EXALT co-founder Barry Gills and contributor Alexander Dunlap interviewed about the myth of green energy for Helsingin Sanomat

Barry Gills, who is one of the academics that co-created the EXALT Initiative, and frequent collaborator Alexander Dunlap were recently interviewed by Sara Vainio for an article for Finland's largest subscription newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat. The article is in Finnish.

The article discussed about how a large number of scientists, including Gills and Dunlap, consider that climate and environmental action have become another arena in which rich northern countries subjugate the global south and which builds more polluting production. According to Gills, Western 'solutions' to the climate crisis are causing a lot of extraction, human rights violations and conflicts around the world. According to Dunlap the transition to renewable energy is being put into practice like any capitalist project. Raw materials needed for solar panels and electric car batteries used in the EU and the US are produced using fossil fuels under very poor working conditions in Africa and South America. The articles also talks about a new report by the European Environmental Bureau which calculates how much mining and production is needed for green technologies. Based on the report, Dunlap claims that the amount of mining needed for industrial scale wind power and solar energy requires is "incomprehensibe". 

The article called '"Uusiutuvaa energiaa ei olekaan", sanovat tutkijat, joiden mukaan ilmastotoimemme aiheuttavat sortoa ja päästöjä köyhissä maissa', by Sara Vainio, can be read here (limited access). 

Listen to the EXALT podcast episodes with Barry and Alexander to learn more about their work. 

Read the the European Environmental Bureau's flagship report "Green mining’ is a myth" which seeks to connect EU’s material overconsumption, extractivism and the European Green Deal here.