I need to get to whatever nonsense Trump is going to try to sell the nation in his speech tonight about “election fraud” or 2020 or China or my 10-year old exclusives on Venezuela voting machine companies shortly, so forgive the brief summary to a rather epic BradCast today. [Audio to full shows follows this summary.]
As much of the country roasts, drowns and chokes today, we’ve got a few unfortunate “We Told Ya Sos” on today’s program.
It all ties together. It’s all exactly as we’ve been warning, particularly on our 18+ years of Green News Reports. But watching clowns and liars like Trump’s Energy Sec. Chris Wright and Interior Sec. Doug Burgum attempt to hoax the nation on behalf of dangerous, dirty, expensive fossil fuels at the expense of our pocketbooks, lives and the ongoing transition to clean, cheap, renewable wind and solar energy remains enraging.
Perhaps their biggest lie: “There’s no energy when the sun doesn’t shine or wind doesn’t blow.” Nice argument for twenty years ago. Apparently, they haven’t heard about mass battery storage. (Of course they have. They’re just horrible humans who spread deadly lies for a living.)
Anyway, among the stories which all tie together today…
- Horrific, deadly wildfire smoke from massive climate change-fueled blazes in Canada and Minnesota are suffocating millions in the Midwest and Northeast today. And it’s going to continue for a while.
- At least one is dead, rescuers have saved hundreds and untold thousands are trapped in their homes, cars and towns as catastrophic, climate change-fueled flooding swamps the same parts of Texas where 100 died last year on the 4th of July, including two dozen children and counselors at a girls camp on the Guadalupe River. Some areas in the southern part of the state have seen 20 inches of rain over the past two days, with 8 inches falling in just two hours early on Thursday. I hope Texas voters remember who to thank for all of the climate-related disasters they’ve been suffering through in recent years this November.
- Massive data centers are now adding billions of dollars in costs for power across at least 13 states according to the nation’s largest grid operator. In New York, for example, residential electricity rates have spiked nearly 68% since 2019. This week, Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul signed the nation’s first moratorium on construction of new hyperscaler data centers that use 50 megawatts of power or more. That’s good news for consumers of all political persuasions who oppose these horrors that increase electricity prices and swallow up water from everyone. Though the new moratorium has so far prevented Hochul from signing a bill already adopted by the state Legislature that would do the same for data centers using 20 megawatts or more.
- In response to Hochul’s action in New York, “former” fracking exec turned Donald Trump‘s Energy Sec. Chris Wright went on the offensive to lie about the moratorium. He told Fox “News” this week that it’s not data centers raising prices for consumers. It’s crazy green energy mandates! “Data Center are the greatest tool we have right now to stop the rise of electricity prices and ultimately bring them back down,” Wright lied to duped viewers. If that sounds like utter horseshit to you, that’s only because it is. Though I do explain what the horseshit is that Wright is pretending to believe when offering that absurd claim.
- It’s hardly the first time that Wright has advanced out and out lies to the American people on behalf of the fossil fuel industry. Along with Interior Sec. Doug Burgum — who, while Governor of North Dakota, crowed about adding wind power, which now provides more than 40% of the state’s electricity (which now has the lowest energy rates in the country!) — these two fossil fools have been selling the “no electricity when the sun don’t shine and wind don’t blow” line for months to whoever is gullible enough to listen. Thankfully, in a recent hearing in the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee, there were quite a few Democrats who knew better. And they had the batteries on them to prove it. But if you’re wondering who to thank for the ongoing climate disasters across the country right now, you can look no further than these two clods — or the proud announcement from Wright on July 4th, declaring that all federal subsidies to solar and wind have now been ended by the Administration and Republicans in Congress. That, even as $35 billion of your tax-dollars each year continues to prop up the dirty, deadly, expensive fossil fuel industry.
- Finally, as if all of that wasn’t grim enough today, Desi Doyen joins us for what may be our grimmest Green News Report of all time! Though there’s a lot of competition there.
Grim, maddening, cathartic or otherwise, I hope you’ll enjoy today’s BradCast and will spread it far and wide…
P.S. It’s my birthday this weekend! And, as Desi notes on today’s show, a big one. Your generous gifts are greatly appreciated!
