Original subtitles

Downloaded from YTS.MX

(intense electronic music)

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX

(haunting music)

- [Jeff] I've got a question.

How long do you think we humans have?

- How long does the human race have?

- Ooh.

- Um.

- Oh, wow.

- I don't exactly know, but may be soon.

- I have no clue.

- [Jeff] No? (laughing)

- I hope I get me at least 50 more years. (laughing)

- I think there's infinite amount of time.

- Infinite.

It's infinite, yeah.

- I give us a million.

A million years.

- Being kind, I would say probably about 10 years.

- 10, 12 years.

- Thousands of years.

- 47 years, three months, five days.

It's approximate.

- We're kind of like cockroaches on the planet,

no matter how much damage we'll do,

enough of us will survive to procreate and keep it going.

- Unless we can get to another planet,

but then we're just gonna fuck it up like we did Earth.

- Well, I think that we will be here

for a long time, but we will change.

We're gonna turn back into apes.

(suspenseful dramatic music)

- [Jeff] Have you ever wondered what would happen

if a single species took over an entire planet?

Maybe they're cute, maybe they're clever

but lack a certain,

shall we say,

self-restraint?

(somber dramatic music)

What if they go too far?

What if they go way, way, way,

way, way too far?

(somber dramatic music)

How would they know when it's their time to go?

(intriguing synthesizer music)

(intensifying music)

(music fading)

(old-timey music)

- Due to our release through factories

and automobiles every year

of more than six billion tons of carbon dioxide,

our atmosphere seems to be getting warmer.

- This is bad?

- Well, it's been calculated a few degrees rise

in the Earth's temperature would melt the polar ice caps.

(crashing ice into water)

And if this happens, an inland sea would fill a good portion

of the Mississippi valley.

For in weather, we're not only dealing with forces

of a far greater variety

than even the atomic physicist encounters,

but with life itself.

(synthesizer music)

- [Jeff] That was 1958.

We've known about the dangers

of climate change for six decades.

Back then, there was so much air pollution

it would actually block out the sun.

There was so much water pollution, rivers caught on fire.

(synthesizer music)

Forget throwing plastic bottles into the water,

we tossed our cars in there.

We also knew someday we'd run out of oil.

- For millions of Americans,

this may be the worst weekend they've ever faced

for finding gasoline to give them the automobile freedom

they take as their due.

- [Jeff] I never doubted humans would find a better way

and I wanted to be part of it.

A scientist sounded the alarm

and the modern environmental movement was born.

- Unless we do bring these chemicals under better control,

we are certainly headed for disaster.

- [Jeff] Students all across the country

organized the first Earth Day.

- This point in time, it's very, very fashionable

to talk about the environment

but as every day proceeds, we find very,

very little concrete being done.

- [Jeff] As for me, you might say

I was an early environmentalist.

When I was nine years old,

a bulldozer began knocking down the woods near my home.

I retaliated by putting sand in its gas tank.

(synthesizer music)

When I grew up, I became a tree hugger and moved

to the wilds of Northern Michigan

to build a sustainable homestead and commune with nature.

I wired my cabin for solar panels

and heated with wood instead of fossil fuels.

I wrote about sustainable living

and environmental issues for the Mother Earth News

and several news outlets.

(intensifying music)

I traveled the country documenting invasive species,

(banging and clunking)

(buzzing) ecosystem collapse,

and species threatened with extinction.

- (tapping) Come on, girls, boys.

(crowd chanting)

- I covered protests against destroying mountains for coal.

(people shouting and clapping)

And was once even confronted by the BP police.

(car tires crunching)

- Journalist. - You're a journalist?

- [Jeff] Jeff Gibbs, yeah.

- By all means, you can take all the pictures you want.

- [Jeff] Okay.

- We'll write a report and then we have to send it

to the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's office

they'll call you.

(traffic whizzing)

(door slamming)

- [Jeff] Through all of this, I kept wondering,

why are we still addicted to fossil fuels?

So I decided to begin following the green energy movement.

(mild rock music)

What better place to check out

how our renewable energy revolution is coming along,

than a solar festival

in the Green Mountain state of Vermont

powered by 100% solar energy.

(bass guitar and guitar music)

- Solar. (laughing)

- [Jeff] I was having fun

and got a chance to ask

about getting solar panels installed.

- You can keep adding, so maybe every time

you get a tax return, buy another solar panel?

(singing rock music)

- [Jeff] But then, a little rain began to fall.

(rock band playing and singing)

♪ Packed up my guitar ♪

♪ Headed to the nearest bowling alley ♪

My camera man noticed some commotion behind the stage.

(thudding)

- [Jeff] So the festival's run off

solar energy, primarily?

- [Jeff] Right.

- But the biofuel generator wasn't enough,

so they wound up plugging

into the electrical grid that we all use.

- The other inverter operating,

it's actually pulling power in from the grid,

charging the batteries.

It's running backwards from the way

we originally intended to do it, but.

(guitar music)

- [Jeff] That was disappointing.

(singing)

But after all, it had been raining.

Maybe next time things would go better.

(mellow rock music)

Luckily for us, hope was on the way.

- It's been a long time comin' but tonight,

change has come to America.

(crowd cheering)

(guitar music)

- [Jeff] Green activists across the country cheered

when newly elected president Barack Obama

rolled out a trillion dollar stimulus package

with nearly 100 billion dollars for green energy.

(guitar strumming and people chanting)

Green was finally ramping up

and everyone wanted to be part of it.

President Obama brought in environmental activist Van Jones,

from the Apollo Alliance, with shovel-ready projects.

- They've gotta put up tens of thousands of wind farms,

they've gotta put up millions of solar panels.

- [Jeff] Former Vice President Al Gore,

who had a few years earlier released an Oscar winning film,

shared his ideas with the president.

- We have the opportunity now

to create jobs all across this country,

in all 50 states, to repower America.

- [Jeff] Al Gore had already encouraged

billionaire airline owner Sir Richard Branson

to invest big-time in green energy.

- Branson is pledging future profits from his airline

to the tune of perhaps three billion dollars.

Three billion, that's with a B, to fight global warming!

- Is Al Gore a prophet?

(laughing)

- Ah, um, ah, how do you spell "prophet?" (laughing)

(all laughing)

- [Jeff] Investors came forward.

- [Newswoman] Investor Vinod Khosla, known as the father

of the clean tech revolution,

has poured over a billion dollars of his own money

into some fifty energy startups.

- [Jeff] Major banks were eager to get involved.

- By 2020, we think, renewables will require

395 billion on an annual basis.

- [Jeff] Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.,

was both on the board of major environmental organizations

and was leading a green energy investment group.

- We build wind farms, we build solar farms,

once you build our plant, it's free energy forever.

(calm music)

- [Jeff] The Sierra Club received 50 million dollars

from billionaire and former New York City mayor

Michael Bloomberg.

Their mission?

Fight coal and promote clean energy.

- So with the mayor's gift, here's what will happen.

We'll have a large and aggressive presence in 46 states.

- It's time for America to find a new energy path.

One that takes us beyond coal.

- So funny--

- [Jeff] And then Bill McKibben,

one of the nation's leading environmentalists

and author of a breakthrough book called

"The End of Nature,"

formed an organization called 350.org

with the mission of igniting a global climate movement.

(calming music)

- Can I show off my necktie for a minute

'cause they made it for me yesterday?

It's got that 350 on it

'cause it's the most important number in the world.

- [Jeff] Things were looking up

and the green energy revolution was under way.

(wind blowing)

Michigan had been hit hard by the Great Recession

and hundreds of millions of dollars

in green stimulus money was arriving.

Now, to do their part for the new green economy,

General Motors introduced a new line of electric vehicles.

When the Chevy Volt was ready for release,

I attended their press conference.

- So, these electric vehicles are ready

for public consumption and we're ready

with the infrastructure, with the rates,

with the communications.

- I am extremely grateful to be here today and in fact,

this is a chance for me to say, thank you, more formally.

The Chevy Volt is upstairs.

We'll be able to take a look at it.

(banging metal)

- [Woman] You've got about 1,000 photos.

- [Jeff] Yeah.

- This is the plug.

(crowd laughing)

(clicking)

It's as simple as that.

- [Jeff] The batteries are in the trunk?

- No, the battery in this particular design is a T-shape,

right down the center and across the backseat area.

(group talking)

'Cause everybody thought we killed the electric vehicle.

No, we didn't.

It's alive and well.

- [Jeff] So, what's charging the batteries right now?

