From Climate Etc.

by Russ Schussler (Planning Engineer)

On April  28^th Spain, Portugal and parts of France suffered a major grid outage. A  formal evaluation will likely be released at a later date cataloging many of the contributing factors and system deficiencies. Unfortunately, such reports often provide more confusion than clarity, as they tend to prioritize the triggers for system outages over the underlying causes. Post hoc it is easy to look at the vast data available and construct favored narratives about how the outage might have been avoided. This piece will look at “advance” warnings that point to the true cause of the blackout in Spain, Portugal and parts of France.

Core Insight: It has long been predicted that replacing conventional synchronous generators, which rotate together with the grid, with asynchronous inverter-based resources like wind, solar, and batteries will increase the risk of blackouts. Grid planners recognize that unanticipated adverse events—such as line outages, generator trips, substation failures, and major faults—will continue to impact power grids. Their challenge is to ensure the grid is robust enough to withstand and recover from such disturbances without major consequences. Proponents of wind, solar, and batteries may attempt to attribute blackouts to the adverse events that triggered the outage, rather than to flaws in the underlying system. This is akin to blaming an automobile’s brake failure on the conditions that necessitated sudden braking, rather than on the failure of the braking system itself. While lessons learned may help mitigate risks from adverse events, such occurrences cannot be entirely eliminated from grid operations. Reducing the risk of blackouts depends on enhancing grid robustness.

My Warnings and Predictions

My May 7, 2015 posting, Transmission planning: wind and solar noted the following:

The grid is built upon and supported by heavy rotating machinery. Synchronous spinning generators combine with power lines and loads to make up complex electro-mechanical machine that must maintains stability. Stability refers to the ability of the system to stay in synchronism, balance loads and generation and maintain voltages following system disturbances. Intermittent generation (wind/PV solar) does not rotate in synchronism with the grid. As such they do not have performance characteristics that support the grid as well as synchronously rotating generators (hydro, coal, gas, nuclear plants) do. The system must be able to ride out power imbalances caused by faults and outages. Greater penetrations of non-synchronous generators (inverters used for PV Solar and Wind) tend to make the system, all else equal, less stable….

The power grid does not always operate as planned. Extreme weather, unanticipated outages and a host of other factors can result in the system operating somewhere outside of planned conditions. Generally, the system is robust enough to handle most departures without problems. For more severe departures from planned conditions the re-dispatch of generating resources is a major tool for the system operators. As the amount of intermittent generation increases, this tool will become blunted from a lack of qualifying capable dispatchable resources…. …. There are suggestions that intermittents could better mimic conventional generation, but it would incur significant costs. ….Building a surplus of renewable resources to sit idle waiting to back each other up and respond as needed is economically implausible at this time.

Greater penetration of renewable resources will limit the options available to operators while at the same time increasing uncertainty around expected generation patterns. To accommodate such uncertainty the choices are to: 1) increase grid costs and infrastructure, 2) limit the operational flexibility of the grid , 3) increase generation costs through backup generation resources or 4) live with increased risks and degraded reliability. Likely all four are and will continue to occur to some extent as the penetration of intermittent resources increases.…

(W)hen intermittent resources only make up a small percentage of total system generation, the adverse impacts are masked by the margin and robustness built into the system… As penetration levels rise and renewables replace non-intermittent conventional units, they will have major impacts upon grid costs and reliability.

The next year in January of 2016 I elaborated on those points in a piece entitled Renewables and grid reliability. It’s worth a full read, but I will reference the key points here:

• There has been a high value placed on having an extremely reliable bulk grid as the costs and consequences of bulk grid outages are severe
• The bulk grid supports and is supported by conventional rotating generators (Coal, natural gas, hydro, nuclear, biomass) which provide “Essential Reliability Services” (ERSs)
• Wind and solar provide increased reliability risks because they are new changing technologies, they are intermittent and they do not as readily provide ERSs
• Current high levels of reliability depend upon experience gained over time through the gradual adoption of new technologies
• Wind and solar can be made to provide approximations of ERSs, but that requires significant increased costs and reduced generation output
• Because of the complexity of impacting factors and the high level of reliability maintained for the US grids, systemic degradation of the reliability of the grid is hard to detect and measure
• The amount of renewable penetration that can be accommodated will vary from area to area and power system to power system – There is not a single answer
  • Because conventional resources produce an abundance of ERSs, accommodation of low levels of renewables may be accomplished with negligible risks
  • Because current renewables do not provide adequate ERSs high penetration levels provide significant risks
  • Between the above two levels there is a gap of (wicked?) uncertainty.
• For assessing grid reliability, the maximum penetration of wind and solar during times of stress is the key number not the “average” contribution of wind and solar
• Increased penetration of such asynchronous resources, all else equal, will likely adversely impact bulk grid reliability
• As the penetration level of asynchronous generation increases this will either increase cost, limit operational flexibility, degrade reliability or most likely result in a combination of all three factor

A decade ago, major power systems were still sufficiently robust, so the risks from emerging problems were minimal at the time. The above statements warned that such concerns would eventually arise if trends continued. At low levels of penetration, the additional risks were small, but as penetration increased, the risks grew exponentially. By the time of this posting, Wind and Solar Can’t support the Grid in December of 2024 the existing risks had become clear:

 Unlike conventional rotating generation, wind and solar do not readily supply inertia and other essential reliability services. As penetration of  wind and solar resources increase, grid reliability decreases. The challenges of increasing wind and solar increase exponentially as you increase their share of generation. Policy makers, academics and others seeking to increase wind and solar are focusing on the wrong problems (intermittency) and failing to study the real operational problems inherent in inverter based generation from wind and solar.

On February 19 of this year in this post Unraveling the Narrative Supporting a Green Energy Transition, I outlined the major issues by addressing the misleading and false claims of the “green energy narrative” through bullet-point rebuttals. The points about inverter-based generation are particularly worth reviewing for those seeking more detail. After considering these factors and analyzing reviews of grid outages, it became clear that wind and solar were significantly degrading grid reliability in many areas, and much was being done to conceal this fact. I felt confident that upcoming grid outages would be linked to high penetration of wind and solar.

When an outage occurs, you can always choose to point a finger at any of the multiple things that went wrong. (#44, #26)   Some traditional fossil fuel technology will always be included in the set of things that were not right. (Loss of just renewables doesn’t usually cause big problems because apart from energy, they don’t support the system while in service.) For various reasons, advocates insist the finger should be pointed away from renewables (and the gap in needed system support) and at the conventional technology that was not perfect when the outage occurred. It’s critical to note that conventional technology is never perfect across a large system, however we were able to make reliable robust systems that could easily accommodate such imperfections. But now the presence of less dependable resources and inverter-based energy makes systems far less robust, even during times when those problematic resources are working well. It’s  a near sure bet the next large grid outage will be largely caused by problems associated with high levels of wind and solar penetration, whether those resources are available during the outage or not.

Major Outages Following my Posting

Since my February 19, 2025 prediction was published, two major blackouts have occurred. The first, six days later, left 98% of Chile without power. Limited reliable information is available about the Chilean outage, which was caused by a 500 kV line outage. Although Chile has significant hydro resources, many were offline, and the system relied heavily on wind and solar at the time. The system collapsed due to “unwanted activations” of electronic and special protection systems. At best, the issue likely stemmed from the learning curve associated with the complex protection schemes required for wind and solar generation. Our experience with conventional technology has developed over decades, so glitches with newer systems are expected. However, with accelerated efforts to integrate large amounts of newer technology, more such glitches are likely. A more serious concern is whether the complexity and challenges of high levels of asynchronous inverter-based generation are, as warned, inherently overwhelming.

More information is available about the blackout impacting Spain and Portugal. Two large solar installations tripped offline, followed by the loss of an interconnection to France. This created a generation shortfall that caused the system frequency to drop dangerously. Large amounts of asynchronous resources (wind and solar) disconnected from the system in response to the frequency drop, leading to the system’s collapse.

Frequency control is an essential reliability service supported by rotating machines with inertia. Such machines would have limited the frequency drop and helped the system recover from the excursion. More load shedding based on automatic underfrequency protection could have delayed the collapse and possibly saved the core grid. Inverter-based generation exacerbated the collapse and did little to prevent it. This collapse resembles one in South Australia caused by a lack of inertia.

What Are They Saying About This Outage?

Remarkably, many are focusing on the problems caused by a lack of inertia and the challenges of inverter-based generation. The core issues driving this blackout are clearer than in most cases.

Predictably, others are deflecting blame from wind and solar. The Spanish Prime Minister blamed Induced Atmospheric Vibration (IAV) for introducing frequency oscillations, claiming extreme weather caused corona discharge, which created electrohydrodynamic (EHD) forces. These forces allegedly caused low-frequency oscillations that worsened the situation. IAV may have triggered outages or aggravated the situation, but as noted, there will always be triggers stressing the system. The system should have been robust enough to withstand this disturbance, but it wasn’t due to lower levels of inertia.

