ANDREW CARSWELL: Australian Conservation Foundation’s hysterical reaction to being banned for misinformation

Finally, the environmental activist groups are going nuclear.

Metaphorically speaking, of course. We can only dream.

In the cut and thrust of Australia’s often tortured energy and climate debate, the bully has become the bullied. The bomb throwers are running for the shelters. War has come to their doorstep and not only are they ill-prepared for a robust contest of ideas and the new rules of engagement in modern-day campaigning, they don’t like it very much when things don’t go their way.

Like when they are labelled as peddlers of misinformation. Like when they are suspended from social media for pushing mistruths under the guise of scientific facts.

And so they rage. And so they rant.

For the second time in a few weeks, the Australian Conservation Foundation’s X account was suspended on Sunday for breaching the rules that determine what is true and factual, and what is the opposite of true and factual.

The latest suspension came just days after wind and solar propaganda website Renew Economy and green lobby group the Climate Council also fell foul of the rules that govern social media and had posts removed from Meta platforms and TikTok.

Cue the outrage and claims of conspiracy.

The Australian Conservation Foundation said it “was under attack”. It was being “report bombed” and “silenced”. It was “extremely worrying for democracy in Australia” and “just one more nail in the coffin for rational discourse online”.

Since the Federal Coalition introduced its bold nuclear energy policy, this unholy trinity of activists have taken it upon themselves to be Labor’s praetorian guard, taking turns to breathlessly demonise nuclear power in a blatant show of partisanship, by disseminating wild claims, attacking proponents, flagging social media posts, kicking and complaining to authorities, and taking the sword to any expert who dared put forward a supportive view.

It has been an orchestrated and deeply subversive campaign.

But when you haven’t got much material to work with — given the vast majority of first world nations have long embraced the technology, and the science of safety and waste is settled — the potential for overreach from the activists was always a likely proposition.

And so it came, thick and fast.

“Building nuclear power plants generates massive greenhouse gas climate pollution during decades of mining, construction, operation and decommissioning,’’ screamed the ACF on Twitter.

Fact check: All forms of energy generation and construction, including wind and solar, produce lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions. Nuclear energy is the lowest of them all.

“Nuclear is dirty and dangerous, and poses significant community, environment and health risks,’’ it also bellowed on Facebook.

So dirty that 18 out of the G20 group of nations either use the fuel source or are busy building new reactors. So dangerous that Australia has a nuclear facility on Sydney’s fringe within a couple of decent three irons away from homes. So risky that Australia will one day park floating nuclear reactors in our major harbours and call them submarines.

These facts are clearly too inconvenient for Australia’s bevy of environmental rent seekers, that long ago swapped noble environmental protection for rabid political fanaticism.

What they don’t tell Australians is that camping next to a nuclear reactor for a year exposes you to less radiation than flying from Sydney to New York. They also omit that bananas contain radioactive material and that a golf ball-sized lump of uranium can power a lifetime’s energy use.

Renew Economy suffered a similar “silencing” fate after posting a story criticising the CSIRO’s cost analysis of nuclear power in Australia. Despite the once esteemed organisation’s report copping resounding criticism for being half-baked, illegitimate and deeply political, Renew Economy found some random expert in the Czech Republic to say the CSIRO didn’t go hard enough.

Fuelling deep and unhinged suspicions that fossil fuel and big tech companies were covertly campaigning against them, posts boasting about the wonders of electric vehicles have also been unpublished by big tech, including on a certain social media site owned by the certain entrepreneur who just happens to own a certain EV manufacturing giant.

In one example, Renew Economy’s sister site The Driven had a post removed from Facebook boasting of the EV revolution that was driving down prices and leading to an influx of sales.

But data published by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries this week showed that it was hybrids, which use both batteries and traditional combustion engines, that recorded the growth, jumping to 14.4 per cent of new car sales last month.

Sales of EVs declined to just 8.3 per cent.

The only revolution is occurring in those hybrid combustion engines.

Renew Economy founder and editor Giles Parkinson was first to reach for the conspiracy button.

“The social media giants appear to have taken sides,’’ he alleged, suggesting the world’s social media cabal were colluding, in all their free time, to silence the views of a tiny, fringe renewables website in Australia.

If they have taken sides, the side they have chosen is the truth.

Andrew Carswell is a former strategist for the Morrison government.