I broadly agree with you, but would point out that the conflict isn’t necessarily limited to Gaza. There’ve been rockets flying back and forth across the Lebanese border, sporadic violence in the West Bank, and there’s always tension over the Golan Heights. Israel could find itself fighting a multi-front war against Hamas in Gaza, Lebanon/Hezbollah in the north west, Syria in the north east and Jordan in the east.

Not to mention Egypt aren’t exactly their best buds either, and a US warship recently intercepted missiles coming towards Israel from Houthi rebels in Yemen.

They may be the biggest installer of renewable energy, but what percentage of their electricity comes from renewables? If they’re installing more coal than renewables then it’s still not better.

They’re also deploying coal faster than anyone else.

I’ve heard this argument before about the efficiency of burning centrally, usually in a European context to defend running EVs on a grid powered mostly by natural gas, but not for coal.

Now I’m genuinely curious whether efficiently burning coal to power EVs is less bad for the environment than burning petrol in ICE cars. Is there any research on that?

I agree that ultimately EVs are the future, and I do drive one myself and strive to charge it on renewables whenever possible. However, in places with dirtier grids I’m not sure they’re a great idea.

Yes, this is vitally important. Switching from petrol to EVs will be a net negative for the environment if all that energy comes from burning coal.

They have to clean up their grid, which unfortunately isn’t happening at the moment. They’re building new coal plants.

Well, that’s not ideal, but the oil and gas platforms have to be powered by something. They’ll exist either way, but without these turbines they’d be powered by oil and gas.

Power demand is power demand. If we get all precious about who can use our wind power, they’re not just gonna go “ok, I guess we’ll shut down these oil rigs” 🤷‍♂️