One environmentalist is speaking out with his “confessions” of previously promoting the Left’s climate change agenda.
Brian Gitt, a former CEO of a green company, reflected on his journey in the latest PragerU 5-Minute Video, “Confessions of an Environmentalist.”
“Just because you feel like you’re doing the right thing doesn’t mean you are. I have dedicated most of my life to protecting the environment,” Gitt said. “But I went about it the wrong way. I thought I was acting morally, protecting the well-being of people and the planet. In fact, I was harming both.”
Gitt believed that solar and wind power were the only hope of avoiding environmental catastrophe. He viewed fossil fuels as the enemy and wanted to keep the outdoors as “pristine as possible.”
He started a composting company, served as the executive director of a non-profit dedicated to green construction policies, and later led a consulting firm to make homes more energy efficient.
His firm won a multi-year, $60 million contract under the Obama administration as part of his efforts.
“I thought I was making a real difference in the world. I was surrounded by smart, successful, ambitious people who shared my beliefs and my heartfelt desire to change things. And my company had lots of money and lots of government support,” Gitt said.
“There was only one problem: our project to build more energy-efficient homes was an utter failure,” he confessed.
His hope to improve home energy was far too expensive for most families, even with government incentives. The government celebrated the efforts, but the results were not helping the environment.
As Gitt began to re-examine his environmental vision, he realized his situation was the symptom of “a much bigger problem.” He discovered that the trillions of dollars focused on climate change over the last two decades had only decreased fossil fuel dependence by three percentage points, calling it a pathetic return on investment.
Gitt concluded by providing five principles to help evaluate the best energy options to protect people and the planet.
They include reliability, affordability, security, scalability, and land use. His focus on land use is especially insightful, as he noted that the more land needed to produce energy, the more wildlife habitat is lost.
Gitt provided the example of a typical 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plant. He said it needs little more than one square mile to operate. Solar farms need 75 times more land to produce the same amount of energy, and wind farms need 360 times more.
He’s still devoted to improving the planet, but Gitt argues that a new approach is needed to get results. Watch the full video below: