[Diggers350] Bright Green Lies: Review Of Julia Barnes' Documentary, Out A Year After Planet Of The Humans

Tony Gosling tony at cultureshop.org.uk
Fri May 14 12:35:45 BST 2021 

It's not knowledge we lack, a screenshot from Rao

‘It's not knowledge we lack’
A screenshot from Raoul Peck's 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exterminate_All_the_Brutes_%282021_film%29>‘Exterminate 
All The Brutes’, 2021


‘Bright Green Lies’.





A brief review of the (annoyingly pay only) film and its ‘deep green’ message

https://tlio.org.uk/bright-green-lies-paul-mobbs-review-of-julia-barnes-documentary-and-its-deep-green-message/
https://vimeo.com/346171480
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEOjZgWoQAc

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7th May 2021
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It’s been a year since ‘Planet of the Humans’ 
caused the leaders of climate campaigns to go 
into heated meltdown. By comparison, this film 
throws them an even greater challenge to try and respond to.

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© 2021 Paul Mobbs; released under the 
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Created: Friday 7th May 2021.
Length: ~3,450 words.

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Page bookmarks
(use section number as a hotkey to jump to it).

    * 
<http://www.fraw.org.uk/blog/2021/20210507-bright_green_lies.shtml#class>Environmentalism 
is a ‘class’ issue.
    * 
<http://www.fraw.org.uk/blog/2021/20210507-bright_green_lies.shtml#limits>Economics 
versus ecological limits.
    * 
<http://www.fraw.org.uk/blog/2021/20210507-bright_green_lies.shtml#colonialism>Climate 
inequality meets decolonialism.

1. Vimeo On-Demand:
<https://vimeo.com/ondemand/brightgreenlies>‘Bright Green Lies’,
21st April 2021
2. YouTube:
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE>‘Planet of the Humans’,
21st April 2020
3. Ramblinactivist’s Blogs:
<http://www.fraw.org.uk/blog/2020/20200501-planet_of_the_humans.shtml>‘‘Planet 
of the Humans’ – A (long-form) review of
 the reviews.’, 1st May 2020
4. The Grayzone:
<https://thegrayzone.com/2020/09/07/green-billionaires-planet-of-the-humans/>‘Green’ 
billionaires behind professional activist network 
that led suppression of ‘Planet of the Humans’ documentary’,
7th December 2020
5. Ramblinactivist’s Blogs:
<http://www.fraw.org.uk/blog/2020/20200518-cooking_scones_with_the_prodigy.shtml>‘Cooking 
scones with The Prodigy; or, why do climate 
campaigners not understand logical fallacies?’,
18th May 2020
6. Wikipedia:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derrick_Jensen>‘Derrick Jensen’
7. Wikipedia:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lierre_Keith>‘Lierre Keith’
8. <https://www.maxwilbert.org/>Max Wilbert’s
website

Being ‘well known’ in eco-circles, you sometimes 
get strange, often unsolicited stuff arriving in 
your inbox. This, however, was something I’d been 
hoping for: A chance to view, and thus review, 
<https://vimeo.com/ondemand/brightgreenlies>‘Bright 
Green Lies’1 – Julia Barnes’ new documentary 
about the environmental movement and its support for renewable energy.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE>‘Planet 
of the Humans’2 (PotH) was entertaining. At a 
general level it was factual, albeit a polemic 
expression of those points. But its protracted 
period of production meant that it lacked 
coherence, and thus left itself open to easy criticism.

Those criticisms when they came, however, fell 
directly into the lap of the 
<http://www.fraw.org.uk/blog/2020/20200501-planet_of_the_humans.shtml>central 
argument of the film3: That mainstream 
environmentalists distort facts to promote an 
erroneous vision of the measures necessary to ‘save the planet’.

It wasn’t just Josh Fox, 
<https://thegrayzone.com/2020/09/07/green-billionaires-planet-of-the-humans/>backed 
by green entrepreneurs4, engaging in a cavalier 
reshaping of fact and quotations to blacken the 
name of the film. Our own 
<http://www.fraw.org.uk/blog/2020/20200518-cooking_scones_with_the_prodigy.shtml>George 
Monbiot engaged in5 his own well-honed distortion 
of fact and quotation via The Guardian (symbolic 
of a number of their recent failures) in order to 
try and prevent people watching the film on this side of the pond.

