Those who believe renewable energy will save the planet generally have very little understanding about what the apocalypse is meant to look like … or the engineering reality of the proposed solution.

This is not a criticism.

Climate Change is a political movement. The renewable transition is a collection of opaque policies and corporate deals negotiated in secret. Their failures are a matter for complex engineering reviews and guesswork.

Expecting anyone to understand something that has been deliberately blurred from public view is unfair.

Those who are curious enough to ask questions quickly discover that politicians have no idea what their policies mean in the real world. MPs and Senators struggle to make it through cover speeches written by their advisers, tripping over the big words and mumbling their way in and out of statistics that look fabricated or, at the very least, incomplete.

Net Zero 2050? ‘Decarbonisation’? They are bits of nonsense that look good on a campaign banner.

Political parties, mining companies, and tech firms are pilfering a fortune in public and private money to ‘do things’ that sound ‘green’ – almost all of which are damaging the environment. Is there proof that anything is truly ‘net zero’? No. ‘Carbon neutral’? That is gibberish. But no one asked for proof, so it doesn’t matter.

Where are, for example, the total costings of a wind farm over a 100-year period including ripping it out of the ground and re-building it every 25 years concealed under the feel-good heading ‘re-powering’? What about the construction and maintenance of transmissions lines, the building of the battery backup, and the replacement of that backup at least four times during the life of the wind farm? We haven’t seen that on any of Chris Bowen’s glossy press releases. His department did not include those costs when formulating the ‘cheap energy’ narrative. I am not suggesting that the Minister for Climate Change and Energy (notice the priority order in that title) is hiding the figures, I am suggesting the government has not bothered figuring them out.

Green-tinged governments were either too dumb or lazy to check the detail before signing over billions. They were bamboozled by pitch meetings given by a hungry private sector chasing a piece of the tens of trillions on offer in the energy transition. This negligence in duty is almost more depressing than conspiracy.

That said, the public are starting to realise that having their pristine landscapes draped in wires, blades, solar panels, and batteries is not the environmentally-friendly Utopia they were promised. The industrialisation of our beaches, rainforests, and oceans feels wrong. It looks wrong. It is wrong.

Under Chris Bowen and state Labor Premiers, Australia is vandalising its natural assets in service of backroom handshakes at international talk-fests – the purpose of which is to make money and empower dangerous foreign governments. Ask why mining companies would support a Net Zero ideology that pretends to hate the industry. Ask how much money these companies are making from publicly-funded grants for ‘green’ solutions. Ask how much the price of previously worthless minerals has increased now that they are used for the renewable industry. Ask how much they are making on Lithium with global government policy mandating the market create unsustainable demand. Ask who is making a fortune while pretending to close down… Ask who is keeping their fossil fuel and nuclear assets in the back pocket for a time when all this green zealotry runs out of belief… Ask who profits from your good will.

Australia’s soft-press is refusing to ask these meaningful questions or to risk embarrassing politicians either because they are incapable or, more likely, they want to protect their seat on the press bus (and clicks for their network).

Politicians and the press have developed a sick dependency on each other. Politicians are frightened of the press and the press has grown lazy and ideologically obedient. Yes, those of us who ask uncomfortable questions get quickly cut out of the media circuit and there is no requirement for politicians to suffer the indignity of a tricky interview.

Meanwhile, the independent press, who are at the door with claws and teeth, are held at bay by Silicon Valley tech giants who would prefer to work with the easily-manipulated status quo. Whenever they want another billion-dollar tech contract out of the government, they send memos to the press. It’s win-win-win for them.

Big Tech has teamed up with the Climate Change movement, expanding the pool of potential revenue upward of $60 trillion worldwide. When we take into account the money to be made from Big Pharma’s global health passports, Digital Identity, ‘smart’ cities, fake food, and 15-minute surveillance towns – the cookie jar of corporate sin expands beyond description.

The public asks why there is a consensus of lies and the answer is: money.

This money doesn’t belong to politicians – it belongs to us – and because there are no consequences for this lightweight political class, they are more than happy to wedge the door open for Silicon Valley in exchange for a friendly press and zero push-back to their mistakes thanks to ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ social media guidelines.

Look what happened during Covid. The press, including allegedly conservative-friendly media around the world, took money to promote Covid health policies and then quietly refused to openly acknowledge mounting safety concerns. They laughed at accusations of social media censorship instead of demanding the truth from the Department of Home Affairs which later had to acknowledge leaning on Facebook and Twitter to remove factual information that harmed government message of vaccine safety when those vaccines were later revealed to be as the public had warned – potentially dangerous.

This is not a functioning society. It is a democracy crumbling with the consent of those who see anything with the word ‘free’ as a risk.

During Covid, the public allowed their fear to hold them back from asking questions.

Now, when it comes to the Green Era, ‘virtue’ and embarrassment are playing the role of duct-tape.

Start asking questions.

Alexandra Marshall is an independent writer. If you would like to support her work, shout her a coffee over at donor-box.