What does a 6-acre Latino blueberry farmer have in common with a powerful multinational solar panel manufacturer? NOTHING, but Telemundo made sure to stick this victim angle on to an activist report on Hispanics working at a solar panel factory in Georgia.
Watch as Vanessa Hauc, Telemundo´s resident climate activist, adds a sob story about a spring freeze to a 4-minute advertorial for South Korean giant Q-Cells’ facility in Georgia:
Noticias Telemundo
08/18/2022
VANESSA HAUC: Every morning, Hector tours his blueberry fields in Georgia. Are these ready to eat?
HÉCTOR BUITRAGO: These are ready to eat, yes of course
HAUC: He has 3,200 plants on six acres of land, and each year he harvests more than 30,000 pounds. But 2 years ago…
BUITRAGO: Everything was in bloom, totally flowered and ready for them to become fruit. And then the frost fell at the precise moment when they were flowering and turned-, totally destroyed the plants…
HAUC: You lost everything.
BUITRAGO: …the flowers. 90% was lost. That's a lot.
HAUC: Temperatures dropped to 27 degrees in the middle of spring.
BUITRAGO: There is an imbalance, climate wise.
HAUC: Just 2 hours from the farm, they’re betting on a solution. This is where Q-Cells’ solar panel factory, the largest in the hemisphere, is located.
…
Solar energy is the cheapest and fastest growing source of electricity in the country. In the last decade, its price has been reduced by 70%. It is now even cheaper than polluting fuels such as oil and coal. Something that fills Hector with hope.
“Solar energy is the cheapest and fastest growing source of electricity in the country. In the last decade its price has been reduced by 70%. It is now even cheaper than polluting fuels such as oil and coal. Something that fills Hector (the blueberry farmer) with hope”.
Hope for what? Hauc did not bother to elaborate, quickly moving on to her advertorial for the Korean energy giant's Georgia plant, where “much of its workforce is Latino”, as a cure-all for whatever ails our heroic blueberry farmer.
Hauc´s promo included a sales pitch from Georgia Democrat senator Jon Ossof, who “as the youngest in the Senate… is leading in the fight against the climate crisis, but he also knows that investing in solar energy is good for the planet and for the economy”- never mind that the technology remains out of reach for millions of Americans struggling with inflation costing an additional $700 a month on average.
Hauc spoke about the importance of solar energy in combating global warming, yet the report failed to include the harsh realities of the extent to which unrecyclable solar panels actually POLLUTE the environment, or of the real estate required to put up massive solar farms as the one seen in the report. Telemundo’s viewers also remain unaware of the fact that lithium and cobalt, two critical elements needed to produce the batteries for storing solar power, are mostly mined by children in Africa.
But of course, such truth-telling would make Hauc´s ´Planet Earth´ more like Planet Hell, not good for Hauc´s ROI.
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Press on expand to view the complete transcript of the segment mentioned above.
JULIO VAQUEIRO: Let's talk about solar energy, one of the sources that can generate- that can stop the climate emergency. Georgia is home to the largest solar panel factory in the Western Hemisphere, and much of its workforce is Latino. In Planeta Tierra (Planet Earth), Vanessa Hauc visited that place.
VANESSA HAUC: Every morning, Hector tours his blueberry fields in Georgia.
Are these ready to eat?
HÉCTOR BUITRAGO: These are ready to pick, yes of course
HAUC: He has 3,200 plants on six acres of land, and each year he produces more than 30,000 pounds. But 2 years ago…
BUITRAGO: Everything was in bloom, totally flowered and ready for them to become fruit. And then the frost fell at the precise moment when it was flowering and turned- totally destroyed the plants…
HAUC: You lost everything.
BUITRAGO: …the flowers. 90% was lost. That's a lot.
HAUC: Temperatures dropped to 27 degrees in the middle of spring.
BUITRAGO: There is an imbalance, climate wise.
HAUC: Just 2 hours from the farm, they’re betting on a solution. This is where Q-Cells’ solar panel factory, the largest in the hemisphere, is located. It operates seven days a week, 24 hours a day, producing more than 13,000 solar panels a day. Each panel is made up of 32 photovoltaic cells that are printed in 3D technology.
MIRIAM HERNANDEZ: There goes what is the wire below and above so that everything connects and can absorb the power of the sun.
ENRIQUE : Here
HAUC: Enrique is in charge of quality control.
ENRIQUE: Here we are making sure that everything is fine. Here we can see the cells that are broken or if the glass is scratched.
HAUC: Finally, they go through a sunlight simulator to ensure they can transform sunlight into energy.
ALAN RODRIGUEZ: Using solar energy for me is something important, it's something that motivates me day after day.
HAUC: The state is the eighth largest producer of solar energy in the country. But it hopes to become a leader in clean energy solutions, electric vehicles and solar panels.
JON OSSOFF (D-GA): Georgia should lead the country in renewable energy innovation and manufacturing.
HAUC: As the youngest in the Senate, John Ossoff is leading in the fight against the climate crisis. But he also knows that investing in solar energy is good for the planet and for the economy.
OSSOFF: It's also about lowering energy bills and making our economy more efficient now, and helping to create jobs.
HAUC: Jobs that pay up to 21% more than average jobs.
JOSÉ ACEVEDO: The best thing is that as the sun shines we can then capture the energy that is produced with the solar panels, with a battery. And eventually the battery uses the accumulated energy and can provide energy when the sun is not there.
HAUC: The sun is an infinite source of energy. In just one hour, our sun is able to produce the energy needed to meet the needs of humanity for more than a year. A solar farm like this in Georgia is capable of generating electricity for 1200 homes in a day. Solar energy is the cheapest and fastest growing source of electricity in the country. In the last decade its price has been reduced by 70%. It is now even cheaper than polluting fuels such as oil and coal. Something that fills Hector with hope.
BUITRAGO: If we humans don´t act, if we do not do our part to help the system, then in the future, our children, the grandchildren of the grandchildren will be suffering a lot.
HAUC: In Georgia, Vanessa Hauc, Noticias Telemundo