‘Bright Green Lies’ is very different: Like PotH, 
once again it presents the personal viewpoint of 
the director, Julia Barnes. Unlike PotH, though, 
it has a very different tone, building upon the 
immediacy and well-researched content of the 
eponymous book by 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derrick_Jensen>Derrick 
Jensen6, 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lierre_Keith>Lierre 
Keith7, and <https://www.maxwilbert.org/>Max 
Wilbert8 – all of whom appear in the film.

You get the core of the film’s argument over the 
first five minutes, as the four main protagonists 
set out their respective take on the ‘bright 
green’ position [time index in film is shown in brackets]:
The front cover of Bright Green Lies
‘Bright Green Lies’, the book Derrick Jensen, 
Lierre Keith, and Max Wilbert, Monkfish Book Publishing, 1st April 2021.
The film poster for Bright Green Lies
‘Bright Green Lies’, the film Julia Barnes, 22nd April 2021.
    * Barnes: “People rarely question the 
solutions they are taught to embrace, but with 
all the world at stake we must start asking the 
right questions. There is a push for a 100% 
renewable world, and after the research I’ve done 
for this documentary, I want no part of it. I did 
not become an environmentalist to protect my way 
of life, or the civilisation in which I live. I 
did it because I am in love with life on this 
planet, and because the world I love is under 
assault. This film is for those whose allegiance 
is with the living world. Those who would do 
whatever it takes to defend it.”[02:26]
    * Jensen: “You will have hundred of thousands 
of people marching in the streets of Washington, 
or New York, or Paris; and, if you ask those 
individuals ‘why are you marching?’, they will 
say, ‘we wanna save the planet’. And if you ask 
them for their demands they will say, ‘we want 
subsidies for the wind and solar industry’. 
That’s extraordinary. I can’t think of any time 
in history when any mass movement has been so 
completely captured, and turned into lobbyists for an industry.”[03:49]
    * Keith: “The environmental movement used to 
be a very impassioned group of people who cared 
very deeply about the places we loved and the 
creatures we loved. What happened, though, in my 
lifetime, was that this movement which was so 
honourable and impassioned, it turned into 
something completely different. And now its about 
protecting a destructive way of life, while it 
destroys the creatures and the places we love. 
It’s all become, ‘how to we continue to fuel this 
destruction?’, as if the only problem was that we 
were using oil and gas.”[03:16]
    * Wilbert: “The natural world isn't really 
part of the conversation any more. Kumi Naidoo, 
the former head of Greenpeace, I was watching him 
being interviewed the other day. He was saying, 
‘The planet’s going to survive, the oceans are 
going to survive, the forests are going to 
survive, it’s really about can we save ourselves 
or not’. And I just saw that and I’m thinking, 
what the hell are you saying?
 This is someone 
who's considered to be one of the top 
environmentalists in the world and he's saying we 
don't have to worry about the forests or the 
oceans? I mean, that just betrays a complete lack 
of empathy and connection to the natural world. I 
don't know how you could possibly say that when 
we’re in the midst of the Sixth Great Mass 
Extinction, and it’s being caused by industrial 
culture. It’s being caused by the same 
institutions, the same economies, the same 
systems, the same raw materials, the same 
extractive mindset, that is being used for these 
renewable energy technologies.”[04:36]

<http://www.fraw.org.uk/blog/2021/20210507-bright_green_lies.shtml#bookmarks>jump 
to bookmarks



Environmentalism is a ‘class’ issue

9. Wikipedia:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bright_green_environmentalism>‘Bright 
green environmentalism’
10. Sociological Review:
<http://www.fraw.org.uk/data/ap/cotgrove_1980.pdf>‘Environmentalism, 
Middle-Class Radicalism And Politics’,
vol.28 no.2, 1980
11. Environmental Conservation:
<https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/environmental-conservation/article/sympathy-for-the-environment-predicts-green-consumerism-but-not-more-important-environmental-behaviours-related-to-domestic-energy-use/075A55EF4BC0730CE8FD5E39B4CEC8DA>‘Sympathy 
for the environment predicts green consumerism 
but not more important environmental behaviours 
related to domestic energy use’,
vol.43 no.2, January 2013
12. Journal of Experimental
Social Psychology:
<http://www.fraw.org.uk/data/ap/eom_2018.pdf>‘Social 
class, control, and action – Socioeconomic status 
differences in antecedents of support for pro-environmental action’,
vol.77 pp.60-75, 2018
13. Architectural Science Review:
<http://www.fraw.org.uk/data/ap/gatersleben_2010.pdf>‘Values 
and sustainable lifestyles’,
vol.53 pp.37-50, 2010
14. Sociological Perspectives:
<http://www.fraw.org.uk/data/ap/huddart-kennedy_2019.pdf>‘Eco-habitus 
or Eco-powerlessness? Examining Environmental Concern across Social Class’,
vol.62 no.5, March 2019
15. Sustainable Development:
<http://www.fraw.org.uk/data/ap/hurth_2010.pdf>‘Creating 
Sustainable Identities – The Significance of the Financially Affluent Self’,
vol.18 pp.123-134, March 2010
16. Wikipedia:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathon_Porritt>‘Jonathon Porritt’
17. Wikipedia:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Parkin>‘Sara Parkin’
18. Wikipedia:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairshirt_environmentalism>‘Hairshirt 
environmentalism’

