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Naive conservatives point to the leftist obsession with electric cars even while the grid is being moved away from reliable energy sources like oil, coal and gas, to fundamentally unreliable ones like wind and solar, and then point to the blackouts in California.
“How is this going to work?” they argue, thinking that they’ve made a convincing point, while fundamentally misunderstanding (as conservatives often do) that they haven’t found a logical weakness, they’ve uncovered the enemy’s plan.
Shoving everything into an unreliable power grid, especially personal transportation, isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. That’s the whole point of electric cars, and the proliferation of always online vehicles that require a power grid and can be remotely shut down. All of this is Cloward-Piven for energy. Failure isn’t just inevitable, it’s the goal.
As the blackouts grow, they will tell you, as I predicted, to shut up and take it for the good of the planet.
A few weeks ago I was at the home of a gentleman who had moved here from South Africa, and he was telling me about how his family had gotten used to blackouts as the normal order of business. Given leftists a chance and we’ll have to “get used to them too”. We’ll know not to bother cooking around 5 PM (don’t bother about gas stoves, they’re being banned as we speak) and not to drive at certain times or go out of the house. Cities will grow dark and criminals will rampage even more lawlessly than usual. Enjoy utopia.
And know, that while Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Pierre Omidyar and other great environmental philanthropists are on their mega-yachts and mansions, you’re sacrificing for the planet.
What’s more important: Keeping the lights on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, or solving the climate crisis?
First, it’ll be 23 hours a day of power and then 22. The media will compare it to living during the Blitz. We’ll be told to learn to live with it like masks and no bags in supermarkets.
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?
Could we get started ditching gas sooner — and save some money — by accepting a few more blackouts for the next few years?
Does that mean we should be willing to accept even a few more hours of blackouts, if it means burning less gas?
After reporting on clean energy for most of the last decade, I’ve increasingly come to the conclusion that solving climate change will require sacrifices — even if only small ones — for the sake of the greater good. Those might include lifestyle changes such as driving less or eating less meat. They might also include accepting that large-scale solar farms will destroy some wildlife habitat, and that rooftop solar panels — despite their higher costs — have an important role to play in cleaning up the grid.
Maybe learning to live with more power outages shouldn’t be one of those sacrifices.
But at the same time, we might not have a choice.
We might not have a choice because the anti-technology luddite left doesn’t intend to give us a choice. They’re forcing us into an unreliable and unworkable ‘clean energy’ grid that they’re now admitting will go down on a regular basis. And from stoves to cars, they’re forcing us to live our entire lives around that grid.
It’s a water empire meant to reduce us to feudalism.
The idea of accepting a less dependable electric grid “is uncomfortable for a lot of people, because they correctly point out you may end up in situations where the wealthier you are, the more you’re able to buy your way out of that reliability problem,” Grubert said. Think rooftop solar panels paired with a battery in the garage, or a backup diesel generator.
That’s why it’s crucial, Grubert said, for government to be ready to protect society’s most vulnerable when it’s hot and the power goes out. That could include investing in a wider network of cooling centers, with transportation to help people get there.
Cooling centers are how the French and other Euros live because they won’t get air conditioning since it’s bad for the planet. Instead, thousands of people die during the summer while public places that are air conditioned open ‘cooling centers’.
This is what the Left wants for us. This is what environmentalism means.
Is it realistic to think that shifting our expectations for “reliability” could help us tackle the climate crisis?
“Reliability”. Shortly it’ll be explained that when the green lefties promised a reliable power grid, they have their own definition of reliable. We need to change our expectations of having the power on.
Families comfortable with 81-degree indoor temperatures, for instance, could get paid to turn up the thermostat a few degrees on the hottest evenings. People with electric cars could be incentivized to charge at a lower cost overnight. Big factories could be required to cut back during stressful moments on the grid.
You may not live in South Africa, but it’s coming to where you live. Here’s a preview of a green clean tomorrow.
The blackouts can strike at any time and then lights, hot water and even major industries vanish into the darkness.
