03/01/2021 / By JD Heyes
They say that the textbook definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different outcome.
That can be said about the Left’s social and climate policies.
For years, so-called “greenies” have pushed renewable energy as an alternative to fossil fuel-driven energy generation, despite the fact that fossil fuels are plentiful and, during the Trump administration, America’s overall carbon emissions actually fell even though the former president’s policies boosted production of oil and gas to the point where our country became energy independent for the first time in more than a half-century.
Wind, solar and hydro power are all carbon-free, that’s for sure (so is nuclear power generation but the left hates that, too) — but their technologies are nowhere near advanced to the point they can completely supplant fossil fuel-driven energy creation. And yet, that is precisely what the left seeks to do anyway, and in far too many places, these nut jobs are succeeding.
Like in Texas.
The oil-and-gas capital of our country could not even sustain enough power generation last week to keep the lights on and the water treatment plants working. And why? Because the state’s Republican majority over the past decade or so allowed themselves to be talked into building enough wind farms to generate nearly one-quarter of the state’s power (Texas has its own grid, by the way). And when last week’s historically low temperatures blew into the Lone Star State, an estimated 40 percent of those windmills froze.
It turns out Texas wind farms cannot withstand sub-freezing temperatures. So the grid failed after the fossil fuel backup was too little to keep the grid online.
As a result, some Texans froze to death. Others died from carbon monoxide poisoning while trying to keep warm.
So, that’s a deadly failure of left-wing policy regarding ‘green’ energy. Now let’s come to the deadly effects in Texas of another left-wing policy: Enabling homelessness.
In 2019, Natural News warned that the massive rise in homelessness in Austin, Texas, was a ‘warning’ for the rest of America in terms of collapse. Democrats not only abide homelessness, they encourage it with their policies. Leftist mayors and city councils have decriminalized homelessness, so naturally people who are homeless flock to those cities, especially when they are located in warmer climates.
Well, Texas isn’t always warm in the winter anyway — certainly not like California’s coastal cities, many of which also encourage homelessness. But Texas weather in the winter isn’t Alaska, either.
Except it was last week. And guess what? All of the homeless people encouraged to flock to Austin and other Texas cities thanks to Democrat ‘hands-off the homeless’ policies were left to freeze, some to death, in the throes of a record-breaking and rare winter vortex.
As reported by CBS Austin in August 2019:
Overnight, the Austin City Council voted to approve changes to soliciting, camping, sitting, or lying down laws.
That means Austin Police will only be allowed to ticket or arrest a person who is soliciting, camping, sitting, or lying in a public space if they are a public health or safety hazard or blocking a walkway.
Places like convention centers were filled to the brim almost immediately taking in homeless from the streets as well as bewildered and freezing Texas residents. And while many who were making the streets and sidewalks their home managed to get somewhere safe ahead of the storms, many did not.
Nearly 50 people have died because of the storm; more will likely be discovered in the days ahead.
But for a pair of really awful, really irresponsible left-wing policies, a good portion of those people would still be alive today.
Now the real question is, will anyone in Texas learn from the failure of these policies?
See more reporting like this at PowerGrid.news.
Sources include:
Tagged Under: Austin, Collapse, death, electricity, freezing, green energy, Green New Deal, grid down, grid failure, homeless, Left-wing, leftism, leftist policies, power grid, solar power, storm, Texas, wind farms, wind power, windmills