Essay by Eric Worrall
“Who’d have thought a fossil-fuel shill like Trump would be the one to spark a green revolution?”
Who’d have thought a fossil-fuel shill like Trump would be the one to spark a green revolution?
George Monbiot
Sat 18 Apr 2026 17.00 AESTThe US attack on Iran has made the need for renewable energy inarguable. Environmentalists are now being seen for the pragmatists that they are
Donald Trump has done more to accelerate the energy transition than anyone else alive. …
It’s not that the fossils are suffering yet. … As promised, Trump has gutted clean energy rules and programmes, green alternatives and environmental science. A fortnight ago, he stated, with the usual quantum of evidence (zero): “The environmentalists, I mean, they are terrorists … I call them environmental terrorists.”
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… Through grid-scale batteries, we could quickly eliminate the need for fossil fuel plants as the power source of last resort. This would greatly reduce the price of electricity. …
We are on the cusp of vast, cascading shifts in energy supply and storage. Any country that fails to respond will remain trapped in the fossil age, facing high bills and insecurity, while others transform their economies. …
Governments should seek the electrification of everything that can be electrified, and the retirement of much that cannot. …
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Greens who were long dismissed as “idealistic” and “unrealistic” now look like hard-headed pragmatists and true patriots. …
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/18/fossil-fuel-trump-green-revolution-us-iran-renewable-energy
Are EVs a viable replacement for ICE vehicles?
In the short term at least the answer is an unequivocal no. No nation has the electrical capacity to service a large fleet of EVs. Nor is there any economically viable pathway to that capacity in the foreseeable future – an immediate showstopper for Monbiot’s vision of a sweeping green victory.
But for some people they might work. I took a ride in an Uber a few days ago, the vehicle was a Cherry E5 or similar. The Uber driver was wildly enthusiastic about his vehicle, he claimed his vehicle lasted all day on a single charge – a significant improvement over a few years ago. For some people like that Uber driver, an EV might be a viable solution.
I’m still not buying one. My rugged armoured 4WD is far more suitable for driving around rural Queensland. Whenever I hit an animal, a sad inevitability in rural Australia, even when driving around town, it’s the animal which bounces off, not the vehicle. The largest road hazards in our area, big red kangaroos which can weigh as much as an adult human, and the occasional feral pig, which can weigh significantly more, you really don’t want to be driving in a cheap piece of Chinese plastic if you hit one of these.
Britain also has wildlife hazards. Like most places Britain also has large feral wildlife, if you hit a big deer you’ll write off your vehicle, unless maybe you are driving a big armoured 4WD. I got lucky one night driving around Farnborough, most deer have no road sense, but the big buck I almost hit jumped out of my way just in time.
That Uber driver? When I asked about rural driving he replied “Of course, I also own a diesel 4WD, my knockabout car“.
Of course it is haulage and towing where EVs really fail. Australia’s long distances and harsh climate make EV haulage utterly impractical. And don’t even mention farming – my friend’s small acreage burns through 1000 litres of diesel per week during sowing or harvest season. The cost of replacing that energy burn with a solar / battery system would be unimaginable.
Monbiot’s vision of environmentalists vindicated is as nonsensical as pretty much everything else he writes. Gasoline and diesel demand is still running strong, as you would expect from a relatively inelastic resource like energy. People are fed up with green incompetence messing up their lives, and will vote for politicians who secure those gasoline and diesel supplies, say by authorising the exploitation of the estimated 158 million barrels of oil currently sitting idle under Gatwick Airport in Britain.