Storing perishable food in the fridge has become a gamble. The meat you buy today may be inedible tomorrow if the rolling blackout arrives and lasts long enough to destroy all the food you cooked.
With rolling blackouts that can last for as long as twelve hours, South Africans have grown used to eating by candlelight and heating water the old-fashioned way. Those who can afford it have been stocking up on generators. But the demand is so high that it can take a month to even obtain a generator.
It’s not just homes and small businesses. Factories and mines are struggling to maintain the country’s industrial base when power can vanish for the entire workday. Traffic lights run off the same power grid and when it goes into ‘load-shedding’ mode, the roads become a snarled maze of honking cars.
This is the ‘green’ future that’s coming if we let leftists run our power.
Car crashes, opportunistic criminals, rotting food, decomposing bodies, bankrupt businesses, and water shortages. Welcome to life under South Africa’s power blackouts.
Last week the grim extent of the outages was laid bare when South Africans were advised to bury dead loved ones within four days.
n a public statement, the South African Funeral Practitioners Association warned that bodies in mortuaries were rapidly decomposing because of the unrelenting electricity outages, putting huge pressure on funeral parlors struggling to process corpses.
Before she died in October 2022, Lis Van Os needed oxygen for 17 hours a day. Her stationary oxygen machine required mains power, making periods of loadshedding extremely stressful, particularly when power did not return as scheduled, her family said.
Her daughter Karin McDonald was forced to explore backup options such as inverters and a back up oxygen mobile tank, which only lasted short periods.
Maneo Motsamai, a domestic worker in Johannesburg, says the outages prevents her from simple tasks such as cooking.
“I boil water to cook mealie meal (maize porridge) and the power goes. I can’t eat, it’s a waste. I can’t cope like that,” Motsamai told CNN.
South Africa is notorious for high crime rates, and loadshedding is making it worse as home security systems fail when the power goes out, giving criminals a field day inside unsecured properties.
Policing also becomes harder, with officers unable to reach crime scenes fast enough due to congestion when traffic lights are off.
Tumelo Mogodiseng, General Secretary of the South African Policing Union (SAPU), describes the load-shedding as “a pandemic.”
He says his members’ lives are now more at risk, with officers unable to see potentially dangerous situations in the darkness, and police stations, many of which don’t have backup power systems, at risk of attack from criminals during blackouts.
Don’t worry folks, every person who dies or lives in the dark is helping to ‘save the planet’.
Just who asked for all of this climate nonsense? Just who is pining for electric vehicles? Who started the idea to ban gas stoves, heaters, etc,? Just who gets to decide that this is how we shall have to live our lives? Is it going to take a civil war against these controlling people, or will someone finally resort to eliminating the political population of D. C. with a fat bomb? It seems there is no talking sanity or even middle-ground with those who believe they can impose their will on the nation.
My guess is if they push people so far, we will see Guerrilla warfare popping up on the streets in the neighborhoods of our nation. It does NOT have to be this way, however it’s real hard to get the attention of those determined to have it all their way.
Sadly, once started Guerrilla warfare takes on a life of its own and likely won’t cease until our nation is destroyed………………..which may indeed be what the controllers indeed want.
I might go so far as to term these radicals Communists, for they sure have many hallmarks of how those people go about their undermining of a nation.
Too bad that Joe Biden and many in our Congress are on the side of these destructive radicals (Communists). What does that make them??
Remember when we were kids and the kids with the best toys always said “My way or forget it”? Well those kids grew up and became what we suffer with today.
What does it make them? It makes them traitors, of course.
There is no such things as climate emergencies.
There are hoaxes to replace popular governance with tyranny.
We’re witnessing exactly that.
There is no “climate crisis”. We are experiencing a weaponization of common weather and cyclic climate events in the phony climate war.
“they haven’t found a logical weakness, they’ve uncovered the enemy’s plan.”
Exactly. In case after case.
I myself fell for that so many times.
Lenin said “Communism means Soviet Power plus electric power.”
In reality Socialism means electric power plus blackouts.
I experienced that in India (Bangalore) under Socialism back in 1981-82. The power would go off regularly at certain hours.
