{"id":1641998,"date":"2022-09-15T14:49:24","date_gmt":"2022-09-15T18:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1641998"},"modified":"2022-09-15T14:50:06","modified_gmt":"2022-09-15T18:50:06","slug":"the-lefts-climate-whataboutism-is-on-full-display-in-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-lefts-climate-whataboutism-is-on-full-display-in-california\/","title":{"rendered":"The Left\u2019s Climate \u2018Whataboutism\u2019 Is On Full Display In California"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthe-lefts-climate-whataboutism-is-on-full-display-in-california%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1641998&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Last week, California authorities <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/restoring-america\/courage-strength-optimism\/california-grid-operators-declare-energy-emergency-for-second-day-of-heat-wave\">announced<\/a> an \u201cEnergy Emergency\u201d as the world\u2019s fifth-largest economy struggled under the strain of a heat wave. Partisans and pundits alike pointed to the situation as indisputable evidence that climate change is an existential threat to humanity. Upon digging a little deeper, though, it becomes clear that \u201cclimate change\u201d is simply the Left\u2019s catchall excuse for anything that goes wrong.<\/p>\n<p>This is especially true in California. Just look at Democrats\u2019 response to the state\u2019s terrible wildfires, each of which has consumed roughly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fire.ca.gov\/stats-events\/\">250 acres<\/a> of land and property over the past five years. When the fires strike, opportunistic politicians and click-starved journalists predictably blame global warming. In 2020, Speaker Nancy Pelosi went so far as to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/thehill\/status\/1306976518590074885\">claim<\/a> the fires are \u201cMother Nature\u2019s statement\u201d to \u201cdo something\u201d about climate change.<\/p>\n<p>In reality, the connection is a bit more complicated, which an honest journalist will sometimes acknowledge. For instance, the Los Angeles Times <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/california\/story\/2021-11-01\/climate-change-is-now-main-driver-of-wildfire-weather\">reported<\/a> that \u201cCalifornia researchers say that climate change is now the overwhelming cause of conditions driving extreme wildfire behavior in the western United States.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This raises the question: If climate change causes the conditions driving wildfire behavior, what is causing these massive fires in the first place? The answer isn\u2019t Mother Nature, but something all-too human: poor forest management practices.<\/p>\n<p>Over the years, California\u2019s policy of stopping wildfires as soon as they start has caused the state\u2019s tree density to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fs.usda.gov\/detail\/stanislaus\/home\/?cid=stelprd3808225\">explode<\/a>. In 1911, the Stanislaus National Forest in Northern California had only 19 trees per acre. A hundred years later, that number was 260. That surge has made major wildfires far more likely than they used to be. (States like California need to learn from states, such as Florida, that manage their forests well and use prescribed burns and timber harvesting to keep people and the environment safe.)<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a similar dynamic at work with California\u2019s electricity woes. \u201cClimate change overwhelming California power grid,\u201d screamed the headline of one <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/equilibrium-sustainability\/3631118-climate-change-overwhelming-california-power-grid\/\">clickbait article<\/a> this month. Though, the climate alone is not worthy of blame. High temperatures also exposed misplaced governing priorities and ill-advised public policy.<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnybj.com\/california-energy-nightmare-is-a-cautionary-tale-for-ny-climate-policies\/\">blind push<\/a> for a clean grid, the California Energy Commission requires utility companies to rely on renewable energy sources, like solar and wind, for one-third of their sales. That requirement will double by 2030. Meanwhile, the California state legislature has decided to ban gas-powered vehicles by 2035 and aims to eliminate fossil fuels entirely by 2045.<\/p>\n<p>It doesn\u2019t take a genius to see that banning fossil fuels in a hot, arid state, where the average person drives roughly <a href=\"https:\/\/www7.transportation.gov\/transportation-health-tool\/indicators\/detail\/ca\/state\/california#indicators\">30,000 miles<\/a> per year, could lead to power shortages \u2013 especially when renewable technologies aren\u2019t as efficient as traditional ones and people have to rely on the public grid to charge their cars.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s not to mention, as well, that regulation slips allowed one of California\u2019s major utility companies, Pacific Gas and Electric, to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxbusiness.com\/energy\/california-regulations-utility-mismanagement-fires-blackouts-here-to-stay\">ignore aging infrastructure<\/a> for decades as they charged \u201cabnormally high electricity rates\u201d to their customers. The company is now in bankruptcy, and the millions of Californians it once served are now left without reliable energy.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, Democrats continue to blame the threat of power outages on climate change \u2013 and that\u2019s not all they blame on it. When an algal bloom hit San Francisco Bay this summer, a University of California professor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/08\/30\/us\/fish-dead-algae-bloom-california.html\">said<\/a> it was the result of global warming: \u201cIt\u2019s exactly what you would expect with climate change. We\u2019re going to see more blooms like this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>We now know that the bloom was the result of a complete failure by local governments to upgrade and modernize sewage treatment plants. In the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/environment\/2022\/09\/07\/sf-algae-bloom-caused-by-old-sewage-plants-dumping-poop-and-pee-into-bay\/\">words<\/a> of the San Francisco Chronicle, \u201cAlgae blooms need food to grow, and this one had plenty: nutrients originating in wastewater that the region\u2019s 37 sewage plants pump into the bay.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>These examples show how the Left\u2019s climate change alarmism is often just \u201cwhataboutism,\u201d a way to avoid confronting real problems like California\u2019s incompetent state and local governments. They also show that the best way to respond to climate change is not Green New Deal-style policies that weaken our infrastructure and economy.<\/p>\n<p>Rather, the key is to invest in technological innovation and adaptation to environmental changes. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/opinion\/2019\/08\/19\/rubio-on-climate-change-we-should-choose-adaptive-solutions-column\/2019310001\/\">It\u2019s what we are doing in Florida<\/a>. To make those investments, however, left-wing politicians would need to quit playing their lazy blame-games and put in the type of work that doesn\u2019t generate clicks or online donations.<\/p>\n<p><em>Senator Marco Rubio represents the state of Florida and sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/p>\n<p><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, California authorities announced an \u201cEnergy Emergency\u201d as the world\u2019s fifth-largest economy struggled under the strain of a heat wave. Partisans and pundits alike pointed to the situation as indisputable evidence that climate change is an existential threat to humanity. Upon digging a little deeper, though, it becomes clear that \u201cclimate change\u201d is simply &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1642000,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1641998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1641998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1641998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1641998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1642000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1641998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1641998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1641998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}