Dear clean energy industry, this is your moment.

Cease your frowning at the roadblocks that have been put in your way.

Exit your industry conferences at which you tell each other what you already know.

Break the shackles of renewable energy media, where you are preaching to the converted.

Stand up. Step out and convince communities, in the mainstream, with an economic argument.

“Drill baby drill” is Donald Trump’s mantra, but inadvertently, with his ill-considered Iran war, the US president has fractured decades of concerted lobbying, misinformation and disinformation, underpinned by a fortune in funding, to shore up the fossil fuel industry.

Clean energy, you have an open lane. Take the gap. It’s your Steven Bradbury moment.

We know that the fossil fuel sector has been astroturfing elections and manipulating information for years, with tactics as wilfully deceptive as those deployed for decades by big tobacco. A recent Senate inquiry has heard detailed evidence of distortions to public opinion about renewable energy, amid reams of fake social media accounts and false advertising designed to mislead.

Within it all, Australia’s unique opportunity as a nation with abundant sun and wind has become........

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