What's the source of electricity?

- Well, here, it's coming from the building.

- [Jeff] I mean, is it, what's their mix of power?

- Oh, actually, Lansing feeds the building.

- [Jeff] What's that?

- Lansing feeds power to the building.

So, I don't know--

- [Jeff] They're--

- I betcha they're a bit of coal?

I think they're heavy on natural gas, aren't they?

- [Jeff] Right now, the car's charging off your grid?

- Right.

It would be charging off our grid, which is about 95% coal.

- [Jeff] How long do you think it will be

before there's a solar and wind powered grid?

- Oh, golly.

- To suggest that all of the power used

for these cars will be generated from wind and solar,

in the very near future, would not be correct.

In fact, these, we're talking about charging these up

at night, so there won't be any solar at that time.

So we're down to wind and very often,

at night, the wind does fall off.

- I don't think coal is bad.

- [Jeff] The big battle-- The what?

[Jeff] Mountain top removal.

- Oh, mount...

Oh yeah, oh yeah. (laughing)

- [Jeff] Yeah.

- It's got lovely BTUs, it's got lovely energy value.

How do you burn it more cleanly?

I mean, do you see natural gas getting bashed?

- We will be delivering power based

on natural gas very shortly.

And even with that mix, we intend to use biofuels if we can.

- [Jeff] Have you gotten any support?

- Oh, the environment groups are extremely supportive.

- We did install the state's largest solar array

at my company, The Board of Water and Light, it's

just down the street from here a few miles

if you want to take a look at it.

What outfit are you with?

- [Jeff] New World Media, we're doing a segment

on the renewable energy...

- Oh, excuse me, I gotta go for a second

but thanks.

(people chatting)

- [Jeff] I decided to take him up on his offer

to check out their football field sized solar array

right down the street.

- What we're trying to do with this kind of a tour is,

get a sense for what they've already done,

as an indication of what we could do

to push the envelope even further.

- We took a hard look at wind and determined that,

around here, there's not really any real good wind coming

through all the time.

That's what we liked about solar.

You would get the power when you most needed it.

Pass these around, look at 'em.

They are pliable.

Made in Michigan, that was another good thing.

Although, the efficiency

of these panels is only about, just under 8%.

If you happen to be NASA and you happen

to own a rover running around Mars,

they have very efficient panels.

But, we can't afford those

at about a million dollars a square inch.

- The standard answer that we tell everybody is,

we're providing enough to meet

the peak requirements of 50 homes.

However, for most of the people that look

at it a little bit closer,

we generate about 63, 64 thousand kilowatt hours a year.

Our average customer uses

about six thousand kilowatt hours a year.

Six thousand into 64, it's just a little over 10.

We can meet the energy requirements for 10 homes.

Over a year.

(traffic humming)

- Will that be an incentive to put more solar on?

- Well, if you wanted to make all

of the energy required for the city of Lansing over a year?

- Well, how about--

- You'd have a solar array

that was three miles by five miles.

- Right.

But-- - We're not gonna do that.

- But, but, I mean. (woman's voice fades out)

- [Jeff] My friend from the Sierra Club wanted him

to be more positive, but he was not interested.

(distant machinery noise)

As a consequence of the big push for green energy,

wind farms were rising around the nation,

including near my home in northern Michigan.

- We've done coal and nuclear for years.

We've been trying to get in more into the renewable side.

These are the largest in Michigan,

I think it's 482 foot total.

- [Jeff] How many yards of concrete?

- [John] It was 800 yards of concrete in the base,

right around 140 tons of resteel.

- [Jeff] What are the blades made out of?

- That's all fiberglass and balsam.

They're about 36,000 pounds a piece.

This tower will weigh 800,000 pounds when we're done.

Then the cell is 220,000 pounds

and the hub and rotor assembly is another 160.

It's pretty substantial.

(wind turbine sound)

- [Jeff] They were impressive machines.

(wind turbine sound)

But is it possible for machines made

by industrial civilization

to save us from industrial civilization?

(wind turbine whistling)

(group talking together)

In environmental leader Bill McKibben's home state

of Vermont, the Green Mountain state,

a site was being cleared

for the installation of wind turbines.

A group of citizens was concerned

about how the construction

might affect the mountains they love.

I joined them for a tour.

- It's going to be 21 turbines.

- [Group] 21?

- Yeah. - On this project?

- In this project, yeah.

The estimate was maybe there would be three full-time jobs.

- If the goal is to try to make Vermont the leader

in climate change, I appreciate looking

to the sky in the hopes that we can do that.

But more importantly, I'm personally looking

at the ground thinking, this is not the kind of legacy

I'd want to leave to my kids.

When I was a kid we'd go hiking in these woods,

we would be able to drink from the waters

down the hill here, and now you have to question that.

- [Man] And how long are these towers supposed to last?

- [Young Man] 20-something years, 20--

- I know, it's just a nanosecond.

- [Jeff] 20 years?

- Oh, it's a nanosecond in the time of energy.

- [Jeff] Has anybody considered

that this is mountain top removal for wind instead of coal?

- Yeah, and we've even had people say,

"If you can do mountain top removal

in Kentucky and West Virginia for coal,

then it's about time the rest of the country shared

in mountain top removal, too."

- [Jeff] Hello.

- [Jeff] You think they're gonna tell us to move back?

- [Man In Hat] Probably.

The thing is that you've got

to have a fossil fuel power plant backing it up

and idling 100% of the time.

Because if you cycle up or cycle down,

as the demand on the wind comes through,

then you actually generate a bigger carbon footprint

than if you just ran it straight.

- [Jeff] Do you ever go to things where they just go,

"That's not true.

It doesn't matter, we're gonna have a smart grid."

- Doesn't make any difference, they still gotta

have it idling.

Because, let's just say the wind stopped right now.

Just stopped for an hour.

You've got to have that power.

- [Jeff] What do you do?

- I'm an environmental health and safety consultant.

I usually work with businesses to help them do things,

but I would never work with scum like this.

(leaves crunching)

- You didn't get me on camera doing this, did ya?

Not being judgmental or trying to play God,

but we've got to deal with population growth

and sustainable resources, we've all gotta cut back.

All this energy's supposedly going to heat a water park.

We can find unique and different ways to waste energy.

This is not a Vermont company.

Green Mountain Power will be bought out by Gaz Metro

and Gaz Metro is owned by Enbridge, as I understand it,

which is a big resource company in Canada

which is exploiting the tar sands

that wants to build the XL pipeline.

See, it's--

- [Woman] And they're all in bed together.

- Still we don't know the whole story.

- [Jeff] Have you asked Mr. McKibben to come see this?

- He thinks anything renewable is good.

- [Jeff] Yeah.

- At least that's what I've heard people say.

(wind blowing)

(up tempo music)

- [Jeff] I am in a strange position.

I'm against our addiction to fossil fuels

and have long been a fan of green energy.

(crowd talking)

But everywhere I encountered green energy,

it wasn't what it seemed.

- This is like a perpetual energy battery.

- [Jeff] And where do you get the hydrogen from?

- The hydrogen that's in, the hydrogen is sourced

from any hydrocarbon material.

So, you can get it from natural gas, you can get it

from any petroleum or oil based product.

- [Jeff] I read about a zoo that was said

to be powered by elephant manure.

But it turned out the elephants

didn't even produce enough manure to heat the elephant barn.

- Yeah, we don't even really make enough

in what we have, elephant wise, to even do that.

We would need a lot more.

- [Jeff] More elephants?

- [Zoo Keeper] Yep, (woman laughing) more elephants

more manure.

- [Jeff] Ethanol plants also seem

to have a secret ingredient.

- This is the most productive farmland in the world

and we're not that far west of the biggest coal mines

in the world, as well.

So, bring the two together and you have an ethanol plant.

- [Jeff] Great, so ethanol was reliant on two things:

a giant, fossil fuel-based, industrial agricultural system

to produce corn, and even more fossil fuels

in the form of coal.

All of this in the attempt to replace fossil fuels?

It was enough to make my head explode.

(pulsating music)

I was getting the uneasy feeling

that green energy was not going to save us.

And I wasn't the only one.

- I've counted something

like 25 different alternative energy options.

So surely, among all of those,

there are enough sources

of energy to keep us living basically

the way we are in perpetuity.

That's not the reality.

Currently, we're getting, in some cases,

no energy from these potential options.

- [Jeff] Richard York, of the University of Oregon,

published a study in the Journal of Nature

in which he posed the question- do non-fossil energy sources

actually replace fossil fuels?