Reuter’s advises, Don’t blame renewables. Blame “management of renewables”.  They suggest more conventional generation or devices like synchronous condensers should have been online to support the system—effectively admitting that Wind and Solar Can’t Support the Grid. Undoubtedly, other system components were also malfunctioning. As I mentioned earlier, a thorough review will provide data that can be shaped into narratives to deflect attention from the root causes.

An expert from Madrid argues that the triggering event wasn’t an N-1 event (where the system loses its single most impactful element) but an N-2 event (a double contingency). He does not blame inertia, as the system isn’t required to have enough inertia to survive an N-2 event. He suspects one of the events was caused by RoCoF relays, which interrupt generation when frequency changes rapidly. Note that frequency problems tied to low inertia caused the loss of solar facilities and the system collapse.

I may not have heard his best arguments fully and correctly and they may be refined further. He likely knows more about the technical specifics of the occurrence than I do, but I suspect our differences are more philosophical then technical. He seems to be saying that: 1)  the system performed outside the bounds of study protocols, 2) the causes of the two events leading to the double contingency are unclear (though RoCoF variations may have caused one), and 3) since the event was outside study criteria, low inertia isn’t to blame.

I counter that system planning was insufficient. Systems should remain stable across many N-2 events, as many double contingencies have less severe consequences than the worst N-1 event. This N-2 event doesn’t seem particularly severe compared to potential N-1 events. Moreover, both RoCoF issues and large frequency deviations are worsened by low inertia and mitigated by higher inertia. This blackout has the fingerprints of low inertia everywhere.

How Should We Define the Cause of Blackouts?

Consider the Suzuki Samurai, a popular automobile in the 1980s with a stability problem: it frequently tipped over. Proponents of these vehicles pointed out that rollovers were often accompanied by sharp turns, adverse conditions, road grading, unanticipated obstacles, or the behavior of other vehicles. Despite these complicating factors, Samurais were much more likely to tip over than other cars due to their tall, narrow body, high center of gravity, and short wheelbase. These characteristics made the car nimbler in off-road situations, particularly at slower speeds. Proponents could argue that if other cars drove more slowly and were equally nimble, Samurais wouldn’t need to swerve as much, reducing rollovers. Sweeping changes to perfect the world—such as ensuring all roads are well-graded, lowering speed limits, or preventing dogs and children from running into the road—could theoretically eliminate the Samurai’s problems. Similarly, calls to “modernize the grid and its operations” so wind and solar can perform without causing problems are overly idealistic. The Samurai needed to be safe in less-than-optimal conditions that drivers might encounter. Likewise, the grid must be robust enough to survive many issues claimed to “cause” blackouts. Trying to improve the world while making the Samurai’s base narrower and raising its center of gravity is a fool’s errand, as are efforts to eliminate grid problems so wind and solar can function without conventional generation.

A 2016 post entitled Renewables and grid reliability explained:

 I will share a planning secret. We don’t really think that the specific outage and the specific conditions which were identified in the study will actually occur and the system will be “saved” by that particular fix. We have learned over time that planning that way results in a system that is sufficiently robust so that system operators can sufficiently recover when unanticipated events happen across variety of circumstances. Planners will model the new technology as best they can, but if adoption of new technology is rapid, they will not have the needed experience behind them to justify confidence in the models.

Low inertia and the fact that many inverter-based generation resources tripped offline during the frequency excursion caused the blackout. While it’s true that without the triggering event, no outage would have occurred, systems cannot be designed to avoid all serious unanticipated events. Power systems should however survive most rare, once-in-fifty-year events, whether anticipated or not.

If low inertia (among other issues with asynchronous inverter-based generation) makes N-2 outages and cascading events more likely, planning criteria must change. If the many models for dispersed inverter-based generation are collectively less accurate than considerably fewer models for large central generating stations, planning must change.   If the protection schemes are grossly more complicated and prone to failure, planning must change. All this will increase costs and complexity and incur more failures in meantime directly attributable to wind, solar, and batteries. Proponents might ask, “We never had to plan for N-2 events before; why now?” The answer is simple: these changes are necessary to maintain reliability. RoCoF, mentioned earlier, is a newer metric developed solely due to high penetration of inverter-based generation, as detailed in ENTSO-E’s Inertia and Rate of Change of Frequency. RoCoF “protection” contributed to this blackout. It cannot be overemphasized that adapting to increased inverter-based generation will complicate planning, raise costs, and create more opportunities for failures.

