While we were in Senegal examples of what looks like a serious turn toward climate sanity across a wide range of issues kept arriving in the inbox. Starting with an “Energy Bad Boys” report that the governor of Colorado, Jared Polis, just signed into law a bill “allowing nuclear power to count as a ‘clean resource’ in meeting the Centennial state’s economy-wide greenhouse gas reduction mandates.” What makes it especially remarkable, they note, is that back in 2019 Polis campaigned aggressively on wind, solar and battery storage, giving nuclear short shrift. Unfortunately, they also note, like many states Colorado has had rules for 50 years that make actually building nuclear plants impossible. But forced to choose between red tape and emissions reductions, some on the left are actually putting aside their fondness for red tape. Stay tuned.

Another interesting example of seeking truth from facts comes courtesy of Charles Rotter on Watts Up With That, noting that a court in France just ordered a French wind farm to shut down for a year, and imposed fines on the company and on its boss personally, because one of its turbines killed a golden eagle. As Rotter says, while noting the ongoing resistance to the evidence in many quarters, “It represents a seismic shift in how the French legal system – and perhaps the broader public – are beginning to confront the uncomfortable truth about wind energy’s collateral damage.” It sometimes sees as though people, especially those we disagree with, are impervious to evidence. But in fact, to cite J. Budziszewski once more, human beings are logical, just slowly. And the more green measures are implemented in practice, the more even their supporters notice problems they’d rather not see.

Of course not everyone is yet ready to see the light, and not just in Iberia. Canary Media complains that “Connecticut bill aims to cut electric costs, but may stifle clean energy/ The legislation would scale back incentives for residential solar and allow a nuclear power plant to benefit from renewable energy programs, among other changes.” But it doesn’t therefore conclude that alternative energy isn’t actually cheaper. Instead, it comments that “Connecticut’s high electricity rates – its residential prices were the second highest in the country in February – have been the subject of much discussion among lawmakers this session. Many of these conversations have, explicitly or implicitly, revolved around the largely unfounded notion taking root across New England that clean energy programs are driving high prices.” And then it complains that if nuclear gets classified as renewable, the state’s only such plant could sell “Renewable Energy Credits” at prices wind and solar couldn’t match. Not because they’re more expensive, you understand. Just because they cost more.

The same is true of Canary admitting that Los Angeles “waived its all-electric building requirement in an effort to fast-track recovery after the January fires” but “A new report argues that’s the wrong approach.” Yeah. A report by people who will face no consequences for being wrong, unlike the authorities in LA whose obsession with climate already caused a disaster for their constituents and a PR headache for them.

This resistance to uncomfortable truths, and let us again stress that it does not only afflict people we disagree with, was on display in an interesting commentary from The Economist’s “Environment editor” Rachel Dobbs, who wrote:

“I’ve never received more emails from readers than I have in response to our recent package on plastics. In it we looked at the very real problems of plastic waste, the risks (and scientific uncertainties) around microplastics, and recycling’s potential and limits. But we also looked at the enormous role plastics play in the global economy and development—allowing people to lead healthier, happier lives without pillaging the natural world for substances like wood, bone, horn or fibre. We ultimately concluded that plastics are a good thing, even if the way they are managed is not.”

Obviously they knew they’d get letters; they seem to have been tempted to write some themselves. As she continues in what might be called a lapse into typical jargon:

“Some of the arguments I ended up making about the utility of plastics are the same talking points bandied around by fossil-fuel companies like ExxonMobil, which produce the petrochemicals used to make plastics and have a vested interest in continued demand for them. That is uncomfortable - both as an environmental reporter, and as someone with an instinctive dislike of the idea that a man-made substance is choking our ecosystems or (possibly) poisoning our bodies.”

But a pundit who never writes anything that makes their audience uncomfortable, or thinks anything that makes them personally uncomfortable, is of little use even to that audience. As a friend of ours likes to say, “When people tell you what you want to hear, they’re trying to help themselves. When they tell you what you need to hear, they’re trying to help you.” And Dobbs addresses squarely one of those trade-offs directly relevant to our recent trip to explore energy poverty in Senegal (on which stay tuned), adding:

“Asking people to do away with plastics means either asking them to use materials that are more expensive, and generally have a higher carbon footprint – a paper bag is nearly six times heavier than a plastic one, for example, and requires three times the energy to produce. Or it means asking them to go without, which can mean asking them to be poorer, hungrier or sicker. There is a moral cost to not looking at the harms plastics can cause, and as the science around that harm develops I may have to eat my words. But there is a moral cost to not recognising the benefits they bring, too.”

Then there’s the Guardian story that:

“Downing Street is rethinking its controversial winter fuel payment cut amid growing anxiety at the top of government that the policy could wreak serious electoral damage, the Guardian has been told. Keir Starmer’s senior team has been discussing for several weeks how to handle public anger over the policy, which bubbled over in last Thursday’s local elections, when the party lost two-thirds of the council seats it was defending.”

It's all fun and games claiming expensive alternative energy isn’t expensive and people aren’t suffering until you suffer at the ballot box, isn’t it?