- What we implicitly assume, often,

the substitute pushes out

the thing you want it to substitute for.

What you find is,

nations that add non-fossil energy sources do not seem

to see a particular suppression of fossil fuel use.

- [Jeff] That's pretty mind-blowing.

We've got billions of dollars being spent

and green energy is not even replacing fossil fuels?

- They don't even know that that's a question, yes.

- The story that we're in, right now, is okay,

we're in ecological hot water,

but there are technological fixes

and if we're just creative enough,

if we're just ingenious enough

and if we just work hard enough, we will triumph.

Seeking technological fixes, one after another,

is simply going to lead us to another level

of catastrophe sooner rather than later.

- We wanna believe that these things are gonna be available

for us, so if we get a little worried

and somebody comes up with a new thingy and promises

that this will do it for us, we wanna believe.

(guitar strums)

- [Jeff] Because we're a little worried,

are we desperate to accept any idea that sounds alternative

or green?

(guitar strumming)

Are we avoiding looking too closely

because we don't want to know the answer?

Ozzie Zehner, a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley

and Northwestern University was asking some

of the same questions.

- I mean, I thought that solar

and wind were probably very good solutions.

It wasn't really even that long ago.

One of the most dangerous things right now is the illusion

that alternative technologies, like wind and solar,

are somehow different from fossil fuels.

Well I hear a lot of the time that solar cells

are made out of sand.

- [Announcer] Have you ever thought about solar panels?

The main ingredient

that makes them work is silicon, or sand.

- [Announcer] This is the raw material chips

are made of, sand.

- They don't use sand at all.

I'll show you what...

(chair clicking)

So, this is one of the ingredients,

it's actually mined quartz.

(rocks clattering)

(rock exploding)

- [Announcer] Spruce Pine, North Carolina,

regarded as the finest source of high purity quartz

in the world, for semiconductor, solar

and communication applications.

- You can't use sand because sand has too many impurities.

So, you start with a very high quality quartz

and a very high quality coal, and then you put

those two together into an arc furnace and you melt them.

- [Woman] The quartz is then melted with coal

in a large furnace at temperatures of up to 1,800 degrees.

- And so you need more coal to do that.

I'll get another coal out.

When we melt these together,

we get silicon metal and carbon dioxide.

The carbon dioxide just goes off

and you got rid of the carbon

and you're left with silicon metal.

This is not clean coal apparently. (laughing)

- [Jeff] Not clean coal.

Ozzie Zehner said it was an illusion

that renewables were replacing coal or any fossil fuel.

Environmental groups continued telling a different story.

- We've already seen more than 25%

of the U.S. coal fleet has already either retired

or is on a schedule to retire.

- [Jeff] Coal plants were closing, but Ozzie explained

that well meaning people were being misled.

- NV Energy's now gonna go ahead and shut down the plant

and go with renewable.

One of the largest solar plants

and that's gonna happen right behind me.

- Since you can't replace a coal plant with solar,

they're actually replacing the coal plant

with two natural gas plants,

and natural gas is a fossil fuel.

This is the Las Vegas Co-Gen natural gas plant.

This is one of the facilities

that's replacing the coal plant that's being shut down.

This is the Sun Peak generating facility.

This is the second natural gas plant

that was used to replace the coal plant.

And you hear the same story in Iowa.

- [Woman] Instead of using energy generated

by coal-fired power plants,

the solar farm will now avoid

about 2.1 million pounds of carbon pollution.

- But then they're building a larger natural gas plant.

This is a 650 megawatt natural gas plant.

That's four times more megawatts

than the coal plant over there that it's replacing.

And they're doing the same thing in North Carolina,

which was the subject

of that Years of Living Dangerously series.

- Duke Energy operates a coal plant right

outside of Asheville that is the biggest source

of climate pollution in western North Carolina.

And we are working to retire that plant

and replace it with clean energy.

- But what they don't tell you is

that we're also building a larger natural gas facility.

- So, we'll be retiring a two-unit 376 megawatt coal plant.

We'll invest $750 million

to build a state-of-the-art natural gas plant.

- When Michael Brune stands up and talks about clean energy,

he's using solar cells and wind turbines.

- This is the new world

100% clean energy.

- When Michael Bloomberg stands up and says,

"Cleaner energy," he's talking about natural gas.

- Create cleaner energy: solar, wind, and natural gas.

- [Ozzie] In fact, the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign

actually coincides with one of the largest expansions

of fossil fuel production that we've ever pulled off,

most of that being natural gas.

- [Jeff] Ozzie's assertion

that renewables were not replacing fossil fuels,

if true, would upend all of our assumptions

about green energy and what was going to save us.

(tranquil piano music)

What would happen if I asked the same question

to industry insiders?

Like, where do solar panels come from?

- Well, you have to start with a mine.

(laughing)

Or, what's stopping us from running the world

on 100% solar and wind?

- Well, intermittency is one of the major challenges.

- Grid stability.

- The sun's everywhere, except when it's not there.

- There's a lot of developers that were flocking

to California, wanting to connect their solar farms

and wind farms.

The utilities would turn to me and my team

to help them look at what the impact to their grid would be.

- [Jeff] When we add solar cells

or wind turbines to a grid,

do we get to shut off a coal plant?

- That's certainly the goal, the problem is,

or the difference is that renewables are intermittent.

All of a sudden, a cloud cover could come over

and your solar generation could drastically decrease,

and if you don't have something else there

to meet whatever the load is at that moment,

then you're gonna have power outages.

- [Jeff] So, we don't get

to turn a fossil fuel power plant off

when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing?

- Well, it's not that easy.

We need to be able to back up that power

to keep the system steady all the time

so it doesn't collapse.

Most likely that's through fast-acting gas plants,

but also what we call the baseload plants,

either nuclear or coal that are on all the time

but that maybe can be dialed down during the day

and dialed up when demand starts rising.

- [Jeff] Does it affect the efficiency

to turn fossil fuel power plants on and off?

- Oh, yeah.

They don't like to be dialed up and down.

It does make, that's wear and tear for them.

- Turning them on, turning it off, there's energy used

and lost and any time,

kind of like when you turn on your car on and off,

you use a little extra gas

to get it turned on.

I do still think you have

to maintain a baseload of some kind.

- [Jeff] What's the solution then?

- You need energy storage.

- Without storage, you can't count on it.

- If you can store the energy that's created off

of things that are intermittent like solar and wind,

you can store that, now you're reducing your need

for a baseload.

- [Jeff] But would adding storage

like batteries increase the carbon footprint?

- Yeah, absolutely.

In a big way, actually.

And as more energy storage gets on the grid,

it has a mass scale implication.

(piano music)

- [Jeff] When I looked up how much battery storage

there is, it was less than one-tenth

of one percent of what's needed.

In a couple years, they begin to degrade

and need to be replaced a few years later.

I learned that the solar panels don't last forever, either.

- Some solar panels are built to last only 10 years.

So, it's not as if you get this magic free energy.

I don't know that it's the solution,

and here I am helping to sell the materials

that would go into photovoltaics.

- [Jeff] And so to overcome profound limitations

of solar and wind, rarely discussed in the media,

a new generation of technology was rising

in the California desert.

- [Woman] What is this?

- What we're using is a field of mirrors

to focus sunlight onto a tower.

The power plant itself, at 377 megawatts,

will be the largest of its kind in the world.

- This will become the biggest solar plant in the world!

(crowd clapping and cheering)

There's some people that look out in a desert,

and they see miles and miles of emptiness.

I see miles and miles of a gold mine.

- [Jeff] But this next generation

had a fossil fuel secret, too.

- This solar facility burns natural gas pretty much

every morning in order to get it started up.

- [Jeff] How long do they have to burn it for?

- Hours, usually.

This is the incoming natural gas for the facility.

This plant would work about as well without natural gas

as I would without coffee in the morning. (laughing)

- [Jeff] Or maybe how you would be without food.

- Or without food, yeah. (laughing)

They have to file for acid rain permits,

permits for nitrous oxide emissions,

they have to apply for carbon offset permits.

Because they're producing carbon dioxide here,

so they have to offset that.

The whole thing is built using fossil fuel infrastructure,

from the concrete to the steel to the mirrors,

to the backing on the mirrors.

The sun is renewable, but the solar arrays are not.

- [Jeff] Oh, come on.

There's got to be something renewable.

Glass is renewable.

- Glass. (laughing)

Glass is not renewable.

- [Jeff] Iron's renewable.

