Earth Day: Shallow Activism or Something Sinister?

Remember Earth Day? That vaguely activist holiday we all pretended to celebrate back in April? The one with recycled posters, vague guilt, and kids chanting slogans about saving the planet?

Yeah, that one.

Let me be clear—I don’t hate the Earth. I live here, and I like it. But I like people a bit more. The real goal of any environmental movement should be to support human prosperity. That means reliable energy, modern medicine, and being able to keep your refrigerator running.

So let’s talk about power. Real power. The kind that keeps the lights on and the world moving.

When the Plug Doesn’t Work

Our lives revolve around electricity. We plug things in and expect them to work without thinking about what makes that possible. But the truth is, it’s not automatic. It's not magic. It's a fragile system that can go dark faster than most people realize.

We got a dramatic reminder of that this spring in Spain and Portugal. Right around Earth Day, Spain proudly announced they had reached 100% renewable energy on their national grid. A full-on green milestone.

Then the power went out.

The Iberian Peninsula came to a screeching halt. Elevators froze, trains stopped, phones went dark, cash registers didn’t work, roads gridlocked, and grocery stores closed. People using medical devices were left in danger. It wasn’t just inconvenient—it was dangerous.

Electricity is the lifeblood of modern life. Without it, the middle-class existence we take for granted unravels quickly.

So What Went Wrong?

If renewables are so great, and supposedly cheaper than fossil fuels, what caused the collapse?

The answer lies in grid frequency. In Spain, solar power made up the majority of their energy at the time. When solar production dropped by more than 50 percent, there wasn’t enough “firm power” from gas, hydro, or nuclear to fill the gap. The grid lost frequency stability, and everything began to fail.

If the goal is to reduce fossil fuels, why not lean on nuclear energy? France does. They power more than 60 percent of their grid with it. Spain, on the other hand, has been phasing out nuclear plants since 2019. Some of them have even been demolished.

Even the New York Times admitted that Spain’s rapid push toward renewables left it vulnerable. Glad they had a light bulb moment on that one…

I’ve Seen This Before

This isn’t a theoretical issue. In 2003, I was working in New York City when a massive blackout hit the northeastern United States and parts of Canada. No lights. No phones. No information.

And then again in 2021, a winter storm in Texas triggered one of the worst power failures in U.S. history. The problem in both cases was the same—a drop in grid frequency below the safe threshold.

In the U.S., the grid operates at 60 hertz. If it falls too far below that, the entire system begins to collapse. Transformers can blow. And if they do, it could take months to replace them. Some experts warn we might not even be able to build replacements quickly in the U.S. anymore.

That’s the cost of not hardening the grid. It’s a vulnerability that affects every part of life.

People like to say renewables are cheaper. But that only holds up if you ignore the hidden costs.

Solar and wind can’t respond to demand in real time. They’re intermittent. They depend on the weather. Traditional sources like coal, gas, and nuclear are steady and responsive. Gas peaker plants can ramp up within minutes. Solar panels cannot.

And you still need all the infrastructure to back up renewables for when they inevitably go offline. That means you’re paying for two systems instead of one.

When the Spanish blackout happened, it wasn’t caused by weather. It was the result of structural fragility. Renewable-heavy systems lack inertia. Traditional grids use massive spinning turbines that help stabilize the system. Renewables rely on electronic inverters with no mass, no momentum, and no ability to cushion disruptions.

Michael Shellenberger described it perfectly. Without backup stabilization, the grid shakes itself apart.

Let’s Be Honest About This for a Change

The story doesn’t stop with technical details. The same elites driving these energy policies are often the same elites who’ve been wrong before.

Back in 1970, during the first Earth Day, we were told that the END WAS NEAR. Pollution would choke the skies. Nuclear weapons would destroy us. Cheap nuclear energy, some warned, would be like giving a machine gun to a child.

Fast forward to today, and the global population has doubled. Poverty has fallen from 40 percent to under 9 percent. The world is greener, thanks in part to CO2, which plants happen to love. I asked them, and they told me. Don’t fact-check me on that.

Billions of people now enjoy stable electricity, medical care, charged phones, TVs that never go out, and all-around better lives.

But the panic never stopped. The message just got a new label: climate change.

Ironically, Earth Day falls on Lenin’s birthday. Coincidence? These days, I doubt it. But it’s hard to ignore the authoritarian impulse behind a movement that’s increasingly okay with sacrificing reliability and prosperity in the name of “equity” and environmental justice.

When someone tells you solar and wind are cheaper, ask them: cheaper for whom? If the lights go out, it doesn’t matter what the sticker price was. The cost of fragility is always paid later, in emergency rooms, lost wages, and broken trust.

The Earth is important. But so are people. A green vision that refuses to endorse the value and goodness of people, who simply want to live in comfort, is no vision at all.