The New York Times “Climate Forward” quoted the deer-in-the-headlights Prime Minister of Great Britain proposing that, in light of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the answer to the UK’s disastrous failure to pursue reliable supplies of fossil fuels was to pursue more supplies of unreliable renewables: “‘Frankly, I am sick and tired of your energy bills fluctuating up and down because we are on the international market,’ he said in a speech on Wednesday.” Yes but their energy bills have not fluctuated because of the international market. They’ve fluctuated, mostly sharply upward, because of the deluded persistence of British governments of all partisan stripes trying to pivot to renewable power sources and having it not work. Which is why Starmer is pleading with oil companies to make oil appear from somewhere he cannot name after preventing them from making it appear from places they could, all while saying oil shmoil.

Speaking of silly, the New York Times “Climate Forward” piece also sneered about “Trump vs. the world on energy prices” because:

“Calling the spike in gas prices a ‘short-term increase,’ Trump said other countries should be responsible for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway that conveys up to a fifth of the world’s oil and a similar proportion of its natural gas. ‘They must grab and cherish it,’ he said. Markets fell and oil prices rose on Thursday morning. Trump’s comments were in stark contrast to recent remarks from other world leaders, who have begun making increasingly urgent public statements as they plan for many more months of disruption to the world’s oil and gas supplies.”

And the piece then quoted the President of South Korea that his country is in big trouble and everyone should “save every drop” of fuel. Plus the Prime Minister of Australia urging people to take the bus for the foreseeable future.

Whereas the US is far better placed to weather the storm precisely because unlike nearly every other Western nation it has not spent decades trying to destroy its energy sector and succeeding better than governments usually do.

To make matters worse, it’s not just oil that arrives in ships that travel past bad places where things go boom. As a “Nature Briefing: Anthropocene” notes:

“disruption to global shipping caused by the war is also affecting supply chains for materials, such as aluminum, that are needed to make solar panels. And the current crisis incentivizes the use of fossil fuels to fill gaps in the short term.”

The usual suspects are glad-sad, thinking a crisis due to your ongoing dependence on energy that works is reason to continue to plunge into energy that doesn’t. Canary Media for instance under the headline “Iran war could spur Europe to double down on renewables – again”, which we would have written as “to quadruple down”, celebrates that:

“The Mideast conflict is plunging the European Union into yet another energy crisis. EU officials are once again embracing solar and wind as a result.”

And it produces a chart on how European governments keep dumping money into wind and solar as if it were proof that they’re doing the right thing not wasting tax dollars while their economies sputter. But if they already embraced solar and wind, and are now embracing it, why are they having an energy crisis, chart or no chart? Well um square circles or something:

“The European Union is once again facing an energy crisis due to its reliance on imported fossil fuels – and is once again poised to lean into renewables to blunt the effects.”

Because it worked so well last time?

At least The Economist in its March 27 “Climate Issue” (link not available) had the good grace to admit it didn’t before advocating doing it again:

“Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked. The energy-market version of that old finance quip is currently on display in Europe. In 2022 Russia’s invasion of Ukraine dealt a mighty shock to Europe’s energy system. Admittedly, a mere four years are not enough to rebuild the entire set-up. But the price shock of 2022 should have prompted policymakers to make the system less dependent on fossil fuels and more resilient to further shocks – like the one just imparted by the Iran war.”

But unless you think they didn’t try, in which case you should not be producing a news publication, you should think it must be harder than it looks. A lot harder.

If you really think being dependent on oil and gas is bad, you need a serious approach to weaning yourself off it. And if you simply think being dependent on imported oil and gas from hostile regimes, or distant ones via supply routes that are vulnerable to hostile regimes, is bad, you should have the basic sense to realize that it’s going to take considerable work to develop your own domestic sources or find reliable and secure foreign ones, or to build up your military to the point that you can do something other than flap your arms and your gums if a war erupts.