There is a deeper point to be made here, however, having to do with the specificity of everything. One of the great failings of our culture is the ne… - Derrick Jensen

If any thing can be predicated as universally true of uncultivated man, it is that he will not labour beyond what is absolutely necessary to maintain his existence.

The anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday looked at data from over a hundred cultures as to the prevalence of rape, and divided them into high- or low-rape cultures. She found that high-rape cultures are highly militarized and sex-segregated. There is a lot of difference in status between men and women. The care of children is devalued and delegated to subordinate females. She also found that the creation myths of high-rape cultures recognize only a male deity rather than a female deity or a couple. When you think about it, that is rather bizarre. It would be an understandable mistake to think women make babies all by themselves, but it’s preposterous to think men do that alone. So you’ve got to have a fairly elaborate and counterintuitive mythmaking machine in order to fabricate a creation myth that recognizes only a male deity. There was another interesting finding, which is that high-rape cultures had recent experiences — meaning in the last few hundred years — of famine or migration. That is to say, they had not reached a stable adaptation to their ecological niche. Sadly enough, when you tally these risk factors, you realize you’ve pretty much described our culture.

Well, even if we had the money, and even if solar power were a social good, it’s not a planetary good. And that’s the point. Industrial solar energy doesn’t help the world. It’s just another way to power industrial capitalism. At root, it’s an industrial product designed and built in the global capitalist marketplace to make a profit. Like other products, it leaves behind the wreckage of destroyed land, poisoned water, and devastated communities.