Bad Energy by Joshua Frank.

 

Bad Energy by Joshua Frank. Haymarket Books, Chicago, Illinois. 2026.

Review by Ed Meek

One of the problems of the attempts to fight climate change concerns the divisiveness within the movement. Dealing with the environment is complicated. There are groups like the Sierra Club that focus on nature, rain forests and rewilding, groups like The World Wildlife Fund that prioritize animals, birds, whales, fish, and coral reefs. Indigenous people and their allies want to preserve sacred grounds, tribal lands and natural habitats. Engineers see the climate crises as an energy problem that can be solved with technology. There are anti-nuclear groups and anti-ocean-turbine groups. It might even be worse than the Democratic Party.

Scientist Saul Griffith says all we need to do is electrify. Bill McKibben, (350.org) eternal optimist, argues we need to transition to green energy and we can still do it. Malm and Carton in The Long Heat and Overshoot say we must focus on mitigation because climate change is past the point of stopping it. Naomi Klein claims capitalism is at the root of the problem and we must scale back our lifestyles. Saito and others argue for “degrowth” because, they say, capitalism is unsustainable.

In Bad Energy, Frank writes a chapter each on different aspects of the climate change movement: precious metals, solar farms, wind turbines, water resources, nuclear power and the ocean. Frank claims that Trump, big oil and AI are intent on using the green energy moment to make money from the mining of precious metals like lithium and copper needed to make electric vehicles, batteries, wind turbines and solar panels. This results in open pit mines, ruining beautiful areas, and exploiting native workers in Africa, the American southwest, Bolivia and elsewhere. Frank is also against solar farms that harm the biodiversity of an area and encroach on indigenous scared grounds.

This stance while principled kind of paints Frank into a corner. Solar panels, the fastest growing source of energy in the world is ok with Frank if the panels sit on big box stores and peoples’ houses (except when they have to be replaced and thrown away).

Frank points to Trump’s interest in Greenland being about the precious metals there. But Trump also wants to take over the western hemisphere, control trade routes that would make use of Greenland’s location, build up a military presence there to counter Russia and China, and take charge of all that real estate that will open up due to global warming. Although Trump calls green energy a scam, he obviously believes in climate change. His focus on fossil fuels is all about money.

Bad Energy often seems to argue against green energy, dismissing EVs as an elitist non-solution powered by lithium. “Yes, we can still prevent the apocalypse, but we’ll never do so by driving a Tesla.” Well, no but, transportation is responsible for about 25% of global warming. And combustion engines are terribly inefficient sending 75% of that gas into the air where EV’s convert 90% of the electrical energy to power a car. And electric cars are a first step, eventually all transportation can be electrified. Although lithium batteries aren’t great, they will be replaced by solid state batteries in the next few years.

A chapter on water resources and dams delves into the growing problem of water scarcity. “More than half of the world’s rivers and two-thirds of its lakes are drying up…” As a result, governments are turning to dams to capture the water they need to survive. In addition, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, recommends dams to provide hydro-electricity. But the water is disappearing from global warming! And dams are causing conflicts between countries, as well as displacing local peoples.

Frank is also skeptical about nuclear power. Can we really trust those people? And mining the ocean for precious metals wrecks the ocean eco-systems.

Bad Energy is very well-researched. Frank backs up his claims but he’s a little fuzzy on where we go from here, how we prevent the apocalypse or how we solve the problems stemming from climate change. His strength is in stating what is wrong with our current approach. One unstated thesis of Bad Energy might be that we need to regulate the transition to green energy. We certainly cannot rely on Big Oil or corrupt politicians like Trump to solve the problem.

Joshua Frank in Bad Energy has aligned with those against capitalism and on the side of indigenous people. He would agree with Thoreau who said we must “Simplify! Simplify! Simplify! Frank’s skepticism is not far away from Elizabeth Kolbert’s who exposes the unintended consequences of various projects in Under a White Sky. The title refers to sending particles into the air to block the sun to mitigate global warming. What could go wrong? Frank would also find common ground in Vaclav Smil who explains in How the World Really Works just how complex the problem of climate change is due to our extensive dependence on fossil fuels. Although Frank doesn’t have solutions to all of the problems he brings up, he gives the reader plenty to consider as we continue to destabilize with our fragile eco-system.