News Round-Up: Trump’s New Energy Sec Expects Climate Alarm To Crumble, A Man Faces Criminal Charges For Calling Germany’s Habeck ‘Idiot’ Online, and Racist Geology

Every week, the editorial team of Freedom Research compiles a round-up of news that caught our eye, or what felt like under-reported aspects of news deserving more attention.

Over the past week, the following topics attracted our attention:

• Trump’s pick for energy secretary: Chris Wright says climate movement around the world is “collapsing under its own weight.”

• Germany: a man faces criminal proceedings for calling Vice Chancellor Rober Habeck an idiot.

• UK University professor calls geology ‘racist’.

• England: Football Association facing protests over banning a girl for asking a male opponent if he was a man during a girls’ match.

• Can a black man identify as a white woman?

Trump’s pick for energy secretary: Chris Wright says climate movement around the world is “collapsing under its own weight.”

One of the goals of future US President Donald Trump is to become the world's dominant energy power. With this ambition in mind, Trump has chosen Chris Wright as his nominee for energy secretary: a fossil fuel executive, who supports the development of the oil and gas industry, including fracking, writes AP News.

Wright, who studied electrical engineering, is currently the CEO of Denver-based Liberty Energy. He describes himself as a "tech nerd turned entrepreneur." He says on LinkedIn that he is “all-in on energy,″ from starting his career in nuclear, solar, and geothermal energy to his current efforts in oil and gas and “next-generation” geothermal. “I don’t care where energy comes (from), as long as it is secure, reliable, affordable and betters human lives,″ he has written.

Chris Wright says that climate movement around the world is collapsing under its own weight. Photo: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons. 

Wright has been quite vocal in calling out the activist actions on climate change. He has often been heard criticising what he calls the “top-down” approach to climate change by liberal and left-wing groups. He argues that the climate movement around the world is “collapsing under its own weight.”

So it is fair to say that Chris Wright agrees with the incoming president quite unequivocally on climate change. In fact, Trump plans to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement again, as he did in his first term. Trump has pledged to rescind unspent funds in Biden’s 2022 climate law and is widely expected to curb or reverse Biden’s push for more electric vehicles and a stricter regulation of carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants.

In light of the foregoing, it is safe to say that with this new energy secretary, any climate action will be put on the back burner and instead fossil fuel use and development will be given a boost. For example, both Trump and Wright are keen to lift the moratorium that the Biden administration put on new LNG export licences a year ago.

Germany: a man faces criminal proceedings for calling Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck an idiot

Germany's Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck has filed a criminal complaint with the police against a man who posted what he considers to be a defamatory picture of him on social media, DW writes.  

64-year-old from Bavaria is under investigation for allegedly insulting Deputy Chancellor Robert Habeck on a post on social media platform X. The public prosecutor's office in Bamberg in northern Bavaria confirmed that the suspect's flat had been searched, with a tablet device seized, and that Habeck had asked authorities to prosecute an alleged insult against him. 

Germany's Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck has filed a criminal complaint with the police against a man who posted what he considers to be a defamatory picture of him on social media. Photo: Martin Kraft/Wikimedia Commons.

The suspect is accused of posting an image of Habeck on X earlier this year. He captioned the photo of Habeck with a phrase that could be translated multiple ways in English, with one strong option being "professional idiot" — with the German "Schwachkopf" literally translating as "weak-head." The man also appeared to be trying to allude to an advertising campaign by the similarly-named hair care company Schwarzkopf Professional.

The Bavaria resident is also accused of posting Nazi-era imagery and language earlier in 2024. According to prosecutors, this post may have violated German laws against the incitement of ethnic or religious hatred. The man was arrested as part of nationwide police operations against suspected antisemitic hate speech online. 

UK University professor calls geology ‘racist’

The study of the Earth’s rocks and natural resources is racist and linked to “white supremacy”, according to Kathryn Yusoff, an academic at the Queen Mary University of London, The Telegraph writes. She has also suggested paleontology, the study of prehistoric life through fossils, was partly to blame for racism, labelling it “pale-ontology”.

In her book, Geologic Life, the professor argued the extraction of gold, iron, and other metals was racist. She wrote that geology began as a “colonial practice” that created hierarchies, promoted materialism, destroyed environments, and led to climate change.

Studying the Earth has racist roots professor Kathryn Yusoff claims. Photo: Pixabay.

The theft of land, mining, and other geological aspects of colonialism led “toward the white supremacy of the planet” and resulted in “geotrauma”, Yusoff wrote. She also claimed, “geology continues to function within a white supremacist praxis”.

Demands to decolonise courses, led by activist students and lecturers, have spread across UK universities, backed by official bodies such as the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education.

The agenda began in social sciences and humanities and is now being applied to hard science and maths subjects. It uses critical race theory to support the view that the knowledge studied in universities is male and white and has been used to attain and perpetuate Western global domination through racism and injustice.

England: FA faces protests over banning a girl for asking a male opponent if he was a man during a girls’ match

The banning of a teenage girl by the English Football Association (FA) for asking a “bearded” opponent “Are you a man?” has sparked multiple protests against the FA for their ‘transgender’ policies, The Telegraph writes. A group calling itself Twelve O Five, organized a protest last Sunday before the men’s Nations League game against the Republic of Ireland, with more than 200 women and men estimated to have descended on Wembley amid growing outrage over the six-match suspension imposed on a 17-year-old, who was just concerned for her safety if forced to play against a male back in a match last July.  The FA allows young men aged 16 and over who identify themselves as transgender, or female, to play in the girls' and women's competition. As men and women differ significantly in physical ability and strength, it is not only unfair for men to participate in women's sports but also dangerous for women, as clashes between players can cause serious injury to the weaker party.

Besides supporting the teenage girl, the action was also protesting against the FA’s policy of allowing those born male to play in women’s football. It featured a number of chants, including, “Stand up for girl’s football”, and, “Boys and girls are not the same. We don’t want men in our game. On the pitch or on the court, keep men out of women’s sport”. Among banners held up by demonstrators were ones, written in capitals, which read: “Save women’s sports”, “No men in women’s sport” and “The FA cares f. all about women and girls”.

The protest was welcomed by the mother of the girl, who was banned last month by the FA’s national serious case panel and missed the first match of her suspension on Sunday.

The second protest is planned for next month’s England Women’s friendly against Switzerland.

Can a black man identify as a white woman?

People's search for their identity is becoming increasingly bizarre. Despite being born black and male, Ronnie - who uses the pronoun they - now identifies as a white woman, regardless of outward appearances, saying there is a 'repressed white female identity' inside them begging to be released, Daily Mail writes. Ronnie calls himself 'transgracial' - meaning he/they identify himself as transgender and transracial.

When we have been told that gender is a social construct, people who call themselves transracial say that race is a social construct as well, therefore a 'choice'. However, the article acknowledges that the idea of changing a race is controversial even in those circles that believe in those bizarre theories. A famous example of a transracial person is Rachel Dolezal, the former NAACP leader, who, in 2015, was unmasked as a white woman whose family is primarily of European descent. The revelation provoked outrage around the world and on social media after she said the 'idea of race is a lie'. Despite the criticism, Rachel doubled down on her transracial identity, describing herself as 'unapologetically black' in a 2019 documentary.