Social media users strongly reacted to a Los Angeles Times column suggesting that people should accept the inconvenience of “occasional” power blackouts as a necessary measure to fight climate change.
In a piece that was met with predictable ridicule and scorn by many on Twitter, the author posed the question as to what is more important, “Keeping the lights on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, or solving the climate crisis?” in yet another manifestation of the green madness that traditional American living standards will need to be reduced to third-world levels to stave off the weather apocalypse.
Columnist Sammy Roth wrote about the courtroom battle between the city of Glendale and the environmental organization the Sierra Club which is suing over a gas-fired power plant that is “desperately needed” to provide a reliable source of electrical power to the LA-area city’s nearly 200,000 residents.
I pose a heretical question in my latest piece for @latimes…
Would it be easier and less expensive to fight climate change if we were willing to live with the occasional blackout?
Read the thing before yelling at me, and let me know what you think: https://t.co/vJdxwENqKw
— Sammy Roth (@Sammy_Roth) July 20, 2023
“It’s a highly technical dispute,” he states. “But it’s part of a larger conversation about how much blackout risk we consider acceptable in modern society — and whether our expectations should evolve in the name of preventing climate catastrophe.”
“Again and again, I’ve found myself asking: Would it be easier and less expensive to limit climate change — and its deadly combination of worsening heat, fire and drought and flood — if we were willing to live with the occasional blackout?” Roth asks.
He also suggests that other small measures such as “driving less or eating less meat” will be required “for the sake of the greater good” in the crusade to prevent the alleged planetary climate doomsday.
Twitter users came down hard on the idea of such self-sacrifice for the cause, blasting it as “peak climate idiocy” and a “propaganda campaign” to “condition” people to accept regular blackouts as acceptable.
In plain sight. Reject Energy Statism #EnergyFreedom
Would an occasional blackout help solve climate change? https://t.co/geRoxDcTMG
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) July 21, 2023
Peak climate idiocy from LATimes @Sammy_Roth:
“What’s more important: Keeping the lights on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, or solving the climate crisis?”
Since the ‘climate crisis’ is imaginary and a hoax, I’m going with keeping the lights on.https://t.co/zstWmOlAec
— Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) July 20, 2023
I think
You think
The peasants
Should suffer
So that you can pretend to
Save the planet https://t.co/Eo6dsdmJfD— Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) July 22, 2023
“Would an occasional blackout help solve climate change?”
No. COVID lockdowns didn’t help solve COVID, but any excuse to control us will do.
Climate lockdowns — blackouts, limiting energy consumption, controlling smart thermostats — are on their to-do list. https://t.co/rDTt9iUPj4
— Jared Sichel (@thejaredsichel) July 21, 2023
110 degrees, let’s make sure people have no air conditioning? This generation has a savior complex, some literally think they are more powerful than the sun
— Brandon Saario (@SaarioBrandon) July 20, 2023
First, there is nothing to solve.
Next, there is never a good reason for blackouts.
— Joe Sanders (@joesanders33) July 20, 2023
It’s only fitting that California become more like a 3rd world country.
— Christopher Reeves Crowley (@ThePlaidCons) July 21, 2023
The most sensible decision is to permanently black out all @LATimes facilities.
— Tom Hallock (@SudoNimh) July 22, 2023
Reading your claptrap filled me with the urge to go fire up my car, roll the windows down, and put the AC on full blast for about 5 hours.
— Sprocket the Cat (@NicholasZeger) July 22, 2023
I legitimately thought I was reading @TheBabylonBee
— Wups (@idowups) July 21, 2023
“This is classic religious cult propaganda,” said David Blackmon, an energy-related consultant who accused the paper of contributing to a “propaganda” campaign to “condition” people to accept that they have to live with blackouts and that the LA Times was saying “the quiet part out loud.”
“We have seen it a thousand times down through history. And it appears the entirety of our legacy media is totally down with it,” he added.
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