Power not Poverty

"The past was green and fuzzy - the future is black and ominous." -- Richard Sebrof

The green fairy-tale is over. Even the green cheer squad in the bureaucracy and the media can sense the change. The sudden end was signalled by rolling columns of Russian tanks, quickly followed by surging prices for oil, gas, coal, wheat and barley.

For decades, one-worlders and greedy industrialists have sung the green songs – lauding wind/solar energy, worshipping hydrogen, and condemning coal, oil, gas and nuclear. Their doomsday chorus was taken up by tweeting teenagers and trendy adults in the green leafy suburbs – most of them supported in soft-chair jobs in media, bureaucracy and big woke corporations. John Kerry (a rich climate-obsessed American aristocrat) worries that the Ukraine war "could have a profound negative impact on the climate". He is more concerned about beneficial emissions of life-supporting CO2 than about lethal bullets, missiles, and starvation. Russia, China and India have focussed on developing and using their best energy resources, but Australia (following the Pied Pipers of Europe) has a bi-partisan policy to keep spreading the climate virus and subsidising more expensive green toys imported from China. But, at long last, sanity is surfacing - Nigel Farage (the UK Brexiteer) has rung the full-time bell on climate alarmism with his new slogan against net zero madness – "Vote Power not Poverty".  Just one late snow storm in Berlin, a food riot in Cairo or a blackout in New York will start the green rout. The world is becoming a cold, hungry and dangerous place. Food is not produced in green forests, electricity is not generated in big batteries, green hydrogen is a net consumer of energy, and we will not fight the next war with battery-powered tanks, wind-powered frigates or an air force burning bio-fuels.

Australia's Net Zero Defense Farce

Just two years ago, Biden promised: "we are going to get rid of fossil fuels." It's time to drag green dreamers and climate alarmists into the real world where food, fuels, metals, electricity and defensive weapons are produced. This must start by cleaning the green horse manure from the "Net Zero" stables.  Putin's tanks and missiles have started this process. Europeans now face the truth that coal, oil, nuclear and gas provide most of the power for their homes, factories, industry, transportation and agriculture. Without them, big cities will die. We need more Hydrocarbon Power, more Nuclear Power, and less Un-reliables.  The world has changed. We can no longer afford "Net Negative Energy" or "Building Back Worse".

Viv Forbes——Bio and Archives

Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition, has spent his life working in exploration, mining, farming, infrastructure, financial analysis and political commentary. He has worked for government departments, private companies and now works as a private contractor and farmer.

Viv has also been a guest writer for the Asian Wall Street Journal, Business Queensland and mining newspapers. He was awarded the “Australian Adam Smith Award for Services to the Free Society” in 1988, and has written widely on political, technical and economic subjects.