On Closer Inspection examines claims about clean energy that generate more heat than light. Over the weekend, The Sunday Times published a story about asbestos found in wind turbines. It's generated considerable heat online — worth a closer look. First, though: this isn't a new issue globally.
Environmentalism needs a full accounting "Think global, act local" has been environmentalism's working instruction for half a century. But it has had a structural flaw built into it from the start: a decision made locally is by definition judged locally — against whether this project, on its
If you spend any time working alongside programmers, you'll probably encounter words like "push," "pull," "branch," and — accompanied by a visible wince — "merge conflict." These are the everyday terms of working with git. For anyone who isn't a
A polemic Every generation of environmental progress has had to overcome the same defensive posture: the person being asked to stop doing something harmful who reframes the request as an attack on themselves. The factory owner who called clean air regulation an assault on their livelihood. The smoker who framed
"Labour bans traditional tumble dryers to impose Brussels Net Zero madness on Britain." The Express (June 8th, 2026), unsurprisingly. It won't get a link. The policy is worth defending. There's also a real problem with it — just not the one the Express is worried
There is a particular type of social media post doing the rounds. It arrives as a video — often a reel, often several minutes long — in which the creator explains, in evident good faith, that artificial intelligence is consuming unconscionable quantities of water and electricity, and that this makes it an
A Field Guide If you spend any time arguing for clean energy online, you will encounter this pattern repeatedly. Having a name for it — and a compact reference to point to — is more useful than relitigating the same selective concerns from scratch every time. This guide is intended for exactly
EV
If it weren't so tragic, it'd be ironic. One of the main canards about EVs has been "it's just a longer tailpipe". It turns out the length of the tailpipe matters — the difference is measurable in children's lungs, brains, and
The title is intended to some extent for rhetorical effect, but you also need to read it with the right intonation. For context, someone else (and unfortunately I don't know who to credit) observed: "EVs have an infrastructure problem, not a range problem". Infrastructure, range, and