The New York Times “Climate Forward” has finally noticed that there might be an upside to encouraging domestic energy production: “The Trump administration has said that it has more leeway to act aggressively in the Middle East because the world is flush with oil and gas, thanks in part to record U.S. production, and has less to fear than it once did from energy price shocks. The ongoing war in Iran could put that theory to the test.” And for once with a could/might news story we don’t reply “Unless it doesn’t.” Instead we go “no duh” and ask how various other Western nations that didn’t go for fracking and so on but instead bet on green hydrogen or some other unicorn-derived source are now looking. More green about the gills than green, we dare say. It really shouldn’t have taken much brains to figure out that if lack of energy is a crucial weakness, and wind and solar can’t fill the gap, we’d better get some other kind. But apparently it did. And even now people are struggling with pretty basic concepts.

As Matthew Wielicki noted tartly:

“The climate cult says Middle East oil proves fossil fuels are dangerous. Their solution? Make the entire energy system dependent on China./ EV batteries/ Solar panels/ Wind turbines/ Rare earth magnets/ All dominated by Chinese supply chains. Imagine going to war with the country that controls the materials powering your entire energy grid. This isn’t energy security. It’s strategic suicide.”

At least Axios chimed in with an email (sorry, no link available) subject-lined “The oil must flow”. Indeed it must. But if it can’t flow through the Straits of Hormuz, or not in sufficient quantities, then it must flow from somewhere else. Wells in your own country would be a splendid choice. Wells in distant friendly countries, not so great, partly because they’ll need it themselves. Wells in distant hostile countries, wretched.

The Economist stroked its long grey beard and emailed (again, no link available) “How bad will the energy shock get?” Well, they don’t know and neither do we. But it’s pretty clear that it will get a lot worse if you’re dependent on foreigners for your energy. So why are so many Western nations still in that position, including Germany, with its brain-dead decision to shut down nuclear plants so as to eliminate the one reliable low-emission baseload form of the electricity we supposedly all need? And do we now wake up, or not?

Not Canada, it seems, as our chattering classes seem to be off in dreamland all warm and cozy. The Globe & Mail, which thinks it’s Canada’s New York Times, ran a “special to the Globe and Mail” Op Ed “Canada must remember that the future is electricity, not fossil fuels”.

Remember? How can we remember something that didn’t happen and isn’t happening? Well, close your eyes and click your clichés together three times, starting with:

“The world is undergoing a clear structural shift from fossil fuels to clean electricity, driven by electrification of industry and transport, the explosive growth of data-intensive technologies, and investor preference – with more than twice as much investment going to clean energy than fossil fuel developments in the past year.”

Yes. Investment by governments. Who are still throwing money into the wind. Oh, and we’re told, yet again:

“Canada has what it takes to attract that investment. But to do so, we need a new strategy that prioritizes clean electricity and transmission build-out across Canada, co-ordinated by a federal-provincial-territorial clean electricity table to tackle significant constraints on growth.”

Oh that’s original. But what exactly was wrong with the old strategy that took precisely that approach? Because if you don’t know why it failed, what’s the chance that the new one will work? Meet the new plan, same as the old plan:

“Senior executives across finance, technology, heavy industry, mining and energy development tell us that predictable, cost-competitive clean electricity adds material asset value or enables market access. Industry leaders emphasize that clean electricity is no longer a marginal siting factor – in many cases it is central to capital allocation decisions.”

Right. Which is why Canada faces a crisis of low capital investment, low growth, low income growth and laughter from Alabama.

What Canada must remember, or rather Canadians because countries aren’t sentient beings, is that we believed this kind of pipe dream for at least a decade, it failed, and now in a turbulent world we’re sitting on top of vast reserves of energy we failed to develop and have no influence in the world even if, and we want to make this point very clear, “Prime Minister Carney speaks with Amir of Qatar His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani” and agrees that they are pro-humanity and anti-bad-things. Which in the case of Qatar, home to Hamas billionaires in exile, we don’t even believe.