The Evidence of Increasing Risk has been here a Long Time

The January 2014 posting,  Renewables and grid reliability, included a graphic from NERC (North American Electric Reliability Corporation). This figure showed the system response to a 2,750 MW generation trip in actual and forecast years, based on additions of asynchronous resources. The chart clearly illustrates that the system responds less favorably each year as the amount of  inverter-based resources (shown in parentheses) increases.

This same trend emerged in Spain and Portugal. It’s no surprise that the risk of blackouts grew as inverter penetration increased. In fact, a similar outage occurred in the Spanish system in2021, but higher inertia levels at the time prevented a disaster.

Increased penetration of asynchronous inverter-based generation degrades several metrics critical for system reliability. Grid experts have long been aware of these issues but have struggled to effectively reach and convince key audiences. The charts, data, and explanations may be clear, but most people won’t heed the message until they face a harsh wake-up call.

Conclusions

Proponents have long dismissed predictions that increased wind and solar use will raise costs and reduce reliability. Despite calculations on paper suggesting that large-scale integration of wind and solar is cheaper, real-world evidence shows they increase costs. Despite claims about reliability, previous outages have demonstrated the potential for wind and solar to heighten blackout risks. Pressure has been applied to frequently to distract from the real issues and real-world impacts.

It cannot be emphasized enough: the grid must be robust enough to survive major contingencies in an imperfect world. We must stop listening to those who, after an outage or blackout, insist the problem was unexpected events on the grid rather than the fact that grid reliability has been degraded by increased penetration of inverter-based generation.

Similarly, those who claim that wind, solar, and batteries can be made to support the grid more effectively must be challenged to acknowledge their current real-world capabilities and set reasonable expectations for future performance. Making inverter-based generation perform well enough to support a grid is a complex and extremely challenging problem.

Reuters’ suggestion to “not blame renewables, but rather the management of renewables” is particularly infuriating. Grid managers, tasked with maintaining stability, have been ignored for far too long. Grid and generation decisions are often driven by political rather than engineering considerations. The challenges of using and managing inverter-based generation have been acknowledged for years. Blaming those struggling to manage what’s been thrust upon them, while excusing renewables, is blatantly unfair.

Wind and solar have a place, but their appropriate levels vary by region based on current and foreseeable capabilities, not unrealistic hopes. Hopes for the future are admirable, but there’s a vast gap between what might one day be possible and what is practical and proven today. Reliable electricity is too critical to depend on unproven technology.

The recent blackout should serve as a wake-up call for policy makers. If it doesn’t, more events will follow, with increasingly severe consequences.

Note: Thanks to Chris Morris for edits, ideas and discussions around this topic.

By  Jo Nova

The problem with aiming to be a less-bad version of Labor is that it’s still bad

The Liberals dropped the wildly ambitious fantasy of 2030 renewable targets of the Labor Party, but they were still aiming for the slow suicide of Net Zero by 2050. It probably seemed like a sensible compromise, but half crazy is still crazy. We’re still talking about plans for Global Weather Control.

It meant the Liberals have to sell something they don’t believe in,  and they can’t mock the stupid core of a Labor policy if it’s their own. So they come across as inauthentic, they don’t have any fun, and have to throw away all their best lines. The Liberals could hardly say Labor’s Net Zero targets were like pagan witchcraft when their own policy was late-pagan-weather-control.

Effectively, both sides of the Uniparty wanted to turn our electricity network into a global air-conditioner.  I wish I could say they were just debating whether solar panels will cool the world better than nuclear plants, but the debate was not that advanced. No one was discussing the degrees-shifted-per-trillion dollars, because all the answers are insane.

So here we are living in the furthest corner of the Earth with the biggest distances and the lowest population density on the planet apart from Antarctica — and at times we’re the world’s largest coal and largest LNG exporter, and we, WE, of all people, want to lead the war on fossil fuels?

Where was the free market, small government party?

Where was the Liberal Party? No one asked if the government should be in charge of the weather? No one questioned whether an unaccountable, unelected global cartel run by President Xi should be in charge of it either. Aren’t we getting a bit ahead of ourselves? Is it the governments fault if the surfs bad, or the frosts are late?

