ADVANTAGE: ED! The Economist: The silver linings of a recession. Lower inflation and greener energy are worth the price of a short downturn.

Yet in the same way that a downturn should purge the American economy of its inflation problem, so Europe could emerge from recession having overcome its complacency about the supply of energy. Policymakers have belatedly realised that a carefully managed shift to clean energy also eases their dependence on autocratic regimes.

Around the world, investment in renewable energy is surging and governments that were previously sceptical about nuclear power—an essential part of a low-carbon energy grid—are reconsidering their opposition to it. Even Japan, which suffered the Fukushima disaster in 2011, is hoping to restart more nuclear reactors. If the world emerges from the coming downturn with inflation under control and on the path to greener, more secure energy supplies, the pain will not have been for nothing.

As I predicted in February, “the left will then justify the ensuing recession by praising its benefits to the environment, as John Kerry and Claire McCaskill did during the early Obama years, and multiple lefties did last year during the Covid shutdown.”