(laughing)

Aluminum?

That's renewable.

I recycle my soda cans.

(laughing) I know it's renewable.

- Yeah, the problem with all of these materials is

that it takes an incredible amount of energy to mine

and process all of the materials

that go into building something like this.

You use more fossil fuels to do this

than you're getting benefit from it.

You would have been better off just burning the fossil fuels

in the first place, instead of playing pretend.

- [Jeff] That green energy has nothing

to do with fossil fuels is apparently a story

only meant for you and me.

Here is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.,

speaking to oil and gas company insiders.

- It's a combination solar gas plant.

It's a turbine that we just take from a gas plant,

suspend it from a big scaffolding, a tower,

and surround it by giant mirrors in the desert.

The plants that we're building, the wind plants

and the solar plants, are gas plants.

- [Jeff] What kind of game is being played?

- Well (gusting wind) we're basically just being fed a lie.

For instance, you'll hear

about Germany running on wind and solar.

- They were getting 50% of their power

coming from the sun.

- There were days this past summer

when the Germans were generating 80%

of their power from the sun.

- [Ozzie] But Germany

is still Europe's largest consumer of coal.

- But if the most coal is extracted in this region

then the region must also be the largest source of CO2.

- Uhh.

- [Ozzie] Only a small fraction

of their energy actually comes from wind and solar.

In fact, Germany is pushing forward with a large terminal

that could import natural gas from the United States.

Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla,

when he announced his Gigafactory battery plant,

he said it would power itself with wind and solar energy.

- Through a combination of geothermal, wind and solar,

it will produce all the energy that it needs.

- [Ozzie] But in fact, it has lines connecting it

to the same electrical grid that we're all connected to.

(fast paced dramatic music)

Electric cars, wind turbines

and solar panels use rare earth metals.

And in fact, a rare earth mine is

right up the street from here.

In mining these deep deposits, about 90%

of what they pull up out of the ground contains uranium,

thorium and low level of other radionuclides.

Radioactive waste that has to be disposed of somehow,

they kind of turn it into a paste and spread it

over the desert floor.

- [Jeff] Well, that's good for the desert, right?

- Yeah, the desert loves that.

(laughing)

Tesla's electric cars are built with aluminum,

which uses eight times more energy

to manufacture than steel.

They use lithium, which also relies on toxic mining.

And even more graphite, which is one

of the rarest forms of carbon.

In fact, the investors wanted

to open several new graphite mines

after Tesla announced the Gigafactory.

Apple claims to be 100% renewable.

- We never stop thinking about what's best for the planet.

We now run Apple on 100% renewable energy.

(clapping and cheering) All of our facilities, worldwide.

- [Ozzie] And they did chop down a forest

to put up solar panels near their North Carolina plant.

But they didn't disconnect from the grid and they can't.

- Duke says energy hungry companies

like Apple can never go entirely off the grid.

- They're still hooked up to our grid.

(fast paced energetic music)

- [Ozzie] Despite all of the claims,

I haven't found a single entity anywhere in the world

that's running on 100% solar and wind alone.

(suspenseful music)

- [Jeff] It turns out, you don't just need fossil fuels

to run a place like Ivanpah, you need the devil himself,

or in this case, themselves.

- [Ozzie] All of the mirrors that you see there are built

by the Koch brothers, Guardian Glass Industry,

a company that they control.

Koch Carbon creates a lot of the inputs that are used

to create the cement and the concrete and the steel.

And not only that, they build the plants

that builds polysilicon for solar cells.

They have, actually,

their own solar line called Solar Molex.

From every step of the process, the Koch brothers are there.

- [Jeff] But, they're the evil doers.

- Yeah (laughing), the funny part is

that when you criticize solar plants like this,

you're accused of working for the Koch brothers.

(laughing)

That's the idiocy in all of this.

This absolutely can not extend civilization's life.

This relies on the most toxic and industrial processes

that we've ever created.

(drum rolling)

(small triangle dinging)

(pulsating dramatic music)

(music building in intensity)

(up tempo dramatic music)

(music building)

(music tempo increasing)

(music ending dramatically)

- The beauty of a solar facility,

and particularly this technology,

is that it is so environmentally benign.

(roaring of large machinery)

[Jeff] I, too, had once thought

deserts could be sacrifice zones.

(powerful drum based music)

I was wrong.

Deserts are not dead.

They are, in fact, full of ancient life.

(powerful music)

In the desert, the Joshua tree stands, waiting,

waiting for the giant ground sloths

and the mammoths that shall never return.

The Joshua tree depended on the giant mammals

to reach up high and eat their seeds,

and thus disperse the Joshua tree.

(mystical vocal music)

But now, stranded in time and space,

the Joshua tree awaits a new fate.

To be sacrificed

in the name of progress.

- Joshua trees are torn down to make way for solar projects.

23ABC's Cassie Carlisle travels

to the Mojave Desert to talk to neighbors.

- [Cassie] They're not your usual tree.

More like something from fiction,

but these Joshuas are causing quite an uproar.

- No, it makes me sick that they're clearing them off,

killing them real quick,

and now they're grinding them up,

getting rid of all the evidence.

(powerful dramatic music)

- [Jeff] Not far from Ivanpah Solar,

Daggett, California was home

to several generations of solar arrays

including some of the first on the planet.

(wind blowing)

Ozzie and I thought we would take a trip

to see where it all began.

(wind blowing loudly)

- This is one of the sunniest places in the planet, really,

and it's the center of the solar industry

and they've been building and dismantling

and building arrays here for about 40 years.

(man's voice on loudspeaker)

- [Jeff] Then we happened to run

into the mayor of Daggett.

- And then the solar plants out there, my husband,

back in, I'd say '83, '84, they worked out there building

that solar plant out there.

- Yeah, the SEGS.

- And everybody here worked.

- How's that held up?

Is it, are the jobs still here?

- No.

Jobs went bye-bye.

They have their normal people that run the plant,

the plant operators and stuff like that,

the big wigs, you know, they have that.

Where that energy's going, I don't know.

- [Jeff] Were you originally optimistic

that the solar would bring more jobs

and development for people?

- Yeah, we really did, we really did.

A lot of things come into this town, they come and go.

They go really fast.

(loud wind blowing)

- Do you see this?

- [Jeff] Then Ozzie and I discovered

that the giant solar arrays had been razed to the ground.

- Oh, my God.

(wind whooshing)

- [Jeff] I mean, this was huge.

It suddenly dawned on me what we were looking at.

A solar dead zone.

Look at the blowing sand.

- Yeah.

There's sand everywhere,

there's sand dunes forming around this area.

- [Jeff] Wow.

(truck idling)

(solemn music)

So, after all the mining,

the fossil fuels,

the toxins,

the environmental destruction,

here's what happens next.

(somber music)

Only a few years after it was built,

things at Ivanpah began to fall apart.

Broken mirrors littered the desert.

(music intensifying)

Yes, these giant solar

and wind technology installations may last

only a few decades,

(somber music)

then tear it down and start all over again.

(somber music)

If there is enough planet left.

(somber music)

It was becoming clear that

what we have been calling green, renewable energy

and industrial civilization, are one and the same.

Desperate measures not to save the planet,

(thunder crashing)

but to save our way of life.

(somber music)

Desperate measures rather than face the reality,

humans are experiencing the planet's limits

all at once.

- Every different perspective I look at

and imagine, well, we could do more of this,

or go to a larger area or use more of that.

Well, it turns out, there isn't more.

I looked at marine production and fish production

and found that peaked 20 years ago.

More and more of what we eat is from fish farming.

The current acres of actively farmed land,

that has peaked also.

The rivers are already being irrigated

to about the limits of what they can sustain.

The Colorado River doesn't get to the ocean anymore.

Well, then you start looking at ground water,

the Southern Great Plains,

and I think they can almost predict when they will run out

of ground water and it's in a decade or two.

(somber music)

A human vulnerability at the global scale,

that any one of them we could maybe compartmentalize,

but we're seeing them propagating

across topic after topic of society and the earth system.

And I don't think the people

in charge are near nervous enough.

- [Jeff] Though each

of them takes climate change seriously,

every expert I talked to wanted

to bring my attention to the same, underlying problem.

- There are too many human beings using too much, too fast.

- As a global community, we really have got

to start dealing with the issue of population.

- Population growth continues to be the,

not the elephant, the herd of elephants, in the room.

- [Jeff] Can a single species

that's come to dominate an entire planet--

- Be smart enough to voluntarily limit its own presence?