What if we fix the weather in NSW, but it mucks things up in Queensland? That’s going to need a whole new regulatory agency, a new weather justice assessor and climate courts. This whole escapade is the ultimate Big Government wet dream.

And where is the Liberal Party when we need a free market in science? Let’s hear from both sides. (Let’s fund both sides too — no picking winners in scientific research). The Left are just saying “trust us” there’s a consensus and you’re a denier. They bought the experts, sacked the heretics and hoped we wouldn’t audit them.

There is no free speech in climate science. Just ask Peter Ridd. The Liberals were in government for most of that time, but they kept funding the universities that silenced whistleblowers. Then they wonder why they get stuck in stupid science traps and embarrassed in election debates. There are no working professors of science in Australia that can speak up to advise or defend them. No one paid to audit the IPCC. No one paid to find out the solar role in our climate.

The Left own The Science ^TM  because the Right gave it away.

 

__________________

*For foreign readers, Liberals are the Australian major conservative party

MAY 05 2025

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Ever wonder what your kids are really being taught in schools about renewables and Net Zero? Become a member of the on-line lesson provider Cool.org and find out. Here’s my little scenario, inspired by Cool’s true classroom materials[1]:

Samantha, aged 13, flings her schoolbag on her bedroom floor and yells from the bathroom. “Mum! Get rid of these plastic toothbrushes.”

Mum: “Why?”

Samantha: “To save the planet. Cool.org says Australia throws out 30m toothbrushes every year.”

Mum: “That makes sense, dear. But how do we clean our teeth?”

Samantha: “Cool says we must buy bamboo toothbrushes, they’re biodegradable.”

Mum: “Sounds OK. Where from?”

Samantha: “Dunno.”

Mum: “What do they cost?”

Samantha: “Only $5 per brush.”

Mum: “Heavens. Woolies’ got plastic ones for $2. How long does a bamboo one last?”

Samantha:“The planet is boiling! I hate you! Drive me to Emma-Lou’s place. At least her parents aren’t climate deniers.”

I took a renewed interest in Cool.org (formerly Cool Australia) after an April 16 email from its Head of Community Engagement Naomi Nicholas announcing its alliance with green billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes (right). Mike’s $29.5-billion fortune puts him third on Australia’s rich list.

Mike has a little $30 million charity called Boundless Earth. Cool and Boundless Earth, via its “Hearts and Mind Epic”,  have put together a new suite of seven class lessons on “misinformation”. Each lesson is curriculum-aligned and described as a “complete teaching package, with lesson plans, explainers, activities and videos.” The material targets 10- to 12- year-olds (Years 5 and 6), and 14- to 16-year-olds (Years 9 and 10). Boundless Earth is run by Eytan Lenko, an Al Gore convert to climate catastrophe [2]. He’s “looking forward to seeing it [the program] roll out through the Australian education system.”

Mike and Eytan are particularly incensed at alleged misinformation decrying our politicians’ agreed quest for Net Zero by 2050. They want teachers to expose misinformers who claim wind and solar are costing households and taxpayers a bomb while potentially crashing the grid and bringing on blackouts.

The Cool.org charity, drafts the scripts for teachers. Cool CEO Thea Stinear claims that Cool “helps young people cut through the BS. It helps them spot what’s real. What could be more important in this day and age?” Jason Kimberley of the multi-millionaire Just Jeans family set up Cool in 2008, catering to pre-school, primary, secondary, private and public schools with endorsement by departmental and school authorities.[3]

Cool, in fact, runs a parallel universe within the school system. Well over 17 million kids to date have imbibed at least one Cool lesson, delivered by the nearly 200,000 teachers who have signed on to Cool. Believe it or not, 92% of Australian schools have delivered Cool materials to kids. I’ve been recording this Cool educational empire for years, here, here, here and here.

Cool’s Naomi has emailed,

“In today’s world of complex politics and with an upcoming Australian Federal Election, finding trustworthy information is challenging—even for adults. Imagine how difficult it is for young people! 😵‍💫 

We’ve created resources to help you teach students about misinformation and disinformation, and build critical thinking and media literacy skills so they can navigate their information landscapes with confidence. 

Our new Combatting Misinformation Education Resources equip students with practical tools to assess source reliability and make informed decisions about our democracy and climate future. 