My introduction to ‘environmentalism’ started 
before I’d seriously heard the word; growing up 
in a semi-rural working class family who grew 
their own food, kept chickens, and foraged. 
Likewise, coming into contact with ‘mainstream’ 
environmentalism in the mid-1980s introduced me 
to the concept of 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bright_green_environmentalism>‘bright 
green’9 before I’d heard that term either.

If there’s one general criticism I have (in part 
because the book, too, glosses over it), it is 
the failure to explore the 
<http://www.fraw.org.uk/data/ap/cotgrove_1980.pdf>class 
bias of environmentalism10. It is dominated by 
the middle class (and in UK, led by the 
upper-middle class); and so the economically 
‘aspirational’ middle class values suffuse its 
agenda. That’s overlooked in the film.

That this movement should innately favour 
<https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/environmental-conservation/article/sympathy-for-the-environment-predicts-green-consumerism-but-not-more-important-environmental-behaviours-related-to-domestic-energy-use/075A55EF4BC0730CE8FD5E39B4CEC8DA>individualist 
materialist values11, over communal or spiritual 
ones, should therefore be of no surprise. That 
does not condemn these groups, or 
<http://www.fraw.org.uk/data/ap/eom_2018.pdf>render 
them incapable12 of change. What it makes them do 
is reflect a narrow focus of 
<http://www.fraw.org.uk/data/ap/gatersleben_2010.pdf>both 
concerns and solutions13. More importantly, in a 
mass political society, it makes it difficult for 
them to 
<http://www.fraw.org.uk/data/ap/huddart-kennedy_2019.pdf>have 
empathy with14 a large majority of the public – 
and that hampers their ability to make change.

That 
<http://www.fraw.org.uk/data/ap/hurth_2010.pdf>bias 
towards affluence15 informs their ideological 
values, which in turn have come to dominate 
contemporary environmentalism. As said in the film:

“Bright Green Environmentalism is founded on the 
notion that technology will solve environmental 
problems; and that you can, through 100% 
recycling, through wind and solar power, have an 
industrial economy that does not harm the planet. 
Deep ecology is the belief that we need to 
radically change the way society functions in order to be sustainable.”[05:30]

The spectre of this early ideological 
differentiation has haunted the movement. Just as 
Keith outlines, for me it became evident around 
1988 to 1990. Figures such as 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathon_Porritt>Jonathon 
Porritt16 and 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Parkin>Sara 
Parkin17 sought to divest the movement of its 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairshirt_environmentalism>‘hairshirt’<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairshirt_environmentalism> 
image18, and put it on a ‘professional’ footing. 
As a self-acknowledged ‘fundo’ (the pejorative 
term used for deep green ‘fundamentalists’ in the 
Green Party at that time) that didn’t enthuse me one bit.

That ‘professionalised’ approach (for which, read 
compromise with neoliberal values) would slowly 
percolate through the movement over the next 
decade. And with it, the compromise that has 
stalled more radical responses to ecological 
issues ever since. That failure has, in part, 
only escalated these historic internal tensions – 
tensions that this film, almost certainly, will inflame.
19. YouTube:
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2TbrtCGbhQ>‘Forget Shorter Showers’, 2015
20. Nature Communications:
<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16941-y>‘Scientists’ 
warning on affluence’,
19th June 2020
21. Wikipedia:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth>‘Degrowth’
22. Nature Energy:
<http://www.fraw.org.uk/data/ap/oswald_2020.pdf>‘Large 
inequality in international and intranational 
energy footprints between income groups and across consumption categories’,
vol.5 pp.231-239, March 2020
23. Oxfam:
<https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/mb-extreme-carbon-inequality-021215-en.pdf>‘Extreme 
Carbon Inequality – Why the Paris climate deal 
must put the poorest, lowest emitting and most vulnerable people first’,
December 2015
24. Oxfam:
<https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/confronting-carbon-inequality>‘Confronting 
carbon inequality – Putting climate justice at 
the heart of the COVID-19 recovery’,
21st September 2020

