“There are currently no large-scale, proven ways to make the foundations of modern civilisation without coal, oil and gas…. all we achieve [from climate mitigation policies] is exporting the pollution, hollowing out our own industrial base, and destroying our sovereignty, security and prosperity as a nation.” – Ken Brook (below)
LinkedIn is a major debate ground for all things climate and energy. The narrative of alarmists and forced energy transformationists (there is an industry of them, most from Europe) cannot get away with much. I actively participate on LinkedIn with more than 16,000 followers.
Many energy realists post useful information that advances the debate. Ken Brook from Australia was asked SO HOW GREEN ARE RENEWABLES – err solar and wind factories?“. He listed the upstream problems of wind, solar, and batteries in a comment:
…“The critical minerals behind ‘clean’ technology come with realities we rarely acknowledge; wind turbines and EV motors depend on high-coercivity NdFeB magnets made from neodymium and praseodymium, stabilised with dysprosium and terbium sourced mainly from the toxic hell-hole rare-earth refineries of Inner Mongolia and illegal operations in Myanmar;
- Lithium extraction in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia drains fragile salt-flat aquifers and deprives native peoples of water rights in one of the most arid regions on Earth;
- Copper and silver for solar farms and transmission lines are mined at huge environmental cost in Chile, Peru and Ecuador;
- Indonesian nickel for “green” batteries is refined in coal-fired smelters that destroy rainforests and coral reefs; battery-grade graphite is overwhelmingly processed in China and Madagascar using hydrofluoric acid (HF) purification that leaves behind toxic residues;
- Polysilicon for solar panels comes largely from Xinjiang where coercive Uyghur labour programs and HF-intensive processing raise serious ethical and environmental concerns;
- Cobalt still depends heavily on artisanal and child labour in dangerous hand-dug pits in Congo; and tin for EV and electronics solder is dominated by Myanmar and Indonesia;
because Australia refuses to develop serious onshore refining or magnet manufacturing, we export the toxic chemistry, the water theft, the labour abuses and the ecological destruction to poorer nations while congratulating ourselves for being “green” — a level of moral hypocrisy we should no longer tolerate.
“Politicians seem to be struggling to deliver on voters’ affordability concerns about housing, health care and more, but natural gas is doing just fine…. No single politician can take credit for this. Maybe that’s why it has worked.”
The editorial board of the Washington Post last month gave a shout out to natural gas. Kudos to the Post for magnifying the obvious.
“Natural gas remains affordable. Here’s how” (September 22, 2026), subtitled “It wasn’t a genius plan by the government,” began:
As the Iran conflict continues to roil energy markets, sending crude oil and gasoline prices higher, there’s one bright spot for American customers: natural gas. For that, they can thank American innovation and free markets.
Continuing:
…The reason for the lower prices is not less demand; in fact, demand is expected to continue its years-long rise.
“Overall, Democrats have softened some of the rhetoric they think may have alienated voters in the Biden years — on climate and gender issues in particular….” – David Wallace-Wells, New York Times (October 14, 2026)
It’s election season. A major issue is high energy prices. “Climate change” is way down the concern list, knowing that climate mitigation (anti-fossil-fuel) policies increase prices. Thus, the green hushing continues.
Climate messaging is a mess–and in a funk (see Appendix below). The leading critic of green hushing, Joe Romm, committed suicide to escape the issue. “The problem is not denial nor this strawman description of ‘climate messaging’ that no one I know actually does— and I’ve been doing this for three decades,” he complained.
…The problems are 1) the biggest disinformation campaign in human history, 2) which is amplified by every major social media site and 3) which combined outspend the money disseminating any of the climate messaging by 20x to 100x.