MSNBCs Chris Hayes offered a dismantling of a burgeoning right-wing media narrative that an over-reliance on green or renewable energy is the leading cause of the catastrophic power outages in Texas.
On Tuesday night, Hayes began his show by going through a series of clips from Fox news programs and opinion shows from the past 24 hours, all blaming from frozen windmills to faltering solar panels for the massive power outage following record low temperatures. in that state.
“This is a terrible situation, driven by a complex combination of factors,” noted Hayes. “But of course Fox News and other Republicans saw some kind of suffering, some kind of problem, and immediately without missing a beat they immediately tried to make a culture war right away, in this case against those damn hippie liberals and their clean energy. “
When California suffered a power outage last summer, Hayes pointed out that conservative media and Republican politicians ridiculed “ liberal California ” for running a foolish energy policy.
“Imagine how stupid you would have to think your audience is, the disdain you must have to keep them in, to look into the camera and try to sell them on the idea that windmills don’t work when it’s cold , ”Hayes retorted to that idea. “After Texas, Iowa is the state with the most wind energy in the country. If you’ve ever been to Iowa in the winter, I can tell you from personal experience that it gets pretty cold in Iowa. Denmark gets almost half of its energy from wind energy. I don’t know if you looked this up, someone at Fox News, but Denmark, a very cold place in the winter. “
In fact, according to the MSNBC host, the authority operating the Texas power grid has explained that frozen wind farms are the “least significant factor” in the massive power outage. In a Bloomberg article, one of the bureau’s senior directors said the main culprits for the millions of people without power were frozen tools at natural gas, coal, and even nuclear power plants, many of which failed to winterize their facilities.
“It’s just a lie that wind turbines and green energy are the main causes of the problems in Texas right now,” hailed Hayes. It’s a lie as if Donald Trump won the election, a lie as if there was widespread voter fraud, a lie pumped into the brains of millions of people while they watch TV. And let’s be clear, this is probably just as big a lie as about the elections, because energy and how we produce it is the biggest problem this country will face in the medium term. “
“Republicans and right-wing media, they want to take every policy issue and make it a painful idiocy of the culture war,” he continued. “The fossil fuel companies want this too. They want to turn into a culture war like the libs don’t want you to have power. We have a chance, we collectively have a choice as a country. We don’t need to have politics about where we divide our energies along the lines of abortion or police. There is no reason to be affiliated. We can create a modern energy infrastructure that is more resilient to climate change and also cheaper and also serves people better, and which can also withstand extreme weather conditions, and which will only warm the planet when we are in trouble. We can all do that. In fact, there is a lot of good news happening in that area. But the biggest obstacle will be these charlatans who take every opportunity to lie to people for profit and for power. “
Watch the video above, via MSNBC.
Do you have a tip we should know about? [email protected]