And in California under Governor Gray Davis.
See, even Lenin understood the need for electric power. He said without it Russia would remain a backwards peasant country.
“Bring more engineers to the fore, and learn from them.” -V. Lenin
Wow. South Africa became a fail;ed country after the whites gave control to the blacks.
Who could have foreseen that? I mean, Zimbabwe is Heaven on Earth.
Say what you will, but Zimbabwe can have an election in ONE day.
And the winner will be known beforehand. Up until he finally died, it was always the black Hitler, Mugabe.
It does speed up elections.
Thanks Jeff. It just occurred to me that Zimbabwe/Rhodesia is a perfect case study in the left taking power. Transforming the breadbasket of Africa into a country that can’t feed itself in a few short years. The dysfunctionals stealing the farms from the productive farmers, so the farms turn to wastelands. Hyperinflation strikes and the currency becomes worthless. The elites on the top use military force to take whatever is left for themselves, while stealing foreign aid. Well, pick your favorite issue and stick it in there 🙂
Rhodesia fell first, because the ratio of black to white was worse than in South Africa, so it is taking longer there.
The Zulus are somewhat admirable though, will be interesting historically to see how that turns out.
The Zulus are only admirable if you think that murdering helpless POW’s is admirable. That’s exactly what they did to the British at one notable battle in the 19th century. They are bloodthirsty savages who lust for power and more power.
Yes, as a people the Zulus seem detestable in most ways. I suspect AA was expressing admiration for the military talents of Shaka, though. The guy was a bloody savage but a capable general. He took on the British with spears and shields, back when the British Empire was the mightiest military force in the world.
The guy was adept.
I have an Australian friend who had grandparents from Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. They had Australian, British and Rhodesian citizenship. A crazy combo, right? Sounds cool, though.
I feel bad because they’re probably dead now. I don’t know how any white person could survive in that Hellhole.
Everything you wrote is right. That country went from a net exporter to having to import everything. It’s currency was devalued by millions, the last I knew. It’s one of the most racist countries on Earth.
Always trying to “save” the planet. Their religious crusade.
Bleeding heart liberals (American communists) always proclaim they are “saving” something when the opposite is true.
In the Soviet Union, private cars were unavailable to most people. One had no choice but to travel by bus or train, systems operated by the government. Train travel was highly restricted ; one had to apply to an apparatchik for a ticket, and explain why you were traveling. Tickets, if issued at all, often took weeks to obtain. This system was not the result of incompetence or inefficiency, but was designed to prevent personal freedom to travel. When and where one wanted. The progressive apparatchiks running the USA would love to replicate the Soviet system.
Meanwhile the Grand Pooh Bahs of the world will have Generators or Backup power for themselves while we have to suffer to prevent a totally made up threat the UN(Uesless Nations)and Washington D.C.( District of Criminal’s)will never worry about Blackouts
For the first time in the 32 years since my wife & I settled in east Tennessee after the military, the Tennessee Valley Authority announced last winter that they would be instituting rolling blackouts. I knew then that the realities of the climate hoax had reached a tipping point, since the TVA (the largest public utility in the nation) literally oozes power, delivering electricity to six other states.
It didn’t go over too well, as you might imagine, with people wanting Jeffrey Lyash’s head on a pike. The grumblings made their way to the state house, where investigations were promised…but honestly, how do you investigate a CONTROL test? Much like the Plannedemic was a behavioral test for the masses, so too was this.
While many may quip, “What’s an hour, here or there?”. While modern homes are built well enough to handle that, I took my young bride on an early evening walk from my parent’s nice home, years ago, to show her how the other half lived. Typically, a single dangling incandescent bulb, hanging in the main room, could be seen through the walls of these shacks. The Appalachian poor are real and prevalent, and when a death comes, it’ll be because of fake science.
There is a level of unconstitutionality to this and along with that we have our own neighbors as citizens to be part of the machine which implements the controls set forth by the beast. A global digital currency is also being implemented and hundreds of thousands are already bought into the absurdity and we are told it’s going to happen “whether we like it or not”.
