Tuesday 4 October 2022 07:30 AM Uighur slaves make China's solar panels, environmentalist Michael Shellenberger ... trends now
Australia must stop importing 'solar genocide panels' from China and to save turtles we should stop recycling plastic, a visiting US environmentalist says.
Just about everything we are told about the environment and how to save it is wrong, 'rogue' conservationist Michael Shellenbeger said in Sydney on Saturday.
Solar panels have become cheaper not because of improvements in technology, which were tiny, but because they are made by slave labour, Mr Shellenberger told the right-wing CPAC gathering held in Darling Harbour.
'Rogue environmentalist' Michael Shellenberger says that everything we are told about the environment is wrong
'The reason the Chinese have been able to make solar panels so cheaply is because they use Uighur Muslims that are housed in concentration camps,' he said during a 40-minute speech at the conference.
Mr Shellenberger called for solar panels to be made in western countries, including Australia.
In September, Mr Shellenberger told a congressional hearing in Washington that the US had a 'moral imperative' to stop importing solar panels from China.
He told the CPAC audience this made Democratic progressive star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez 'shift uncomfortably in her seat' as 'I hammered away on Chinese solar genocide panels'.
Mr Shellenbeger said the moment had been 'very satisfying', with Ms Ocasio-Cortez knowing she was 'in the wrong' over this issue.
China is using the repressed Uighur minority as slave labour to make solar panels, Mr Shellenbeger says
According to Mr Shellenberger, the Biden Administration had promised to stop importing Chinese solar panels but had not done so.
'They just said "nyah, we're going to keep them" - no explanation, no justification,' he said.
In July, Democratic politicians wrote to US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas asking why solar panels from China were not on a list of banned imports from the Xinjiang.
There has been no reported reply.
China has disputed the claim that Uighurs are forced to make the panels.
'The economics of solar will darken quickly as the industry sinks under its own trash,' Mr Shellenberger said.
The drop in price for solar panels has little to do with improvements in the efficiency of their manufacture, Mr Shellenberger argues
Mr Shellenberger, who has gained a reputation as a 'rogue'
