LA Times writer and climate alarmist Sammy Roth has some words for his fellow unhinged cultists
Column: Solving climate change will have side effects. Get over it
When I wrote a column two weeks ago urging the Biden administration to approve a lot more solar and wind farms on Western public lands, I knew I would get flak from critics of large-scale renewable energy — and indeed I did.
On social media, conservationists blasted me for what they described as my failure to understand that sprawling solar projects and towering wind turbines tear up wildlife habitat and destroy treasured landscapes. They called me a shill for money-grubbing utility companies and suggested it’s obvious that we should rebuild our energy systems around solar panels on rooftops.
Funny how the same people who yammer about building all this green energy are the same ones who try and stop it.
In an ideal universe, I’d support building renewable energy exclusively within cities and on previously disturbed lands such as farm fields and irrigation canals. In an ideal universe, I’d support only climate solutions that don’t cause other problems.
But we don’t live in an ideal universe.
We live in a universe where every clean energy technology has drawbacks, whether economic or technical or political. A universe where there aren’t enough rooftops to replace all the fossil fuels we now burn. Where skeptical farmers are fighting to stop their neighbors from switching to solar energy production. Where building solar on canals is wildly expensive, at least so far.
Just as importantly, we live in a universe where human beings use mind-boggling amounts of energy.
If we keep replacing all those reliable coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants with wind and solar (enviroweenies also want to eliminate existing dams that generate electricity)
Mistrustful of monopoly utility companies? Then you probably see rooftop solar panels as the ideal climate change solution. Live near the coast and love the ocean views? Then solar farms in the desert probably sound better than offshore wind turbines. Find it easier to cope with the idea of climate chaos if you can convince yourself a single technology or policy will fix everything? Then maybe you’re a devotee of nuclear reactors, or a carbon fee, or carbon capture and storage.
Yeah, it’s typically about it all being Somewhere Else.
Much as I hate the idea of paving over desert tortoise habitat with solar panels or refusing to remove dams that have decimated salmon populations, I hate the idea of 3 degrees Celsius of planetary warming a lot more. Much as I sympathize with rural towns that don’t want to live with industrial wind turbines as their neighbors, I sympathize more with my neighbors here in Los Angeles who can’t afford air conditioning and don’t want to die of heatstroke the next time the thermostat hits 121 degrees.
Warmists won’t like this. All that green energy is great in theory, but not in practice.
Now, for those of you reading this and nodding in agreement — thanks for your support. But I hope you’ll stop and ask yourself: What are you personally willing to sacrifice to bring about a safe climate future? What changes will you make in your life?
Will you eat less meat, replace your gas stove with an induction cooktop or lease an electric car? Will you make climate change a top priority at the ballot box, and post about it on Instagram, and bring it up at the dinner table on Thanksgiving?
If you hear about a climate solution that rubs you the wrong way, will you swallow hard and look the other way?
Most of them won’t make those changes, and refuse to have their own lives messed up.
To maintain a habitable planet for ourselves and our children and grandchildren, we’ll need to make some compromises. We’ll need to stand by and watch as some pristine ecosystems are razed in the name of renewable energy. We’ll need to learn to live with exorbitantly wealthy investors raking in additional profits at our expense. We’ll need to elect some politicians whose ideas don’t fully line up with our own, because they’re nonetheless our best hope of avoiding planetary collapse.
As someone who may not believe that the current climate is mostly/solely the fault of Mankind but is an environmentalist, no, I’m not good with razing ecosystems for a scam.
On the other hand, we can do nothing about Climate change (TM) and not suffer any harm at all.