First ‘green consumerism’, and then 
‘sustainability’, foundered on the reality that 
the movement’s role as a ‘stakeholder’ in 
government and industry programmes produced 
little change. Today, the issue at the heart of 
this internecine contention is renewable energy – 
and whether it is a realistic response to the 
Climate Emergency, or just another distracting ruse.

I think this film is a good contribution to that 
contemporary debate. If only to make many people 
aware that 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2TbrtCGbhQ>this 
debate exists19, and so cause people to look at 
the academic research in more detail.

As Barnes succinctly put it: “We are told that we 
can have our cake and eat it too.”[01:59] And 
yes, this really is all about cutting the ‘cake’ 
of affluence. But the film’s criticism of 
consumerism was couched in a generic “we”, and therein lies its failing.

When it comes to consumption it is not an issue 
of ‘we’. It is about how an extremely narrow 
social and economic elite exploit the majority by 
giving them the 
<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16941-y>‘illusion 
of affluence’20. Albeit one that is today 
precariously founded upon deepening debt and 
doubtful economics 
(<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth>a ‘deep’ issue21 in-and-of itself).

By not making the case that it is 
<http://www.fraw.org.uk/data/ap/oswald_2020.pdf>a 
highly privileged minority22 causing/benefiting 
from ecological destruction 
<https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/mb-extreme-carbon-inequality-021215-en.pdf>(see 
graph below)23, the film and book miss the 
opportunity to state arguments such as:
Oxfam's champagne glass graph of global populatio
Oxfam, ‘Extreme Carbon inequality’, 2015
    * The most affluent 
<https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/confronting-carbon-inequality>10% 
of the global population24 (OK, that’s mostly us!) cause half the pollution;
    * But even within these most affluent states, 
national inequality means 
<https://www.pnas.org/content/117/32/19122>wealthy 
households emit far more pollution25 than the poorest;
    * Hence pollution is absolutely associated 
with 
<https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/global-sustainability/article/unequal-distribution-of-household-carbon-footprints-in-europe-and-its-link-to-sustainability/F1ED4F705AF1C6C1FCAD477398353DC2>economic 
inequality and consumption26; and,
    * That this skew means the most affluent 
states must 
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378020307512>reduce 
consumption by perhaps 90%!27

25. PNAS:
<https://www.pnas.org/content/117/32/19122>‘The 
carbon footprint of household energy use in the United States’,
vol.117(32) pp.19122-19130, August 2020
26. Global Sustainability:
<https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/global-sustainability/article/unequal-distribution-of-household-carbon-footprints-in-europe-and-its-link-to-sustainability/F1ED4F705AF1C6C1FCAD477398353DC2>‘The 
unequal distribution of household carbon 
footprints in Europe and its link to sustainability’,
vol.3 e18, 6th July 2020
27. Global Environmental Change:
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378020307512>‘Providing 
decent living with minimum energy – A global scenario’,
vol.65 art.102168, November 2020
28. Guardian On-line:
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/19/environment-protest-being-criminalised-around-world-say-experts>‘Environment 
protest being criminalised around world, say experts’, 29th April 2021
29. Forbes:
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimdobson/2020/03/27/billionaire-bunker-owners-are-preparing-for-the-ultimate-underground-escape/>‘Billionaire 
Bunker Owners Are Preparing For The Ultimate Underground Escape’,
27th March 2020

In a situation where – both globally but also in 
the most polluting states – it is a minority 
which is causing these problems, that redefines 
its political ‘reality’ in different terms. To be 
fair, Barnes strays into this issue at points:

“The ocean is the foundation of life on this 
planet. The fact that we’re losing it at the rate 
we are is alarming. I think part of the reason 
we’re failing is that we ask what is politically 
possible more often than we ask what is necessary.”[41:37]

Simple logic demands that this minority urgently 
change their lifestyle, lest the majority, 
threatened by ecological breakdown, seek to rest 
it from them. It is how they do this which is 
another live issue. Frankly, that’s not going too well right now:

Currently Western states are 
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/19/environment-protest-being-criminalised-around-world-say-experts>seeking 
to repress protests28 against the climate 
emergency, to forestall calls for more radical change;

While at the same time, 
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimdobson/2020/03/27/billionaire-bunker-owners-are-preparing-for-the-ultimate-underground-escape/>billionaires 
create bunkers29 in remote locations to survive 
any future backlash from the dispossessed majority.