Ready to empower your students? Grab these FREE misinformation-fighting resources today! 💪

Your planning pal,
Naomi from Cool.org

The package of seven billionaire-sponsored lessons operates “through the lens of clean energy”. It urges teachers to

♦ Inspire young people to champion sustainability in their communities and

♦ Engage students in meaningful discussion and action around environmental challenges.

The ages 10-12 lessons comprise Powering the Narrative: Clean Energy in Media; Renewable Energy Investigators; Fueling Facts, Busting Myths; and The History, Geography and Momentum of Clean Energy in Australia

The 14-16 set get The Language of Misinformation: Fact, Fiction and Persuasion; Disinformation Digital Detectives; and Science over SkepticismLesson kits are tagged with lines like, “Cool.org thanks our philanthropic funder, Boundless Earth, for its generous contributions and collaboration in creating these resources.” Cool’s CEO Stinear hails the venture, “A massive shout out to our partners at Boundless Earth who supported us to bring these into the world”.

To cut CO2 emissions, Cool harangues kids to turn off bedroom lights and walk or bike to school. Meanwhile, last month Cannon-Brookes spent $120 million or so on that billionaires’ toy, a Bombardier twin-jet to zip him round the globe in speed, luxury and a hefty trail of CO2. As the ad puts it, “The Bombardier Global 7500 represents the pinnacle of private aviation, delivering unmatched range, luxury, and performance.”

Never mind turning off lights, Cannon-Brookes and now-separated spouse Annie Todd have also bought mansions, ranches, getaways and islands by the dozen, adding them like we buy morning coffees. The $100-million flagship in their $350-million property portfolio is Fairwater Estate, the Fairfax clan’s former Harbourside pile on 1.2 hectares at Point Piper. It must have quite the CO2 footprint.

Cannon-Brookes does acxknowledge a conscience. He explained that buying the Bombardier – which burns 25,000 gallons of avgas on a long-haul trip of, say, Sydney to New York – left him “with a deep internal conflict” on CO2 emissions. But the need for security and fast trips to maximise his family time tipped the scales on this reluctant purchase, he explained.[4] Of this, ascerbic columnist Joe Aston wrote, “Watching him lie to himself so publicly in order to maintain his self-narrative of a moral actor is actually more delicious than the jet purchase itself.”

Cool douses kids from pre-school upwards in a waterfall of green-left woke-ism and renewables advocacy, purportedly “building a sustainable and just world for all.” As a Cool member, I see exactly what Cool offers teachers and kids, but much of the Cool materials are paywalled to outsiders. Education was captured by the left decades ago, and school and department authorities have no qualms about kids imbibing green activism from third-party providers.[5]

Clearly, the teacher-attrition and retention crisis would be a lot worse without Cool coming to schools’ rescue with its free, pre-packaged on-line lessons. But frankly, I’m near-traumatised at how completely and ruthlessly such third parties are drafting schoolkids to the green crusade. I’ll detail Cool’s material and machinations in two further articles in this three-part series.

Cool’s own statistics show its power: how long before it hits the 20 million tally for its schoolkid audience?

♦ More than 170,000 teachers and 20,000+ parents have signed on. A third of the teachers are in school decision-making roles.[6]

♦ They’ve downloaded more than 2.3 million lessons, at a current rate of well over 250,000 downloads a year. Each lesson is passed around among teachers and reaches an average 186 kids

♦ Three quarters of kids taking the Cool green lessons changed their behaviours, attitudes and engagement to conform with Cool’s agendas. Two-thirds became sustainability and social activists in the school milieu — “nurturing behaviours that stay with them for life.” In case you’re wondering, Cool’s survey also found 70% of the educators have also taken action on social and green issues, thus

creating better outcomes for humanity…Educators take action alongside their students…Focus groups showed that this joint action between educators and students is critically important… Long term: Informed, active and empowered citizens for a happier, more sustainable and just society for all.

It is no mystery why teachers love using Cool’s pre-packaged lessons:

“How INCREDIBLE your resources are, and what an important resource you are creating for teachers who are incredibly overworked.” — Emily, high school teacher, NSW

Three-quarters of teachers report unmanageable workloads, and 90% say they lack preparation time. A third are working outside their expertise. Large numbers are trying to teach classes where 40% of the kids are bored, disengaged and doubtless cutting-up. Cool’s lesson-writers, in contrast, create on-line lesson kits that pep up classrooms. Two-thirds of teachers say that Cool lessons bring back joy to classrooms. Each lesson saves teachers three hours work, enabling them to better engage with students (68% of responses) and “attend to their own well-being” (39%).