The key point here that all us peasants must understand is that the powerful, wealthy and elite will not be affected in the slightest by the policies and misery they force on us.
Heard on conservative radio: CA, or was it the EPA? (same thing) will require all new home construction to include installation of the electrical wiring needed for charging an EV. Estimated cost is around $1,000. Another coercion tactic.
The Left:
There are the communists, who know exactly what they want, but tell their flock an entirely different story.
There are the rest, the sheep, the flock, Lenin’s “useful idiots”, who believe everything the left tells them, either incapable of or unwilling to engage in critical thinking and research. They far outnumber the communists, which is a huge problem for the rest of us.
The Right:
There are the conservatives who know the truth about the enemy, such as most of those who comment here at Frontpage, who probably first got here via learning about David Horowitz, as I did, who most particularly knows the enemy.
There are the naive conservatives, how shall they be characterized?
Still patronizing those who hate their guts, such as the NFL and the rest of pro sports, Facebook, Google, the list goes on. Watching the world unravel on TV with resigned acceptance. Of course, to some extent, it’s unavoidable.
They far outnumber the conservatives who understand the problem, which is a huge problem for themselves and the rest of us. They seem to lack the killer instinct of those on the left and those few conservatives who spit in the face of the left at every opportunity.
In fairness to conservatives, we’re too busy living life the way it’s supposed to be lived in America: trying to raise a family, working hard to make ends meet, paying taxes to an increasingly criminal and confiscatory government, trying to find the right school for our children.
Nevertheless, as we inch closer to losing our grip on our country, we’ll have no choice but to fight.
Why not stop people travelling long distances to climate conferences? Put at ban on private jets and yachts? Stop illuminating the White House at night, and all other publicly owned property?
Dumb fuck fool!
Imagine what they be asking for as the solar cycle intensifies and warming continues without their permission.
Will they preach war against the coal burning ccp?? Will they shutdown and arrest your favorite barbecue restaurantuer? Forbid carnivorous pets??
It would certainly be nice if the eco-freaks understood just the tiniest bit about The Planet(TM)’s history. There have been periods in which CO-2 levels were as high as 8000 PPM and life proliferated in ways that we can hardly conceive of. There have been periods when it dropped to 240 PPM and nothing grew very well, including the animals that depended on the crops and trees that failed to grow. 150 to 200 PPM is mass-extinction level; all life would cease on Earth. Currently the CO-2 level up to about 400 PPM, recently risen from that life-destroying 240 PPM that the greenies are yearning nostalgically for.
As to temperature, the estimated average temperature on Earth is less than 60 degrees Fahrenheit. If you were to be unclothed and unsheltered in this temperature you would not live very long. We are slowly, in fits and starts, emerging from an ice age; first, from a major one during the past 10,000 years, and second, one of those fits, a so-called Little Ice Age (approximately 14th through 19th centuries). That Little Ice Age caused enormous human misery after the halcyon warm period preceding it, with routine crop failures, sudden and catastrophic glacial expansion (oops, there go our village and our farms, now under a quarter of a mile of ice), and mass starvation. The Thames River froze solid for a number of winters and the Londoners, in usual British fashion, made the best of it by having “Frost Fairs”, with skating, dancing, dining, games, and other fun on the ice. Commerce of course ground to a halt with the river and its extensive shipping halted for several months each year, and many people died of the cold. Many, many more than died of the heat during mankind’s hottest years.
The point is that yes, the Earth is getting warmer, and thank God for that. Come to think of it, Whom else would we thank? He’s in charge, whatever our elites seem to think. And CO-2 levels are rising, thanks to the same benevolent Being Who runs things around here. We are blessed beyond belief with these gifts, of a kinder climate and higher CO-2 levels. We ought to be celebrating, not cowering in terror.
The cruel ice will return, as it always does. In the meanwhile we ought to be using this interglacial period to develop technologies to deal with that, not to destroy technology to deal with some pretend crisis that does not exist.
Absolutely pent articles, appreciate it for entropy.