- [Jeff] Is there any precedence for that in nature?

(laughing)

- Wow.

- We have to have our abilities to consume reined in.

Because we're not good at reining them in

if there are seemingly unrestrained resources.

- Species hit the population wall a lot and then they crash.

I mean, that's a common story in biology.

If that happens to us, in a way,

it's the natural order of things.

And I don't think we're gonna find a way out of this one.

I don't.

- [Jeff] As a scientist,

what leads you to that conclusion?

- Well, because right now, a large percentage

of that number is supported by industrial agriculture,

which is heavily subsidized by oil,

and it's not sustainable,

and there's no going back.

Without seeing some sort of major die-off in population,

there's no turning back.

- [Jeff] What's the thing that nobody ever asks you

that you want--

(laughing)

- Nobody's ever asked me if I'm scared.

- [Jeff] Yeah.

- And, I am.

I actually am scared.

I lose sleep over all of this.

(somber music)

- [Jeff] It took modern humans tens of thousands

of years to reach a population of 700 million.

And then we tapped into millions of years

of stored energy, known as fossil fuels.

Our human population exploded.

It increased by 10 times in a mere 200 years.

Our consumption has also exploded,

on average ten times per person,

and many times more in the Western world.

You put the two together,

the result is a total human impact 100 times greater

than only 200 years ago.

(mellow music)

And that is the most terrifying realization I have ever had.

We humans are poised for a fall from an unimaginable height.

Not because of one thing,

not climate change alone,

but all the human-caused changes

the planet is suffering from.

(slow tempo music)

So, why are bankers, industrialists

and environmental leaders only focused

on the narrow solution of green technology?

Is it the profit motive?

And why, for most of my life, have I fallen

for the illusion green energy would save us?

(waves lapping on shore)

(squeaking door)

Clearly, to answer this question,

I needed professional help.

- Keep my stuff.

No, I never heard...

- I'll just be honest with you about my dilemma.

You can be my clinical social psych-- (laughing)

It's like, the right has religion,

and they have a belief in infinite fossil fuels.

Our side says, "Oh, it's gonna be okay,

we're gonna have solar panels,

we're gonna have wind towers."

Soon as I heard you talk about our denial of death,

I'm like could that be it?

Could it be that we can't face our own mortality?

Could we have a religion that we're unaware of?

- Absolutely.

I think you've hit the proverbial nail on the head.

What just differentiates people from all other forms

of life is that, we're not only here

but that we know that we're here.

If you know that you're here, then you recognize,

even dimly, that you'll not be here someday.

And on top of that, we don't like that we're animals.

So we don't like that we're gonna die someday,

and we don't like that you could walk outside

and get hit by a fuckin' meteor.

What human beings did back

in yesteryear is to envelop ourselves

in culturally constructed belief systems.

You know, call them cultures,

call them world views, schemes of things.

Whatever you call them, every human community has them.

Every culture has an account of the origin of the Universe.

Every culture has a prescription

for how you're supposed to behave while you're here.

And every culture offers its denizens hope of immortality,

either literally or symbolically.

Then the question is, well, what happens when you bump

into people who don't share those beliefs?

Whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not,

that's undermining the confidence

with which you subscribe to your own views,

and exposing you to the very anxiety

that those beliefs were constructed

to eradicate in the first place.

If we're to make progress, whatever that word means,

or even to persist as a form of life, we're gonna need

to radically overhaul our basic conception

of who and what we are, and what it is that we value.

Because the people that you referred to earlier,

both on the left and the right

that think we're gonna be able to discover more oil,

or solar panel ourselves into the future,

where life will look pretty much like it does now.

You know, only cleaner and better.

- [Jeff] Either with more oil or greener or both.

- Correct.

I think that's just frankly delusional.

- What I'm hearing is that, if I haven't come to grips

with my own anxiety about death and life,

and presented with a reminder of that, I'm highly likely

to make some tragic decisions for the community.

- Yes.

The only solution in principle is, as Albert Camus put it,

he said, "There's only one liberty, to come to terms

with death, thereafter anything is possible."

I find that downright inspiring.

- [Jeff] As for our environmental leaders,

who dwelled in comfortable illusions,

how tragic of decisions were they capable of making?

I was about to find out.

(humming of machinery)

(leaves crunching)

- [Josh] They claim they're just using forest residues,

but actually a great deal of what the McNeil facility,

and lots of biomass facilities burn, is whole trees.

As you can see by this pile that's stacked right

outside of the facility, these are trees.

- [Jeff] It turns out that the biggest source

of green energy in Vermont is something called biomass.

Burning trees to create electricity.

- This is definitely not the way.

At the first step is actually looking at our lifestyles,

how we can reduce our energy consumption.

This is all the ash that has varying levels of toxic metals,

a great deal of radiation

because these trees have been absorb...

Oops, there's the...

(machinery humming)

- You're in uh forbidden territory here.

- [Jeff] Are we?

- May I ask both of you to come up to our office, okay?

- [Josh] Is that something you're interested in doing?

- It's not an interest, you've got five seconds

or I'm calling 911.

- [Jeff] Okay.

- [Security Guard] We've got two individuals here--

(loud crunching footsteps)

The police will be down here in about two minutes.

- [Josh] But you asked us to leave and we're doing so.

- [Security Guard] I'm not asking you to leave,

I'm asking you to come up to the office.

- [Josh] Okay, thanks for the offer.

Maybe next time.

(electronic beeping)

(machinery humming)

You got everything here.

You have the number one polluter in the state

that people think emits magical fairy dust

from the smokestack.

Reality is what you have is a facility

that burns 400,000 green tons a year of trees.

This facility burns thirty cords of wood per hour.

- [Jeff] That's a hell of a lot of wood.

- [Josh] And on top of that,

it actually burns natural gas, as well.

- [Jeff] And to think you would have to have 10

of these to replace one average coal-fired power plant.

It's just not gonna work.

- It's just nuts.

It takes a great deal of fossil fuels

to cut down all these trees,

to truck 'em in, to use the big machinery

to dump the wood chips everywhere.

So, the idea that somehow this is not anything to do

with fossil fuels just doesn't even make any sense.

It couldn't happen without fossil fuels, in fact.

- [Jeff] How did the environmental groups

get pulled into this?

- Obviously, the main factor is delusion.

A lot of these environmental groups have been saying

that all we have to do is, for instance,

switch our fossil fuel economy over

to a few solar panels and windmills,

and we can continue living life as normal.

Some of the environmental groups have been,

for years, touting facilities like this saying that,

number one, it's carbon neutral.

That this will actually help us fend off climate change

because there are no CO2 emissions.

It actually emits over 400 thousand tons

per year of carbon dioxide.

"Oh, but once we cut 'em, they'll grow back."

They'll grow back over a period of decades to centuries

but if we cut every tree in the United States,

it would be able to power the country for a year.

Then what happens when, you know, those trees are gone?

(wind blowing)

- [Jeff] I discovered biomass plants

were not even always biomass plants.

- This is actually a solid waste incinerator

that's posing as a biomass plant.

The impact in this community is severe.

The plant is right next to a Head Start school

for preschool kids.

There is Green Hill Manor and

that's an assisted living senior residence.

And there's also a Catholic elementary school

right next door.

- [Jeff] How do you know they're polluting?

Can you see it ever?

- We can see it.

The snow at the elementary school

and at the preschool is covered with black,

some kind of black soot.

We just had it analyzed

and it came back as mostly tire chips.

They have to add tire-derived fuel

to raise the temperature of the fire,

because anybody who's tried to burn green wood or wet wood,

knows that it doesn't burn very well.

- [Jeff] But this biomass plant had

yet another surprise.

- They admit that they burn 20.1 tons per hour

of creosote treated railroad ties.

Besides that, they are allowed to burn 500 pounds per hour

of PCP treated railroad ties.

These are shipped in from Canada.

It's not green, it's not renewable, it's not carbon-neutral,

it's not anything that they claim it to be.

Yet, they got $11.5 million grant

because it was classified as renewable.

The plant owner told us

that they were having trouble getting enough wood chips.

And he even asked us if we had any scrap wood

where we lived, would we call the plant

and let them know so they could come up and pick it up.

- [Jeff] We're not talking

about some old industrial site,

we're next to one of the most beautiful places in the world.

- We're next to Lake Superior, this is Keweenaw B...

this is actually L'Anse Bay, it's part of Keweenaw Bay.

It's Lake Superior, our lake. (voice breaking)

So, it's a very sacred place to many people.

