When we were at high school, the joke of the moment was when you asked for money from your parents, to always tell them that the school principal wanted you to go and buy photosynthesis.
We knew that trees absorbed carbon dioxide and released oxygen.
Oxygen is good for our lives. But there is also a whole bunch of artificial green. I always found it ridiculous that we have to buy artificial greens in order to pretend to be green. I enjoy real green.
Solar panels are considered green, however, they do not like trees, which block sunlight, so they are enemies to natural green energy. Especially, in case you have to cut green to give way to green.
And while having a leafy environment is beneficial to the environment, in order to secure energy from solar technology, you are forced to sacrifice oxygen generators for a slab of steel, glass and everything that has to do with solar tech.
While these practical examples of cutting trees in order to secure green energy from solar panels can look ridiculous, it enriches the debate on energy. What does green energy truly mean? Albeit, with this line of debate, more than a number of us would have pledged solidarity with the sanatorium as you unpack this Pandora’s box of "green“.
As the energy crisis deepened, I had to look at the roof of my house, examine the viability of solar and the possible installation. However, my yard is very leafy and the roof hardly receives sunlight. But to install solar panels, they have to be exposed to the sun. So, I had to cut the trees so that sunlight could reach the roof in order to be able to get energy from solar panels.
In the pursuit of solar panels in South Africa, cutting down trees has become big business and loggers compete with their chain saws to clear trees off the line of sight of the sun. I had to annihilate five trees that stood in the way of the sun’s rays that had to reach the roof. Doing so is quite costly even before you get solar panels.
But the trees offer a major benefit. When there is less electricity one can use the logs for cooking and for heating. I certainly have plenty of megawatts of energy from the wood. But it is energy that emits smoke.
Many families are faced with a major crisis which returns them to the use of dirtier and costlier forms of energy such as dung, wood and paraffin.
Shortly, I will have both solar panels as well as the plentiful wood that I have just generated from the monstrous trees that stood up to 15 metres in my yard.
The Just Energy Transition (JET) in South Africa has seriously triggered the return to dirty energy sources as people do what they have to do and use whatever energy is available amid the power crisis South Africa is confronted with.
The other side of the ridiculous energy response is about removing ambient nature and replacing it with the slabs on top of the roof. When everyone sobers up from the slumber of JET, we are likely to find that as for South Africa the JET was not only unjust, but hoodwinked everyone into its most nefarious intent, which is about money. This as the recycling of solar panels worldwide, which is complex, is in its infancy and currently is expensive.
Lest I be labelled one who is anti-solar, in fact I am all for it provided we can prevail on science to lead us. But for now, the ambience of leaves and lots of green has given way to brown naked ground, which destroys the ambience of the canopy of trees and birds that sought abode in this environment. But king solar is now here, we dare not tell him about the ambience that trees bring about.
Dr Pali Lehohla is the director of the Economic Modelling Academy, a Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, a Research Associate at Oxford University, a board member of Institute for Economic Justice at Wits and a distinguished Alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former Statistician-General of South Africa.
BUSINESS REPORT