable sources and will affect millions.
• Mashele, an energy economist, is a member of the board of the National Transmission Company of SA.
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