(clopping horse feet)

- Are you with the news?

- [Jeff] No, there's supposed

to be a climate change rally.

- Oh.

- (group chanting)

- [Jeff] Michigan State University students,

inspired by 350.org, were holding a rally

for the clean energy future they'd been promised.

- (crowd shouting and cheering)

- Imagine when I found out

that it is the largest on-campus coal plant in the nation.

The goal is to get the whole world moving

beyond fossil fuels.

(crowd cheering and clapping)

- [Student] Who wants to do a 350 sign on the steps?

- [Jeff] But it turned out Michigan State had a form

of green energy in mind the students did not support.

- The university contracted

with an energy contracting company.

They put together a modeling tool.

The first two or three months

that the steering committee was using this modeling tool,

it didn't even contain data for wind or solar.

So there was (voice fading out)

- [Jeff] Adam told me they were planning on

substituting coal burning with biomass burning.

- But the permit that is currently being considered

by the state is a permit for 24,000 tons of biomass,

I think per year.

And the plan is to do that in all four boilers.

Unfortunately, the steering committee considers

biomass renewable at the moment,

which we're not happy with.

(students laughing)

- [Jeff] Michigan State wasn't the only university

to go green.

- I'm happy to announce that Carolina will be going

beyond coal in the next decade.

Now, as we begin to wean ourselves on coal, we are about

to try another alternative energy source, biomass.

- [Jeff] And who was here

to help the University of North Carolina switch

from burning coal to burning trees?

- So, it is a great pleasure to be here today

to celebrate the remarkable step

that the university is taking to say,

"We're gonna do our part."

(solemn music)

- [Jeff] A remarkable step, indeed.

We're to do our part by getting out

of bed with coal companies

and into bed with logging companies?

Where did the idea of colleges going green

by burning trees come from, anyway?

A little college called Middlebury in the heart of Vermont.

- Welcome to the celebration of the opening

of Middlebury's new biomass gasification system.

It's now my great pleasure to introduce

this afternoon's speaker, Bill McKibben.

(audience clapping)

- What powers a learning community?

And as of this afternoon, the easy answer

to that is wood chips.

It's incredibly beautiful to stand over there

and see that big bunker full of wood chips.

You can put any kind of wood in, oak, willow,

whatever you want.

Pretty much anything that burns we can toss in there

if we can chip it down to the right size.

And there are very few similar cases anyplace

in this country of that kind of change over that scale.

But it shows it could happen anywhere

and it should happen anywhere.

In fact, it must happen everywhere.

- [Jeff] It must happen everywhere.

(dramatic piano music)

And now it's time for a nature break,

enjoying our sustainably managed Michigan forests.

(classical piano music)

- If you walk through here and you look,

there's virtually nothing growing.

A little bit of grass occasionally.

(increasing classical music)

- [Jeff] And it seemed that biomass plants, indeed,

were suddenly everywhere,

like this one in Cadillac, Michigan.

(truck engine rumbling)

In Detroit, an incinerator

that burned garbage was considered green.

(classical piano music)

- The Detroit incinerator is known to emit horrible smells

and pollutants that neighbors say make them feel sick

and put their health at risk.

- It's a stink, it's a horrendous stink.

- [Jeff] A proposed biofuel plant

for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan would consume trees

from tens of thousands of square miles.

- In order to create 40 million gallons of ethanol,

they were going to have to use up

over a million tons of green wood.

We pointed out that they were gonna be using

more natural gas than they were gonna be creating ethanol

to displace the natural gas.

If you continue to do this,

you're gonna be fertilizing the forests.

- [Jeff] Fertilizing forests with?

Fossil fuels? - Fossil fuel

based fertilizers.

- [Jeff] Made from natural gas?

- Yeah.

(frenzied piano music)

[Jeff] Then came a ballot proposal backed

by Bill McKibben and nearly every major environmental group,

requiring Michigan to get 25% of its electricity

from renewable sources by the year 2025.

- [Announcer] This year, Michigan voters have a choice:

keep burning dirty coal and oil, or move Michigan

to clean, renewable energy like wind and solar.

Vote 'Yes' on Proposal 3.

- [Jeff] Surprisingly, Proposal 3,

also known as 25 by '25, was the brain child

of an organization that was 100% biofuels and biomass.

- Allowing America's farms, ranches and forest lands

to be active participants in contributing

to America's energy future.

- [Jeff] These are the biomass

and biofuel plants across the U.S.

(popping)

How did this happen?

And it wasn't just the U.S.A.,

it was all around the world.

Wood chips, which is just a euphemism for trees,

are being exported to Europe from America,

British Columbia, Brazil, and Indonesia.

Wherever they can get them from.

(classical piano music)

Biomass, especially when you add in biofuels,

is by far the largest portion of green energy

around the world, even in Germany,

source of the solar miracle.

(classical piano music)

But maybe I was missing something.

Maybe I had it all wrong.

(woman's voice on loudspeaker)

I decided to ask people protesting fossil fuels

how they felt about biomass and biofuels as green energy.

Would you say we don't need to do biofuels

and food and forests for energy?

- No, no, definitely not.

Of course not, of course not.

- Burning biomass, any kind of combustion,

is something we just need to move away from.

- The more trees we have, the better.

- A lot of that didn't grow overnight.

If we cut it down, we don't know the impact of that.

- [Jeff] You're here as an oak tree?

- Yes.

- If I had a chainsaw,

that wouldn't be saving the planet, would it?

- No, it's a painful,

it's a painful way to go.

I can tell you that right now.

- [Jeff] It would take you a while to regrow.

(laughing)

- Yeah, oh yeah.

And it wouldn't be me, it'd be an off-spring.

- With so many people doing it on such a massive scale,

all of a sudden at once, that's pretty serious.

- No, I think we should not be burning trees.

- [Group] No, no.

- Why would we cut down trees?

- We shouldn't replace one terrible way of getting energy

with another terrible way of getting energy.

Because it's one thing.

(girl's voice fading)

- [Jeff] Clearly, most citizens are opposed

to biomass and biofuels.

(calming guitar music)

But what about environmental leaders?

At times, they have promoted biomass but other times,

they sound like they are against biomass.

Like this Sierra Club policy,

"We are deeply concerned about the implications

of wood-to-energy for native forests."

Or this statement signed on by 75 environmental groups,

"Burning forests for energy will destroy one

of our best defenses against climate change."

But then again, their language leaves loopholes

that enable biomass.

The NRDC says you must use the "right types of biomass."

The Dogwood Alliance says

maybe small biomass plants are okay.

And the Sierra Club flat out states,

"biomass can be sustainable."

(pensive guitar music)

Which side are they really on?

I thought for sure with the camera rolling,

environmental leaders would speak for the trees.

- [Group] No frackin' way.

- Where's the science, where's the science?

- We're here to tell a story about what the forests

of this state, of our commonwealth, mean to us.

- [Jeff] Does your organization have any stance on that?

- I'm not sure I would say we support it as much

as we can wrap our heads around it.

We've almost made a peace with the timber industry.

- [Jeff] I'm just curious, what's your group stance

on using forests for biomass?

- Biomass is renewable, biomass is sustainable.

- And I'm with Clean Water Action,

we don't really have a stand on it.

If the director of the Sierra Club was here,

she'd be able to talk your ear off about it.

- I'm the director for the Sierra Club in Pennsylvania.

- [Jeff] Does the Sierra Club support

or not support biomass?

- Um... I'm not totally prepared to talk

about our policy on biomass today.

Our position is somewhat nuanced,

so I just want to be careful not to...

(crowd talking)

- [Jeff] So, you're with 350?

- I am.

- Do 350 have a position on biomass

'cause I'm kind of actually--

- I can't really speak for 350.

- Do you personally have an opinion about

whether we should be burning trees for green energy?

- No, I don't have an opinion on that.

I like a fire. (laughing)

- [Jeff] One of my biggest concerns

as an environmentalist is that we're trying to burn trees,

there are tree burning power plants.

Are you aware of the problems with biomass or biofuels?

- Yeah, yeah, I'm not as aware of that

as I could be or I should be.

- Jeff Gibbs, working on a documentary.

In Michigan where I live, where I'm from,

there's large plants that burn trees for energy

and pretty much whole trees chipped up.

Do you have a thought about whether

that should be a part of green energy or not?

- The great thing about green energy is

you don't have to pick a favorite.

- Jeff Gibbs.

- Oh, hello.

