The Health Hazards of Green Energy

by Andy Caldwell

There are lots of different names for an all-too-common phenomenon, including the warning from Shakespeare about the problems associated with too much of a good thing. For instance, the Law of Equilibrium (also known as Le Chatelier’s Principle) in modern chemistry, says that any extreme is opposed by the system to restore balance. Another is enantiodromia, from the ancient Greek, which posits that when things get to their extreme, they turn into their opposite. This concept is also associated with dialectical thinking, or the law of polarity. It suggests that when something is taken to an extreme or pushed beyond a certain limit, it can transform into its opposite.  

Over the years, society has been conditioned to believe that the existential threat to life on planet earth is air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions sourced from the use of fossil fuels. Well, who would have ever thunk that our efforts to clean the air would become a cause of warming the planet? For instance, a study by Harvard demonstrates that wind turbines heat the surface air temperature more than would the emissions they seek to replace.

Then, we have the mad scientists who want to release particles into the atmosphere to deflect the sun’s rays from heating up the planet. Why would they want to do this? As reported by the scientific journal Nature, a new study estimates that 80% of the past year’s warming spike was caused by cleaner air allowing more solar radiation to reach the earth’s surface. This has to do with the fact that air pollution, including particulate emissions from burning “dirty fuels” that propel cargo ships, has been doubling as a shield from the sun’s rays! That is, burning fossil fuels has allegedly been both warming and cooling the planet at the same time.

Now that this pollution has been abated by requiring ships (and other vehicles) to use cleaner burning fuel, scientists in California have been releasing sea salt aerosols into the atmosphere to see if these particles could reflect sunlight away from the surface of the earth. Hence, too much of a good thing – that is cleaner air – is now considered a significant source of global warming.

Of course, one of the major efforts to replace the use of fossil fuels relies on the use of lithium batteries in cars, trucks, and bicycles. There are myriad problems associated with the use of these batteries, including at battery production plants and at facilities where batteries are used to store electricity. Additional hazards arise by charging the vehicles, not to mention that dead batteries constitute a toxic waste stream. Regarding battery production plants, there have been several explosions at these plants including in South Korea where 22 workers were killed after a single lithium battery set off a series of explosions. In San Diego, it took two weeks for a battery storage facility fire, which is technically a chemical reaction rather than a fire, to burn itself out.

Western Journal reporter Jack Davis writes that Seneca Insurance company, citing data from across the U.S., reports “there have been 445 lithium-ion battery fires, 214 injuries, and 38 deaths. In New York City, E-bikes were responsible for 267 fires in 2023, 18 deaths, and 150 injuries, citing data from the Fire Department of New York. Over the past three years, lithium-ion battery fires have been the top cause of fatal fires in New York City.”

Politicians and activists mandating that we go 100% electric would have you believe the law of unintended consequences is at play here. But the consequences were foreseeable because extreme policies will eventually backfire according to the various principles stated previously herein. That is, anything in excess can become a poison to persons, society, the environment, and the economy.

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