This creates a powerful incentive for the 
‘impoverished majority’ to rest control away from 
the economic elite driving ecological breakdown.

The reality is, though, neither Greenpeace, WWF, 
nor even Extinction Rebellion, are likely to pick 
up that banner any time soon. Their failure to 
recognise affluence as a driver for ecological 
destruction negates their ability to act to stop 
it. Instead tokenistic measures, like renewable 
energy, supplant calls for meaningful systemic change.

<http://www.fraw.org.uk/blog/2021/20210507-bright_green_lies.shtml#bookmarks>jump 
to bookmarks



Economics versus ecological limits

About half-way through, Max Wilbert elucidates a 
truth that doesn’t get nearly enough exposure:

“When people talk about 100% renewable energy 
transition to save the planet, to save 
civilisation, what they’re actually talking about 
is sustaining modern high-energy ways of life, at 
the expense of the natural world.”[26:38]
30. Paul Mobbs & MEIR:
<http://www.fraw.org.uk/meir/2019/20191109-the_invisible_footprint_of_digital_tech.html>‘The 
Invisible, and Growing Ecological Footprint of Digital Technology’,
January 2020
31. Paul Mobbs & MEIR:
<http://www.fraw.org.uk/meir/ebo_book.html>‘‘Energy 
Beyond Oil’ – Could You Cut Your Energy Use by Sixty Percent?’,
June 2005
32. Journal of Cleaner Production:
<http://www.fraw.org.uk/data/ap/grunwald_2016.pdf>‘Diverging 
pathways to overcoming the environmental crisis – 
A critique of eco-modernism from a technology assessment perspective’,
vol.197(2) pp.1854-1862, October 2018
33. Globalizations:
<https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/14747731.2020.1807856>The 
appallingly bad neoclassical economics of climate change,
1st September 2020

I’m sure a number will recognise that from many 
of my previous workshops. In fact, I’ve just had 
a Facebook post blocked for, ‘violating community 
standards’. The offence? It linked 
<http://www.fraw.org.uk/meir/2019/20191109-the_invisible_footprint_of_digital_tech.html>to 
a summary of the research30 making this same 
point; and it’s not the first time that’s happened. It’s a touchy subject!

In 2005, my own book, 
<http://www.fraw.org.uk/meir/ebo_book.html>‘Energy 
Beyond Oil’31, visited many of the issues 
explored in the film/book. In far less detail 
though, as there was nowhere near the quantity of 
research evidence available back then. What that 
also highlights, though, is how over the interim: 
‘Bright green’ environmentalism has been 
<http://www.fraw.org.uk/data/ap/grunwald_2016.pdf>unable 
to comprehend32 the message from this new 
research; while at the same time deliberately 
deflecting people’s attention towards points of 
view which 
<https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/14747731.2020.1807856>have 
a questionable basis33 for support.

On that point, I think Max Wilbert gives a most 
eloquent view for how mainstream environmentalism 
sold itself on the altar of green consumerism:

“They want us to believe that consumer choices 
are the only way we can change things. But if we 
accept that then it means that they’ve won, 
because we’re defining ourselves as consumers

I have to buy things within this culture to 
survive, and that is not something that defines 
me or my power as an actor in this world. I would 
say much more fundamentally I am an animal. I 
have hands. I have feet. And I can walk places. 
And I can do things. And I have a voice. And I 
have the ability to speak with people and build a 
relationship with people. And I have the ability 
to organise. And I have the ability to fight if 
need be. These are all much more important than 
my ability to buy or not buy something.”[48:28]

Since ‘Planet of the Humans’, many on the ‘bright 
green’ side of the aisle have learned a lesson. 
Their hysterical condemnation of the film, to the 
point of calling for it to be banned, only served 
to feed it greater publicity, ensuring more would see it.

