Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t JoNova; Glencore produces large quantities of metallurgical coal, an essential component of solar panel and wind turbine manufacture. But greens still want them silenced and shut down.
‘Worse than tobacco’: Climate activists push for ban on fossil fuel ads
By Angus Dalton
July 24, 2022 — 1.41pmAustralia’s largest coal producer, Glencore, launched its first national advertising campaign last month with sweeping footage of glittering solar panels and an idyllic vista of twirling wind turbines.
At least one climate advocacy group argues such marketing should be banned in Australia, in a move similar to the outlawing of tobacco advertising three decades ago.
Comms Declare, a group made up of 300 marketing, public relations, advertising and media professionals, as well as 80 organisations that have committed to not supporting companies contributing to the growth of fossil fuel emissions in Australia, has launched a campaign of its own calling for a tobacco-style blanket ban on advertising by coal, oil and gas companies in Australia.
“We founded in recognition that, famously, marketing and PR has been used for decades to help polluting companies,” Comms Declare chief executive Belinda Noble said. “We want that to stop.”
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Vast quantities of coal are required to chemically process high quality sand or quartz, to produce silicon wafers for solar panels. Silicon production is similar to iron smelting, mixing coal with iron ore in blast furnaces, to strip oxygen from the ore and produce molten iron.
We are used to greens being engineering dyslexics, but their refusal to face reality, to accept how vital coal is to the manufacture of renewable energy systems, is one of the more ridiculous manifestations of this wilful ignorance.
Without coal companies like Glencore, there would be no green energy.
Greens should be encouraging companies like Glencore to produce coal, if they ever want their net zero green energy revolution to happen.