- My biggest concern is that in Germany, for instance,

they're moving towards solar and wind

but 60% of their actual energy is coming from biomass.

60% of what's considered renewable energy.

Burning trees for energy?

- I don't know the details out of Germany.

What Germany's really doing is a lot

of sun and wind and that's really powerful to see.

- [Jeff] I'd like to see us come out

against any burning of trees-

- All right, well go ahead and do it.

- [Jeff] for clean energy.

Would you-

- Although I confess I stoke my wood stove

almost every night of the winter,

so I'm not really the right person to ask.

- But designating green energy for power plants?

- Yeah, yeah, I don't know.

It's not what this day's about.

- [Jeff] But if we're burning trees

instead of fossil fuels.

- (crowd drowns out) from Taiwan.

- Oh, good.

- We're wondering what role do you want

to play in this (voice fading out)?

- [Jeff] I think the biomass question's a non-starter.

(somber music)

I found only one environmental leader willing

to reject biomass and biofuels.

- So we are talking

of the old oil economy trying

to maintain itself now

through another raw material, the green planet.

The only reason corn and soy has been planted for biofuel

in this country is the subsidies make it profitable.

I think the big crisis of our times is

our minds have been manipulated to give power to illusions.

We shifted to measuring growth,

not in terms of how life is enriched

but in terms of how life is destroyed.

(peaceful guitar)

- [Jeff] Her honesty was refreshing.

But as for the rest of them, I wondered,

what are they hiding?

And why are they hiding it?

Is it their ignorance?

Or is it something else?

(music increasing in tempo)

What if they, themselves, had become misguided?

(intensifying dramatic music)

What if they've made some kind of deal

they shouldn't have made,

and are leading us all off the cliff?

(light upbeat music)

It was long past time for me to come to grips

with the other elephant in the living room.

The profit motive.

The only reason we've been force-fed the story,

climate change plus renewables equals "we're saved!",

is because billionaires, bankers,

and corporations profit from it.

And the reason we're not talking about over-population,

consumption, and the suicide of economic growth is

that would be bad for business.

Especially the cancerous form of capitalism

that rules the world,

now hiding under a cover of green.

- Today Bloomberg Philanthropies is making,

I'm happy to announce, a new investment

of $30 million in the Beyond Coal campaign.

(crowd cheering and clapping)

We have more.

I'm glad to say that more

than a dozen additional funders have committed

to match that $30 million.

(clapping and cheering)

- [Jeff] And who were these new partners?

One of them was Jeremy Grantham.

Billionaire, world's leading timber investment advisor.

(man speaking in background)

They were not investing in trees

to turn them into nature preserves.

Which might answer another riddle,

why is this name redacted on the Sierra Club's tax return?

Would they be embarrassed to take three million dollars

from a man who made his living selling the forests

of the world?

Bloomberg, bringing a timber investment billionaire

to the party, was no coincidence.

Bloomberg sponsored a U.N. climate session

to discuss ramping up biomass

and biofuels around the world.

Billionaires were in love with the idea of turning

what was left of nature into green profits.

Remember when Al Gore had gotten Richard Branson

to invest billions into saving the planet?

- [News Anchor] Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Atlantic,

powered a Boeing 747 from London to Amsterdam

on a coconut oil mixture to highlight the potential

of this amazing oil as a clean energy biofuel.

- [Jeff] Branson had actually invested in biofuels.

He was attempting to replace the jet fuel

damaging the planet with biofuels

that required the consumption of the living planet.

And it was game-on for the airline industry.

- [News Anchor] Dozens of researchers

from all over the northwest gathered

in Missoula the past two days to explore the idea

of converting the region's mass of reserves

of wood into jet fuel.

Especially with the demand for aircraft fuel expected

to grow by a billion gallons in the northwest alone.

- [News Anchor] United Airlines will buy a $30 million stake

in biofuel company, Fulcrum BioEnergy.

The airline used 3.9 billion gallons of fuel last year.

- [Jeff] What technology was Silicon Valley billionaire

Vinod Khosla hoping to profit from?

- Nature takes a million years to produce our crude oil.

KiOR can produce it in seconds.

- [Lesley] The company took over this old paper mill

where logs are picked up by a giant claw,

dropped into a shredder and pulverized into wood chips.

Clean gasoline?

- Clean, green gasoline.

- There must be a downside.

- There is no downside.

- [Jeff] The bank that crashed the economy,

ruined millions of lives and has their tentacles

on the levers of power,

what would their favorite form of green energy be?

- One of the very interesting markets

that we deal with is Brazil.

It's unlike any other market in that today,

alternative energy isn't really alternative energy.

It's so much a part of the fabric of the society.

The country began to utilize its vast resources

of sugarcane to produce ethanol.

- [Jeff] There was a man from Goldman Sachs

who was particularly in love

with turning forests into profits.

- Has everybody got enough coffee?

Might want to get some more.

- [Jeff] Meet David Blood, former CEO

of Asset Management for Goldman Sachs.

How much money did Mr. Blood believe should

be invested in green energy?

- A natural alignment for something in the order

of $40-50 trillion worth of capital.

- [Jeff] $40-50 trillion.

And who was going to help the man from Goldman Sachs,

help him raise that astronomical amount of money?

- A gentleman some of you may recognize

and know, Bill McKibben.

- It's entirely dependent on what kind

of political will we can muster.

And if we do not get this done very fast,

then we're not gonna get it done.

- [Jeff] And so Bill McKibben went forth

to generate the political will for trillions

of dollars in green investments.

- Our next guest has been called

our nation's leading environmentalist.

- And you are, in some sense,

the Grand Poobah of the environmental movement.

- My guest tonight is on a global crusade.

- [Jeff] On a global crusade for what?

- Commit to divesting from fossil fuels.

We can't justify investing our money in companies

that are basically running Genesis backward.

- [Jeff] So when you divest from fossil fuels,

and invest in green funds, what are you investing in?

I took a deep dive into Securities

and Exchange Commission filings to find out.

For instance, in the Green Century Funds,

recommended by 350.org and Bill McKibben,

I found less than one percent solar and wind

and 99% things like mining,

(increasing dramatic music)

oil and gas infrastructure companies,

(dramatic music)

including a tar sands exploiter,

McDonald's, one of the companies driving meat consumption

across the planet,

Archer Daniels Midland,

one of the world's largest producers of biofuel,

Coca Cola, the largest creator

of plastic pollution on earth,

logging and paper companies including one

that brags about biomass burning. And banks.

(dramatic music)

Lots of banks -

(dramatic music)

including BlackRock, the largest financer

of deforestation on earth.

- The business that they're engaged in

is actually destroying our life support system.

(dramatic music)

- [Jeff] The Sierra Club, also partners

with a green fund called Aspiration.

Aspiration also includes dozens of companies profiting

from the destruction of the planet,

including Chevron, ExxonMobil, Chesapeake Energy.

- [Announcer] In order to maximize the production potential

of the well,

the shale formation will be hydraulically fractured.

- [Jeff] The Russian gas giant, Gazprom.

- [Announcer] Gazprom owns the world's largest

explored gas reserves, 36 trillion cubic meters.

- [Jeff] And in perhaps the most bizarre twist of all,

the Sierra Club's green fund's biggest holding is in Enviva,

the world's largest consumer of forests,

to be incinerated in green energy biomass plants.

(somber piano music)

Of course, one investment option is a green fund,

run by Bill McKibben's buddy, David Blood.

And who was the chairman of this fund?

Someone familiar.

- Use capitalism, it gives incentives

for people to do their best.

- [Jeff] Al Gore and David Blood partnered

to form a company called Blood and Gore.

No, scratch that, Generation Investment Management.

And within this fund, Blood and Gore designated

a special investment category targeting $650 million

of biomass and biofuels.

Funny thing was, they partnered

before Al Gore's film came out.

(dramatic music)

Was that movie just about climate change or something else?

- On one side, we have gold bars.

Mm, mm, mm. (audience laughing)

Don't they look good?

I'd just like to have some of those gold bars.

On the other side of the scales, the entire planet.

(audience laughing)

If we do the right thing,

then we're gonna create a lot of wealth.

- [Jeff] And when it came time for Al Gore

to choose between the entire planet and getting him some

of them gold bars, what choice did he make?

Here's Al Gore earning his keep by pretending to care

about the rain forest while lobbying Congress

on behalf of the sugarcane ethanol industry.

- Let me come in on the Brazilian effort here

with the issue of the possibility of expanding into

that Amazon River basin with further deforestation

to produce more ethanol out of sugarcane is a worry.

