Episode 5

Microplastics. So that's what's generated when common plastic household plastic enters the environment and breaks into tiny little particles which then make their way into the fish. We eat our groundwater, everything, all the animals eat the what's feeding the vegetables and what have you contaminating everything. Well, we now know that we are all breathing plastic also. We're not just eating it and drinking it.

This lovely piece of news, I mean, I don't know about you, but I just love the thought of eating plastic and drinking it and the news that I'm also breathing. It made me so happy. This lovely piece of news, the fact that we're now breathing plastic came to us because scientists just discovered that in the Pristine Pyrenees mountains of France and Spain, microplastics are landing at the rate of 365 particles per day on every square meter every day.

Now that's the same rate at which they're landing in central Paris, nothing less then a bombardment of microplastics on earth, nature and earth. Everywhere we're being carpet bombed by plastic and we didn't even know and it makes me so angry. Meanwhile, of course, polluters aren't paying for any of the plastic dumped on us and there are two of these groups of polluters. First, there are the people who gave us plastic because it all comes from oil.

So that would be big oil and gas in petrochemicals, companies. And then the second group of polluters is those taking advantage by dumping plastic on us without any thought or control. Some of the biggest companies in the world, Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola, Nestle, Dannon, Kraft, Procter and gamble, Unilever, Mars, Colgate, Palmolive, and hundreds of other brands.

Hundreds which who by the way, all of whom pretend on their website to care about the environment, which just makes me so angry when I get to that section. Now, why is that? Why are all these companies going wild on plastic? Because it's cheap. That's why, and they make a lot of money out of it. And why is it cheap? Because at source, the oil and gas and petrochemical companies are not paying for their environmental damage.

They're not paying for any of the destruction and neither are the consumer facing companies like Coca Cola or Pepsi or Nestle or Unilever. Now, both oil and gas and big corporates are of course making money hand over fist from the environment, from the environmental destruction they're causing, but not paying for now. How difficult is it to tax all plastic producers to price plastic out of the system? How difficult is that? I would imagine it's very easy and even better do what the EU did.

Ban single use plastic everywhere. When you hear the line that it's all our fault, it's all the consumer's fault that we're using so much plastic, be very suspicious. That's align most likely coming from mouthpieces of big oil. We all of course have a role to play in tackling plastic pollution, but in reality, we, the individual consumers are the only one bearing the burden. The other ones are just running away to the bank with sacks full of money.

There's only so much we can do if companies don't step up and provide sustainable choices and governments don't step up and just tax plastic out of our system. We have substitute. We don't need it. Well, at least 90% of it, we don't need it.

Speaking of big oil, did you see a recent story that every year the five largest publicly owned oil and gas companies spent $200 million on lobbying designed to control delay or block climate policy everywhere, while at the same time expanding their oil and gas extraction activities? Now, I've spoken about that in a previous podcast, this climate bullying, but that's not so $1 billion a year spent by BP Shell, Exxon, Chevron, and total alone $1 billion a year in destructive climate.

Bullying is not all that's going on. First of all, don't forget, some of the biggest oil companies in the world are actually not publicly listed and we don't know what they're doing. And that's the state owned company like Saudi Aramco who alone made $110 billion of profits selling us poison last year, $110 billion. Now that number, that billion dollar lobbying number is an absolute minimum of what these big, bad companies are doing. Let me just give you one example of why that's the case.

You may have heard about Geo engineering that's putting lots of stuff in the atmosphere to avert warming by diverting the rays of the sun or masking the effects of of our greenhouse gas pollution or whatever. But it's all science fiction because if it sounds like science fiction, this is science fiction. These are lies peddled through that deceiving word Geo engineering, and they make me so angry. So let me translate the word Jew engineering for you for the next time that you hear it first.

It means that we have a very good excuse to keep burning fossil fuels and increasing CO2 concentration because allegedly we've sold the soul, the climate problem through Geo Engineering, which of course doesn't exist, but you know that's what they mean when they use that word. Second, of course you engineering is going to be a very expensive cost. We have to bear forever.

We have to pay for it forever because the same people selling us geoengineering are producing more and more oil and gas and want to do a lot more of it and I'll tell you who they are in a second. Third, I don't care how much you do in terms of Geo Engineering, it will not end. It cannot scale to the size of the climate change problem. We have.

Fourth, if not enough Jew engineering it turns out, requires lots of natural gas to get the CEO to out of the air of course, because how else can we justify producing even more natural gas in oil? Now finally, we have of course, no idea whatsoever what you engineering impacts will be on us and on our ecosystems. None, but that doesn't stop. Lots of money going to back it. So now I am very happy to translate geoengineering slightly differently.

For you, it's a fig leaf for the fossil fuel industry and you know, is that just more efficient to not pollute in the first place? I mean, come on. Chevron, those good guys. Again, Occidental Petroleum and Mining Company. BHP, for example, loved you engineering so much. They recently recently gave a random company $68 million to play with in that field.

It's got a friendly sounding name, mind you, carbon engineering, and they gave it $68 million to sell us science fiction that we don't need so that they can pretend that we've sold the climate change problem. I mean, come on. That just makes me so angry. I read recently a report that the electricity generated from wood was on a 10 year role from 2004 to 2014 but thankfully, at least in the United States, the expansion of power generated from wood has come to an end.

Mind you, that's just the expansion. That means we're just using as much as we were in 2014 is just not going up anymore. Now, have you ever been to Kalimantan in Indonesia, for example, to check out a timber plantation? I have. It's ugly and I can tell you there is no way you can generate woodchips sustainably from any emerging market. I can accept that. Maybe you can do it in Sweden, but there is no way you can do it in the Amazon, in Congo or Indonesia.

And I've been on enough timber plantations to know the freak show that's going on over there to pretend sal us sustainable woods. So whenever you hear about bio energy, ask yourself, is this coming from forests in any way? If it is, think deforestation, think biodiversity, think laws, think corruption, think animal extinction and most importantly think bioenergy from wood is most likely evil. Thank you so much for listening to me.

The angry, clean energy guy this far, there is never enough angry subjects in the fight against climate change. My loser of the week is Chevron, the infamous oil company for pretend selling us geo engineering solutions that don't work. In order for them to drill more oil that we don't need and that we can't have Chevron. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

My winner of the week are the 1000 climate change activists arrested after eight days of London protests because, and I'm not being dramatic, it's not okay to live in a society where we are not arresting ecological criminals, but we are arresting the men and woman who expose the ecological crimes. It's not okay. Ecological and climate catastrophe mean among much other suffering. The eraser of our future and our past. Thank you for listening and don't hesitate to send my way.

Any questions you have about clean energy, climate change, or whatever you like, stuff in the green space that makes you angry is always very welcome. Have a wonderful week.