The Los Angeles Times is facing backlash on social media over an article that speculated if addressing climate change could be simpler and more cost-effective if society were to tolerate occasional power grid blackouts.
In a Thursday piece, author Sammy Roth posed a question: “Would an occasional blackout help solve climate change?” In the article, he asked Americans about their priorities: “Keeping the lights on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, or solving the climate crisis?”
Recently, legal representatives for the Sierra Club and the city of Glendale, California, debated the continuation of a gas-fired power plant operations situated across the Los Angeles River. The city asserted the necessity of the plant to prevent blackouts and disasters for its close to 200,000 inhabitants.
The Times suggested that this courtroom dispute is a complex issue and part of a broader dialogue about how much blackout risk society deems acceptable. The article further explored whether societal expectations should adapt to avoid a climate disaster.
Experts have warned that California’s electrical grid could face extended periods of blackouts and failures due to state officials’ commitment to renewable energy transition. The state’s grid, mainly reliant on fossil fuels, is transitioning significantly from natural gas and coal to renewable sources such as wind and solar.
In his investigation, Roth asked his Twitter followers whether society could expedite gas reduction and save money by tolerating a few more blackouts in the coming years.
Among the hundreds of responses to Roth’s question, most dismissed the prospect of increased power outages as unacceptable for reasons beyond mere convenience, Roth confessed.
Aura Vasquez, a previous member of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s board of commissioners, asserted to Roth that every power outage results in a fatality. In a similar vein, John Moura from the North American Electric Reliability Corp. stated that blackouts are more about preserving lives than just providing light.
Regardless of these apprehensions, Roth inferred that addressing climate problems would necessitate sacrifices for the greater good, such as driving less, reducing meat consumption, accepting expansive solar farms that might harm wildlife habitats, and bearing the cost of pricey rooftop panels.
He posited that perhaps adapting to more frequent power outages shouldn’t be among those sacrifices. However, he added, there might be no other option.
Many social media users lambasted the article for entertaining the concept of deliberate blackouts as a solution to climate change.
Media strategist and journalist Gabriella Hoffman countered the notion, writing, “Ironically, it is actually net-zero policies – or decarbonization pushes – that lead to grid instability, energy insecurity, and blackout.”
Junk Science Founder Steve Milloy dubbed the piece as “peak climate idiocy.” Energy policy analyst David Blackmon alleged the article was a component of a propaganda drive intended to condition people to accept frequent blackouts. He hinted the LA Times was expressing an unspoken truth.
Blackmon further described the article as “classic religious cult propaganda,” adding, “We have seen it a thousand times down through history. And it appears the entirety of our legacy media is totally down with it.”
Electric blackouts are just the latest radical proposal that activists have proposed to purportedly stop “climate change.” The World Economic Forum has proposed that people go “car free” in so-called 15-minute cities an effort to curb emissions. The New York Times on Saturday pushed Americans to give up meat from their diets, claiming that eating only vegetables would lead to 75% fewer carbon emissions.
https://beckernews.com/99-peak-climate-idiocy-climate-activists-propose-electric-grid-blackouts-to-stop-climate-change-51177/
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