Their lack of response this time is perhaps also 
due to how well the film exposes the fragility of 
their arguments. One of the bright points in the 
film was the way in which ‘deep green’ criticisms 
were dovetailed alongside interviews with those 
they criticised – amplifying the substance of the 
disagreement between each side.
34. Energy Research
& Social Science:
<https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.erss.2019.01.008>‘Energy 
transitions or additions? – Why a transition from 
fossil fuels requires more than the growth of renewable energy’,
vol.51 pp.40-43, May 2019

I think my favourite was the segment on 
<https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.erss.2019.01.008>Richard 
York’s research34, showing that growing renewable 
energy actually displaces a very minimal level of 
fossil fuels. When York’s point was put to David 
Suzuki, his reply, which I too have often 
received, was, ”So what is the conclusion form an 
analysis like that, we shouldn’t do anything?”[24:08]

The film brilliantly explodes this false dilemma. 
When pushed, about needing to tackle things 
systemically rather than just trying to influence 
behaviour, Suzuki’s response was, “yeah, there’s 
no question our major impact on the planet now, 
not just in terms of energy, is consumption. And 
that was a deliberate programme...”[24:26]

When it comes to the ‘liberal’ solutions to the 
climate crisis generally, I think Lierre Keith 
gives the most perceptive criticism of the 
simplistic, ‘bright green’ arguments for change[1:03:23]:
35. Ecological Economics:
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800919310067>‘Economics 
for the future: Beyond the super-organism’,
vol.169 art.106520, March 2020

“[Capitalism] takes living communities, it 
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800919310067>converts 
those into dead commodities35, and then those 
dead commodities are turned into private wealth. 
And a lot of people think, well, if we just make 
that into public wealth, we all could get an 
equal piece of the pie, that’s the solution. The 
problem is that’s not going to be a solution 
because you’ve still got the first two parts of 
that equation. Why are we taking the living 
planet and turning it into dead commodities? That’s the problem


It’s the fact that rivers, and grasslands, and 
forests, and fish, have been turned into those 
dead commodities, that’s the problem.”

Jensen then bookends Keith’s point with another, 
straightforward invalidation of the basic premise 
of the bright green approach[1:04:33]:
36. Nature:
<https://www.nature.com/articles/461472a>‘A safe operating space for humanity’,
vol.461 pp.472-475,
September 2009

“What do all the so called, ‘solutions’, to 
global warming have in common? They all take 
industrial capitalism as a given, and so conform 
to industrial capitalism. They’ve switched the 
dependent and the independent variables. The 
world has to be primary, and the health of the 
<https://www.nature.com/articles/461472a>world 
has to be primary36, because without a world you 
don’t have any economy whatsoever. And the bright 
greens are very explicit about this. What they’re 
trying to save is industrial capitalism, 
industrial civilisation. And that’s my 
fundamental beef, because what I'm trying to save is the real world.”

<http://www.fraw.org.uk/blog/2021/20210507-bright_green_lies.shtml#bookmarks>jump 
to bookmarks



Climate inequality meets decolonialism

Jensen makes an interesting observation towards the end of the film:

“The thing that blows me away is the lengths that 
people will go to avoid looking at the problem. 
That they will create all these extraordinary 
fantasies in order to do something that’s not 
going to help the planet so they can avoid 
looking at the real issue. Which is that 
industrial civilisation itself is what’s killing the planet.”[59:40]

Likewise Barnes astutely characterises the basic 
block to progress towards the near end:

“Bright green environmentalism has gained 
popularity because it tells a lot of people what 
they want to hear. That you can have industrial 
civilisation and a planet too. It allows people 
to feel good about maintaining this destructive 
way of living and to avoid asking hard questions 
about the depth of what must be changed.”[1:05:04]

For me, though, it was Keith’s discussion about 
what it is ‘civilisation’ is based upon[1:00:02] 
which brought a long overdue argument into 
circulation: Criticism of the ‘resource island’ 
model for the modern city, and its inherent link 
to the global expropriation and exploitation of land.

Driven by the wealthiest ‘city’ state’s need to 
maintain consumption, the inherent ‘neocolonial’ 
aspects of international climate negotiations are 
something the climate lobby too often overlook. 
Especially in relation to issues such as carbon 
offsets, and the global allocation of carbon 
budgets, and their inherent global inequality.
37. Wikipedia:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocolonialism>‘Neocolonialism’
38. Wikipedia:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exterminate_All_the_Brutes_%282021_film%29>‘Exterminate 
All The Brutes (2021 film)’
39. Wikipedia:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_Darkness>‘Heart of Darkness’

At some point environmental groups must call 
‘bullshit’ on these whole 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocolonialism>neocolonial 
proceedings37, and start giving equal value to 
all humans, irrespective of their present-day 
privilege. More importantly, we have to give 
ecological capacity, currently occupied by human 
societies, back to natural organisms to allow 
them sufficient space to live too.

