The much wider political view, page-12

I can't quite see the link between Dr Seuss, Roald Dahl and mining output. It seems like a bizarre argument to me, the sort of thing a very left field academic might write a paper on and win an ignobel prize... "The Deleterious Effect of Gangsta Rap on Successfully Scaling New Methods of Lithium Extraction".

Also, I think you need to define your terms a bit better. "Virtue" and "merit" are both positive things. I think what you are referring to is the concept of virtue signalling, which I see as a sort of hypocrisy or shallowness. Usually it's used by people on the so-called right to criticise people on the so-called left. But anyone can be deluded or confused. It seems to me that what you are suggesting here is quite specious. You need to prove that there is some causal connection between progressive debates on things like place names, and outcomes in industry and innovation. If not, you might be guilty of a sort of virtue signalling of your own: just saying something that sounds good but doesn't really have any substance. I could just as well argue that a relaxed approach to gender pronouns actually encourages lateral thinking and could have a good effect on the energy transition. I won't, because I don't have any real world examples to back it up.

The Inflation Reduction Act is actually an excellent example of saying one thing but meaning another. As I understand it, at its core it's about government spending on infrastructure and renewable energy. They renamed it the Inflation Reduction Act to make it more palatable to rogue Democrat Joe Manchin to stop him from grandstanding, so he could instead signal a bit of his own "red meat" style of virtue.