“Environmentalists, progressives, and Greens in the United States and Europe have long spoken out forcefully for human rights, energy security, and reducing air pollution. They demand stronger protections of indigenous people in places like Brazil. They advocate energy produced locally and domestically rather than imported. And they say we should take significantly stronger measures to reduce carbon emissions.
And yet none of the world’s largest environmental groups or most prominent environmental leaders have condemned China’s use of enslaved labor to make solar panels with coal, the replacement of Europe’s nuclear plants with natural gas, or the increasingly dangerous dependence of the U.S. and Europe on Chinese solar and Russian natural gas, respectively.
It’s true that some environmentalists and progressives recognize the problem and are calling for change. President Joe Biden’s climate envoy John Kerry last week announced possible sanctions on Chinese solar panels. U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has since 2009 championed manufacturing solar in the U.S. Climate activist McKibben noted the abuses in Xinjiang. And both Greens in Germany and Democrats in the United States, including President Biden, say they oppose the expansion of Nordstream II pipeline to bring Russian natural gas to Europe.”
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Shellenberger, Michael. Blog 25 May 2021.