And apparently you're not as concerned about that.

- No, no, I am, I simply forgot.

(helicopter roaring)

(children screaming & crying)

What's been going on there, it is really very troubling.

And with your permission, I'll show you a very quick example

of it over a period of 25 years.

(loud tapping)

- [Announcer] The invasion of sugarcane monocultures

in the region clashes

with the indigenous people's right to land.

These are images of a last ditch attempt

by the Guarani-Kaiowá to resist eviction.

- Important to note that the exploitation

of the sugarcane growing areas in Brazil does not have

to inevitably have the knock-on consequence

of causing destruction in the Amazon.

- Sugarcane fields are burning.

They're set alight before the harvest

to eliminate the leaves and tops of the plant,

which makes cutting more efficient.

(somber music)

Environmentalists blame the seemingly

endless sugarcane fields for air and water pollution

on an epic scale.

And along with deforestation, the threat it poses

to the environment is becoming clear.

(dramatic music)

Once the indigenous families were expelled,

the land owners set their homes on fire.

(dramatic music)

- [Jeff] Is there anything too terrible

to qualify as green energy?

- Thank you very much Secretary Mabus, and the U.S. Navy for

once again, inviting me to speak with you today.

The Navy's work to help launch

this new fuels industry is invaluable.

(roaring plane engine)

- [Announcer] The U.S. Navy has a special message

this year.

It is time to turn green.

Joining the vessels is what the U.S. Navy calls,

it's great green fleet of warships,

powered by fuel from renewable sources like algae,

grass and animal fat.

- [Jeff] Animal fat?

(thudding and pounding)

- The next time you fill up

at your neighborhood gas station,

you might find yourself pumping a little alligator

into your tank.

That's right, U.L. Lafayette researchers

have developed alligator fat

into a renewable source for biofuels.

- [Jeff] And once we run through the animals, what's next?

GE, who brings you nuclear energy and wind turbines,

is ready with a plan.

- I believe that liquid fuels, chemicals,

are eventually gonna have to be made

from sustainable raw materials.

We believe that seaweed is one

of the most attractive opportunities.

(majestic music)

- [Jeff] Better hurry.

One year after it was filmed, this seaweed forest was dead.

(somber music)

You might ask yourself, how could men destroy

what remains of nature to enrich themselves?

Well, that's why they're billionaires and you're not.

(laughing)

The takeover of the environmental movement

by capitalism is now complete.

Environmentalists are no longer resisting those

with a profit motive, but collaborating with them.

The Nature Conservancy is now the logging conservancy.

- We will capture the most important pieces biologically

and there will be another large block sold

to timber investment groups.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has become the union

of concerned salesmen, having taken millions,

not for science,

but to create markets for electric cars.

The Sierra Club sells electric cars

and solar panels right from their website.

- The best thing about Sungevity is

that they make it easy for you.

All that you have to do is to say yes.

- [Jeff] The New York Times partners with ExxonMobil

to bring you the good news about biofuels.

- [Announcer] Algae derived fuel

could help us meet growing demand.

- [Jeff] Treehugger.com, which claims

to be the largest single source of environmental news,

was founded and funded by Georgia Pacific,

a logging company.

In fact, they are neighbors.

Georgia Pacific is owned by our friends, the Koch brothers,

who are likely the largest recipient

of green energy biomass subsidies in the United States.

(somber music)

Yes, the merger of environmentalism

and capitalism is now complete.

But maybe it's always been complete.

- How is 350.org funded?

- Well, not very well.

- (laughing) Who are your funders?

- To the degree that we have any money at all,

it's come from a few foundations in Europe and U.S.

- [Karyn] Which ones?

- Ah, let's see.

The, uh, I'm trying to think who the biggest funders are.

Ah...

There's a foundation in, based in Sweden called,

I think it's called the Rasmussen Foundation

that I think has been the biggest funder.

- So you don't get money from Pew or Rockefeller

or any of those big foundations?

- [Bill] No, we did.

Rockefeller Brothers Fund gave us some money right

when we were starting out.

That's been useful, too.

- But they no longer fund you?

- I don't know, I don't have this sort of-

- [Karyn] (laughing) Really?

- Funders sitting in front of me.

- [Karyn] That's usually something that people know.

- Rockefeller's been one of our, is one of the,

is a great ally in this fight.

- [Interviewer] You just sold your TV network to Al Jazeera.

- Right.

- [Interviewer] And that government is basically nothing

but an oil producer.

- Gas, mainly and oil.

- Your take on that, about a hundred million dollars pre-tax

from a country that bases it's wealth on fossil fuels.

Isn't there a bit of hypocrisy in that?

- Well, I get the criticism, I just disagree with it.

I'm proud of the transaction.

- You couldn't find, for your business,

a more sustainable choice?

- What is not sustainable about it?

- Because it is backed by fossil fuel money.

- I get it, I get it, I get it.

- [Jeff] And so, if you got yourself

an environmental movement and environmental leaders,

why not buy the holy day itself?

- [Man] (crowd screaming) Happy Earth Day!

♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪

♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪

♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪

♪ You make me want to say ♪

♪ Ah, you make me want to say ♪

- Now we are facing the greatest sets of issues

that we've seen in my lifetime.

It's time now for a new generation to jump up

on the stage and create a habitable country,

a habitable planet, that we can all enjoy.

Are you that generation?

(crowd screaming and cheering)

I need to thank Building Energy

which provided so much solar power to this

that we powered the entire event with solar energy.

(crowd cheering and screaming)

- [Jeff] But when I went backstage to see

what was really going on.

- It ain't running this whole thing on that, Jack.

I can tell you that.

For a toaster is 1200 watts.

So, that run right there could run a toaster.

- [Jeff] I found the installer.

- Hi.

- [Jeff] Are they running the festival

on these solar panels?

- The concert is run by diesel generation system.

They didn't ask us to energize the concert.

- [Jeff] Oh, okay.

- And we'd also like

to thank our incredible corporate sponsors

who've been behind the movement to end extreme poverty

and tackle climate change since the very beginning.

I want to thank Toyota.

(loud roaring engine)

Citibank.

(clanging bell and cheering)

We want to thank Caterpillar.

- We're standing at the construction site

of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

It looks like there are

at least three bulldozers actually bulldozing the land.

(group yelling and cheering)

People have gone through the fence,

the bulldozers are still going

(people screaming)

and they're marching over the dirt mounds.

(loud angry screaming)

- [Man In Orange Shirt] Get the fuck off!

Get the fuck out of here!

- Without these partners, it wouldn't be possible.

Let's give them a round of applause, everyone.

(crowd cheering and clapping)

(slow solemn music)

- [Jeff] Now I know this all might seem overwhelming.

It's a kind of thing

that we normally don't try and think about.

(slow solemn music)

But by not thinking about it,

it stands a good chance of doing us in.

(slow solemn music)

I truly believe that the path to change

comes from awareness.

(slow solemn music)

That awareness alone can begin to create the transformation.

(slow solemn music)

There is a way out of this.

We humans must accept that infinite growth

on a finite planet is suicide.

We must accept that our human presence

is already far beyond sustainability,

and all that that implies.

(slow solemn music)

We must take control of our environmental movement

and our future from billionaires

and their permanent war on Planet Earth.

(slow solemn music)

They are not our friends.

(slow solemn music)

Less must be the new more

and instead of climate change,

we must at long last accept

that it's not the carbon dioxide molecule

destroying the planet,

(slow solemn music) it's us.

(slow solemn music)

It's not one thing, but everything we humans are doing.

A human-caused apocalypse.

If we get ourselves under control, all things are possible.

(slow solemn music)

And if we don't...

(ominous music)

(chainsaw buzzing)

(crashing trees)

(sad mournful music)

(trees crashing)

(slow solemn music)

(trees scrapping)

(orangutan chirping)

♪ Ah-Ooh ♪

(mournful orchestral music)

(music fading)

(snapping tree branch)

(slow solemn music)

(roaring crackling fire)

♪ Ah-Ah-Ooh ♪

♪ Ooh-Ooh (increasing in intensity) ♪

♪ Ah-Ooh ♪

(orangutan chirping)

(female singing mournfully)

(orangutan squealing)

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(low talking)

♪ Ah-Ah-Ah ♪

♪ Oh-Oh-Ah ♪

♪ Oh-Oh-Ah ♪

♪ Ooh-Ah ♪

♪ Oh-Oh-Oh ♪

♪ Ooh ♪

(somber music)