Something like 10,000 “relief teachers” use Cool pre-packaged lessons, unsurprising given they come in at short notice to baby-sit a sick or missing teacher’s classes.[7]

Third parties’ costs of warping education leftwards are so little it’s laughable. The Cool charity runs on annual revenue of about $3 million, a third of that from grants. Direct employee costs are only $1.8 million. Cool is also funded or supported by other leftist or naïve do-gooders suchas the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Fund, the Myer,[8] Fox Family and Ian Potter foundations, and by corporate behemoths like Google, Canva and Cisco.

The Cool staff give contracts to skilled educators to create and package the lessons, which cover the gamut of primary-secondary topics – much is uncontentious. Cool works closely with other green-left school intruders such as WWF and its absurd lights-off Earth Hour campaigns [9]. Cool ally Damon Gameau with his renewables propaganda movies including 2040 and Future Council claim to have reached millions of students.[10]Atlassian tycoon Cannon-Brookes’ Boundless Earth charity had revenue of $30 million in 2022-23 and $15 million in 2023-24. Mike tosses in $10-15 million donations now and then, equivalent by mega-tycoon standards to what a householder would find when dusting the lounge cushions.[11] His schools venture is just a minnow within the overall Boundless program, and Boundless itself is just a minnow within Cannon-Brookes pledge in 2021 to spend $1.5 billion on his crusade for renewables.

His road to renewables super-powerdom started with a $35-billion project to take solar power from south of Darwin to Singapore via a 4200km undersea cable. and the project is behind schedule, to put it mildly. Jets and mansions notwithstanding, Cannon-Brookes is ‘determined to push Australia towards a carbon neutral future’.

Parents are given special roles in schools’ Cool climate farrago. More than 25,000 parents are Cool paid-up subscribers. Cool tells us to use “climate action” to promote family quality time as kids are turned into “passionate, confident leaders”. Parents should set an example by writing climate letters to the government and joining the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (these parents must be pretty elderly “youth”).

Given Australian schoolkids’ poor international ratings on maths, it’s odd that Cool suggests parents rely on kids’ maths to choose among today’s expensive electricity and gas suppliers. Even using the official energy-compare websites can be a nightmare of complexity for householders, but Cool instructs:

 “Ask your kid/s to spend some time on an energy compare website and present you with the most green energy supplier within your budget. If possible, also ask them to start researching solar panels, and present you with a money-saving case for getting some panels installed.”

Parents are supposed to add to the kids’ Einstein-like maths exercise by getting them to catalogue all energy sources “starting with First Nations energy practices and moving through wood, coal, oil, gas and renewable sources.”

Further parent-driven homework involves your kids discussing “how they believe the change in [energy] sources has impacted society and the environment, and where their beliefs may have come from”.

Kids when in doubt are referred to discredited leftist fact-checkers like AFP, ABC, the defunct RMIT effort and that academics’ playground, The Conversation, which disallows all sceptical comments.

Parents are told, “Call out hate speech and misinformation, but do it constructively. Responsible citizens use social media for positive change, not drama.” This is a bit rich coming from Cool’s drama queens who scare kids with climate-catastrophe bugaboo.

Tony’s latest book from Connor Court is Anthem of the Unwoke – Yep! The other lot’s gone bonkers. $34.95

Tomorrow: how Cool turns schoolkids into campaigners

[1] From 2mins50secs

[2] High Flyers podcast #125, 5/4/2023

[3] Cool 2022-23 Annual Report, p1

[4] Cannon-Brookes: “Although private aviation is far from a big contributor to global emissions, it is a carbon-intensive way to travel…My commitment to climate is as strong as ever. I’m still pretty damn focused on making an impact at a large scale, removing huge volumes of emissions through active investments and philanthropy … and have the proud scars to prove it.”

[5] Victoria’s one-time education minister and premier, Joan Kirner, at a Fabian Society meeting in 1983, explained that the education system must be reshaped to be “part of the socialist struggle for equality, participation and social change rather than an instrument of the capitalist system”.

[6] 7% of the educators are principal/deputy/director/department head.

18% are specialist teachers, and 16% sustainability or curriculum coordinator

[7] Drawn from Cool Annual Report 2022-23 and Cool.org’s Social Impact Report 2024.

[8] “Cool Australia’s work is rigorous, inventive and backed by evidence. The Myer Foundation is proud to support this important initiative.” Leonard Vary – CEO, Sidney Myer Fund and The Myer Foundation. Cool Impact Report.

