Comment on Europe greenwashing with north Africa’s renewable energy, report says
keepthepace@slrpnk.net 3 days ago
There are several weird things in that report. There are definitely valid criticism of neo-colonialism, but I don’t see how it ticks the greenwashing box. The decarbonation achieved thanks to renewable power plants in MENA is real, it is not just a marketing campaign. Could it be done better? Yes. Does it help the climate crisis? Yes.
I also find this title weird: “Leveraging Communal, Traditional, and Ancestral Models in Pursuit of Feminist, People-First Wellbeing Economies”. In MENA, traditional/ancestral ways are not exactly femininist. Dont let the fight against colonialism trap you into believing that non-western ways are necessarily superior in every aspect.
You know what is absent in that report? Discussion about the climate impact of transtioning from hydrocarbon industries into renewable. This has been a constant criticism of Greenpeace and a pretty serious blind spot for an environmental organization: not caring much about CO2. Now I agree that CO2 emissions are not the only problem in the world and that it should not prevent us to fight the other problems, but criticizing a renewable transition without a word on its actual efficacy is really missing the point.
solo@slrpnk.net 3 days ago
To my understanding, the greewashing part, is more related to the title of the article, not the report itself.
Two things in relation to that statement:
Muslim places have never been homogeneous, nor are they now. The position of women has been very different from place to place, but through time as well. For example, in the past women in Islamic law had the right to divorce long before the European ones had, and they had the right to property. That said, I am not denying that, just like Christianity, it is a patriarchy-based religion.
The way I read the title is quite different: Pursuing Feminism and People-First Wellbeing Economies through Leveraging Communal, Traditional, and Ancestral Models
It does talk quite a lot about renewable energy. Personally, I don’t have the need in this talk to include the term “transition” because so far, policies talk about transition and what they do is “addition”, because extraction is not diminishing.
keepthepace@slrpnk.net 2 days ago
I know that during the Victorian era, women had more rights in Islamic countries than in UK. Women-initiated divorce was possible in some MENA countries long before it was possible in many European countries. Repudiation (male-initiated divorce) was also way easier and easier than the costly female-initiated one (where they had to repay their dowry)
That’s an extremely low feminist standard for 2025 to say “well we are not worse than the worst part of history”.
It never talks about the positive impact it has on CO2 emission. Which is the whole point. Talking about the negative externalities of this effort is like focusing on all the side effects of a life-saving surgery without ever mentioning the life saving aspects!
I feel the criticism is not at all in renewables. It is in the relationships between rich countries and former colonies, whether they are trading oil, electricity or cocoa.
I’d rather live in a world without exploitation or coercion in our production system but I’d also rather live in a world where this system is used to transition out of fossil fuels than not.
solo@slrpnk.net 2 days ago
Just to be clear, of course I believe green energy should be implemented more. Still, I believe there is room for criticism and this is what this report does (btw I’m definitely not a fan of Greenpeace). Actually, I believe this sort of criticism is necessary because we live under capitalism.
A kinda similar example I could give from Europe would be in relation to some protected areas called Natura 2000. Briefly, in some of these places wind turbines are installed by the thousands and the locals are protesting against that and they say stuff like “No to wind turbines”. I would not expect, nor need from these people to talk about the benefits of wind turbines.
keepthepace@slrpnk.net 2 days ago
I agree that capitalism needs to be criticized and neo-colonialism as well, but not under the guise of ecology. You can transition out of fossils while remaining in capitalism, you can get out of capitalism without getting out of fossils. These problems are important but perpendicular.
Why not? In the countryside I used to live in, I had the same person ask me to sign a petition against nuclear power plants and 3 weeks later against a solar farm project that would cut down trees. That militant activist was not aware of the amount of fossils that was going into the local electricity mix. She was genuinely surprised when I showed her that she is actively lobbying against a transition out of fossil fuels.
Locals are not dumber than centralized powers but they are not smarter either.