When Russia invaded Ukraine it was, supposedly, a wakeup call about foolish climate and energy policies that left Western democracies at the mercy of hostile foreign suppliers of energy. Our governments learned suddenly that we absolutely, positively had to have a reliable way to power our society and economy. And then all the people in charge promptly hit the snooze button, curled up and dozed off again. Well, guess what? The dangerous world just got even more dangerous with a new war in the Middle East bringing massive new oil supply disruptions, ironically hitting western leaders hard with the very thing they have long claimed they wanted, namely a rapid “Green Energy Transition” off oil and gas. And regardless of what one thinks of the American-Israeli action against Iran, and obviously in a weekly newsletter we can’t keep up with breaking news, it reminds us that to have any kind of independence of action you must not be at the mercy of tyrants, or events. Will most Western governments roll over and start snoring again? Were they, indeed, ever really awake?

Consider this headline on David Blackmon’s Energy Additions Substack, reprinted from Kevin Killough at Just The News:

“As Iran war hits oil and gas shipping, green policies of Europe and California start to boomerang”.

You ain’t fooling. And they ain’t smart, because it’s the second such wallop in under five years after the Ukraine war. What were they thinking? And what was the Canadian government thinking, going right ahead with stifling our capacity to produce, let alone export, fuels vital to the security of the free world, even after Mark Carney came into office with his elbows up, or at least his rhetoric, about making us an energy superpower to further reinvigorate our already marvellous sovereignty after Justin Trudeau’s fatuous neglect of mere prosperity? Meet the new boss.

Blackmon was thinking, in a slightly earlier post again a reprint, this time from Ron Stein at America Out Loud NEWS, that “California will be a national security risk for the entire country!” The reason being that the government of that state, rapidly turning it from Golden to Leaden, has put a huge dent in California’s ability to produce and refine petroleum products. (And there are no pipelines over the Sierra Mountains from the rest of the country for some reason, which helps produce the weirdness we discussed last week of shipping gasoline from Texas and Louisiana to the Bahamas then to California.) But it has not put a dent in its appetite for them.

On the contrary, California gets through “13 million gallons of aviation fuel daily” for civilian and military purposes. It’s a sixth of the national total. It is also “the second-largest consumer of motor gasoline among the 50 states, consuming 42 million gallons a day of gasoline, just behind Texas” and also gets through 10 million gallons of diesel fuel a day. Yes, 10 million gallons. And of course if California’s economy crashes, it’s disastrous for the whole United States. So imagine the strategic vulnerability of having to get more and more of that fuel from foreign ports. Worse, imagine not imagining it, because the Gavin Newsoms, Joe Bidens and indeed Michael Manns of this world seem not to have.

Now consider this headline: “As gas prices spike, G7 finance ministers ‘stand ready’ to support oil supply”. On the face of it, exactly the kind of thing you want to hear. We don’t have enough oil. We should increase production. Then we will have more, and it will be coming from inside our country not across an ocean streaked by Iranian missiles or from some stinking tyrant. Alas, it does not mean what it should mean.

Instead the ministers said nothing, in the following way:

“We will continue to closely monitor the situation and developments in the energy markets and will meet as needed to exchange information and to coordinate within the G7 and with international partners. We stand ready to take necessary measures, including to support global supply of energy such as stockpile release.”

As per “Yes, Minister”, the verb “monitor” means “do nothing about”. But the planlet is to fix the shortage of supply by burning up what they already have, not to get more. It would be. But the truly necessary measure is to get more energy, including in Britain by lifting the crippling ban on fracking. Because Britain does not need, or use, any less hydrocarbon energy than before. It just sends vast sums abroad to nasty regimes to import it.

Now we’ve said before and will say again that if you really think human GHGs are setting the sky on fire and we are all going to die along with the cute animals and pleasant plants, no price is too high to pay to prevent it. Including conquest by Russia, China or both. But even in that nightmare scenario, the price you pay does have to prevent it, which was always a weak link in the let’s shut our economy down and see if foreigners are inspired by our example, horrified by it, or contemptuous of it.

It is also true, indeed obvious, that if you are pushing for drastic cuts to your own GHG emissions while denying that suffering will result, never mind conquest de jure or simply de facto, then you have to produce the substitute energy that keeps the factories humming, the tractors plowing, the trucks delivering, the cars running, the homes heated, the hospital lights on and all that kind of stuff. It is surely clear even to intellectuals that burning imported rather than domestic oil or gas clearly accomplishes nothing with respect to cutting emissions.

Furthermore it should be clear that if, after decades of investing literally trillions of dollars in various climate policies, you find that if you are, say, the UK you have very high gas prices, dangerous dependence on energy imports and nothing to show internationally for your climate policies, no reduction in world human GHG emissions, no admiring queue of foreign tyrannies emulating your policies, no nothing, or if you’re Canada and are now poorer than Alabama with, again, nothing to show, you need to realize your plan has failed and you need a new one. (When former NBA great Charles Barkley was talking about running for governor of Alabama he argued that he couldn’t do much harm because “We are number 48 in everything and Arkansas and Mississippi aren’t going anywhere.” Well, Canada was.)

Heatmap’s take on March 9, not exactly a deep thought, was “Monday Was a Bad Day to Depend on Fossil Fuels” and they added “Topsy turvy oil prices aren’t great for the U.S.” And yes, wars tend to destroy things include trade patterns. Whether the war is worth it on other grounds we will not debate here. But it did happen, and if it was a bad day to depend on fossil fuels even if you have them, which most of the U.S. does thanks to decades of comparatively sensible energy policy, it was a much worse day to depend on them if you don’t.