[9] Cool’s Earth Hour lesson for Years 3 – 4, ages 8-10: “Students will be asked to create an advertisement for Earth Hour in the form of a video, infographic, image, poem or story. The advertisement should explain about how climate change is affecting your favourite food or farming region of Australia.”

[10] Gameau is quoted, “Our impact couldn’t have happened without Cool. They brought the concepts and ideas to millions of children and have helped to spark ideas, awareness and enthusiasm for a better future we can create. Great change can only happen through education.”

[11] Boundless received $30.4m from a Cannon Brookes entity in 2022-23, and it received another $15m last year, of which $12m was from the billionaire personally.

It finally happened. In a world where cities trip over themselves to virtue-signal their carbon neutrality pledges and heat czar appointments, Los Angeles—yes, that Los Angeles—just committed what the climate faithful might call a mortal sin: budget cuts to the climate bureaucracy. The horror!

Mayor Karen Bass’ proposed budget has the audacity to cut funding for the city’s Climate Emergency Mobilization Office. The office’s apparent mission? Mobilizing against an “emergency” so dire, it needed its own bureaucratic silo and, naturally, a “chief heat officer.” That’s not satire. That was a real job.

But now? Eight positions—poof—gone. Including the top-tier post that kept a watchful eye on the sun for its inequitable rays. The backlash has been predictably unhinged, culminating in this gem of a lament:

“Not only did we just go through the worst fires we’ve seen in a long time, but all the environmental justice organizations that are trying to fight climate change consistently in Los Angeles now just got told that this is not as important as the other things we have to pay for.”

https://laist.com/brief/news/climate-environment/la-mayor-karen-bass-proposed-budget-landmark-climate-action-office

Let’s unpack that. They just went through devastating wildfires—and somehow the takeaway is that more money should go to meetings, memos, and public engagement sessions about carbon footprints? No mention, of course, of actually funding more fire crews, equipment, or the management of overgrown fuel loads. Heaven forbid we invest in real firefighting—something that might tangibly prevent homes from burning—instead of subsidizing professional worrywarts whose primary tool is a Google Slides deck.

To be clear, this wasn’t just any office. It was a “landmark” institution, we’re told—because nothing says landmark like a freshly invented bureaucracy built around ideological panic. LAist, ever the reliable bullhorn of climate orthodoxy, wrung its hands:

“The proposed Los Angeles budget cuts could eliminate the city’s first chief heat officer, who focuses on the effects of heat in the city.”

That’s right. The office didn’t just talk about heat—it focused on it. Presumably with intense furrowed brows, graphs, and lots of community listening sessions about “lived heat experiences.”

And the timing? Divine comedy. The article notes these layoffs come despite LA recently experiencing “the worst fires we’ve seen in a long time.” Never mind that wildfire trends in California—when viewed over decades—don’t support the alarmist claims. But nuance doesn’t sell panic, and it certainly doesn’t fund departments.

The ultimate tragedy, according to advocates, is that cutting these positions means LA might not hit its aspirational goals—like becoming carbon-neutral in all buildings. Because there’s nothing more realistic than retrofitting every structure in a sprawling metropolis based on computer models with confidence intervals wide enough to drive a diesel truck through.

The critics are not just disappointed—they’re offended. LAist summarized their mood:

“This is devastating to the movement.”

https://laist.com/brief/news/climate-environment/la-mayor-karen-bass-proposed-budget-landmark-climate-action-office

The “movement,” of course, refers not to any quantifiable success in reducing temperatures (spoiler: there hasn’t been any), but rather to the steady growth of bureaucratic fiefdoms funded by taxpayer dollars under the guise of climate salvation. When those funds are threatened, we’re treated to sanctimonious cries of “injustice.”

And that’s the core irony here: A city whose leadership talks endlessly about “sustainability” suddenly discovers that, economically speaking, its own policies are unsustainable. When ideology meets insolvency, something’s gotta give. And for once, it’s not the taxpayer.

If there’s one silver lining, it’s this: Maybe, just maybe, some of that reclaimed funding will be redirected toward real firefighting capacity—boots on the ground, engines, training, forest management—the kind of thing that actually saves lives when the hills inevitably ignite. Because unlike “climate equity frameworks,” fire doesn’t wait for a task force.

The heat officer may be out of a job. But if LA’s budget office keeps trimming the fat, it might just bring down the fever of institutionalized climate hysteria too.