Former Climate Activist Perfectly Explains Why Net-Zero Leads to Disaster
AP Photo/Bryan Woolston, File
Posted for: Rotorblade
Road to Damascus moments are increasingly rare in today’s culture. Social media often punishes changes of mind, labeling anyone who reverses their stance as a hypocrite or worse.
That’s why the recent revelations of climate activist Lucy Biggers are striking. After a decade as a self-described “climate journalist and influencer,” Biggers now argues that fossil fuels remain absolutely necessary.
“I believed I was on the right side of history, fighting against the climate crisis and for a more just and equitable world,” she writes in The Free Press. “Now, as I watch Cuba struggle without Venezuelan oil and see tensions around the Strait of Hormuz, I am reminded of the importance of oil. Despite spending trillions trying to transition to renewables, oil, coal, and natural gas still supply 86 percent of the world’s energy.”
Biggers’ shift echoes patterns seen in the past. Many liberals in the 1970s became disillusioned with radical left-wing movements and moved toward conservatism after confronting real-world consequences of certain policies.
Among climate activists, she says, there exists a belief in a net-zero utopia—a vision where fossil fuels could be eliminated rapidly with minimal cost. “The moral clarity of the goal outweighed the inconvenience of reality,” Biggers writes.
She recounts her journey: drawn in around 2016 by social media coverage of Native American protests against the Dakota Access pipeline, and inspired by documentaries like An Inconvenient Truth, Before the Flood, and Gasland, Biggers believed fossil fuel companies were destroying the planet. The climate movement offered her purpose and a sense of virtue.
But over time, her doubts grew. During the first year of the pandemic, global carbon emissions dropped only 5.8 percent despite major restrictions on travel, school, and business operations. “Given that, what would net-zero actually require of us?” she asked.
Critics argue that a shift to renewables could eliminate fossil fuels, but Biggers points to the limitations of current technology. Solar and wind are intermittent and less energy-dense than oil and gas, requiring far more infrastructure to provide reliable power. Batteries are expensive, environmentally damaging, and largely dependent on China. Even Germany’s massive investment in battery storage—tens of billions of euros for 24–25.5 gigawatt hours—would not meet an hour of national energy demand.
Instead of a utopia, Biggers observes, the reality is what’s happening in Cuba: widespread power shortages, halted daily life, and growing desperation. “It turns out you can’t ‘just stop oil’ without consequences,” she concludes.
She warns that younger generations often overlook these consequences, imagining a perfect world while advocating for the rapid end of fossil fuels.
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