Before ‘Bright Green Lies’ turned up, I had just 
seen Raoul Peck’s excellent, 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exterminate_All_the_Brutes_%282021_film%29>‘Exterminate 
All The Brutes’38. Coming to the end of ‘Bright 
Green Lies’, what startled me was how the two 
films arrived at a very similar place. Both 
showed similar blocks towards acceptance of the 
radical change required, around both ecological change and decolonialism.

To understand Peck’s film it helps to have read, 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_Darkness>‘Heart 
of Darkness’39. In structuring the film around 
the characters in that book, and contrasting it 
to The Holocaust, Peck shows how indifference to 
European and US colonialism enabled The Holocaust 
to take place[Episode 4, 46:57 to 54:11]:

“It is not knowledge that is lacking... The 
educated general public has always largely known 
what atrocities have been committed and are being 
committed in the name of progress, civilization, 
socialism, democracy, and the market


At all times, it has also been profitable to deny 
or suppress such knowledge
 And when what had 
been done in the heart of darkness was repeated 
in the heart of Europe, no one recognized it. No 
one wished to admit what everyone knew.

Everywhere in the world this knowledge is being 
suppressed. Knowledge that, if it were made 
known, would shatter our image of the world and 
force us to question ourselves. Everywhere there, 
Heart of Darkness is being enacted


Black Elk, holy man of the Oglala Lakota people, 
said after the Wounded Knee Massacre, ‘I didn’t 
know then how much was ended... A people’s dream 
died there. It was a beautiful dream. The 
nation’s circle is broken and scattered. There is 
no centre any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.’”
40. Nature Communications:
<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17928-5>‘Renewable 
energy production will exacerbate mining threats to biodiversity’,
vol.11 art.4174,
1st September 2020

There are uncomfortable parallels between Peck’s 
insights into Holocaust denial, and the denial of 
the crimes of colonialism, and the everyday 
denial of the damage that affluence and material 
consumption are causing to the entire planet. 
 From the horrors of 
<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17928-5>resource 
mining40, to the devastation of the oceans by 
plastics, such evidence represents a constant 
‘background noise’ in the modern media. A noise 
people have learned to ignore, in order to keep 
functioning amidst the cognitive dissonance of 
their everyday, disconnected lives.

As Peck says, “It is not knowledge that is 
lacking”. People are aware. The fact that they 
will not engage with the issue, as outlined in 
‘Bright Green Lies’, is that people innately know 
the extent of their own complicity. To do so, 
‘would shatter our image of the world and force us to question ourselves’.
41. PNAS:
<https://www.pnas.org/content/118/17/e2023483118>‘People 
have shaped most of terrestrial nature for at least 12,000 years’,
vol.118(17) no.e2023483118,
27th April 2021

We do not need more ‘evidence’. The block to 
ecological change is not simply a lack of 
‘knowledge’. It is that many all too well 
understand the reality of what 
<https://www.pnas.org/content/118/17/e2023483118>stopping 
the ecological crisis41 would entail. Trapped by 
their subconscious fear for what that would mean 
personally, they cannot see a solution to the 
psychological dependency engendered by consumerism and industrial society.

Mainstream environmentalism, as the film 
outlines, is its own worst enemy. In advocating 
ephemeral, consumer-based solutions to tackling 
ecological breakdown, it creates its own certain 
failure. Unfortunately, unless the counter-point 
to that, the ‘deep green’ argument, is able to 
give people the confidence to accept and let go 
of industrial society, it will not make progress 
either. I think this film almost gets there; but 
we need to focus far more on the workable, 
existing examples of people living outside of 
that system to give people the confidence to make 
that internal, ‘leap of faith’. For those who 
want to follow this road, and perhaps provide 
those examples, this film is a good starting point to build from.

<http://www.fraw.org.uk/blog/2021/20210507-bright_green_lies.shtml#bookmarks>jump 
to bookmarks

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And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, 
he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and 
gave to them. 
<http://biblehub.com/luke/24-31.htm>31 And their 
eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he 
vanished out of their sight.  http://biblehub.com/kjv/luke/24.htm
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