The Los Angeles Times is facing backlash on social media over an article that speculated whether tackling climate change might be simpler and more cost-effective if society tolerated occasional power outages.
In an article Thursday, author Sammy Roth posed a question: “Would an occasional blackout help solve climate change?” In the article, he asked Americans about their priorities: “Keeping the lights on 24/7 or solving the climate crisis?”
Recently, legal representatives of the Sierra Club and the city of Glendale, California, debated the continued operations of a gas-fired power plant located across the Los Angeles River. The city affirmed the need for the power plant to avoid blackouts and disasters for its nearly 200,000 inhabitants.
The Times suggested that this legal dispute is a complex issue and part of a larger dialogue about the risk of blackouts that society finds acceptable. The article explored whether societal expectations need to be adjusted to avoid a climate disaster.
Experts have warned that California’s power grid could face extended periods of blackouts and failures due to state officials’ commitment to transitioning to renewable energy. The state’s grid, which relies primarily on fossil fuels, is making a significant shift from natural gas and coal to renewable sources such as wind and solar.
In his research, Roth asked his Twitter followers whether society could accelerate gas reductions and save money by tolerating a few more blackouts in the coming years.
Among the hundreds of responses to Roth’s question, most dismissed the prospect of increasing blackouts as unacceptable for reasons beyond mere expediency, Roth confessed.
Aura Vasquez, a former member of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power board of commissioners, told Roth that every power outage results in a death. In a similar vein, John Moura of the North American Electric Reliability Corp. said blackouts are more about preserving lives than just providing light.
Regardless of these apprehensions, Roth inferred that addressing climate problems would require sacrifices for the common good, such as driving less, reducing meat consumption, accepting expansive solar farms that could damage wildlife habitats, and shouldering the cost of expensive rooftop panels.
He suggested that perhaps adapting to more frequent blackouts should not be among those sacrifices. However, he added, there may be no other option.
Many social media users criticized the article for entertaining the concept of deliberate blackouts as a solution to climate change.
Media strategist and journalist Gabriella Hoffman countered the idea, writing, “Ironically, it’s actually net zero policies (or decarbonization drives) that lead to grid instability, energy insecurity and blackouts.”
Junk Science founder Steve Milloy dubbed the piece “the ultimate climate idiocy.” Energy policy analyst David Blackmon alleged that the article was part of a propaganda campaign aimed at conditioning people to accept frequent blackouts. He implied that the LA Times was expressing an unspoken truth.
Blackmon described the article as “classic religious cult propaganda,” adding, “We’ve seen it a thousand times throughout history. And it looks like our entire legacy media is totally down.”
The blackouts are just the latest radical proposal that activists have come up with to stop “climate change”. The World Economic Forum has proposed that people go “car-free” in so-called 15-minute cities in an effort to curb emissions. The New York Times on Saturday pushed Americans to ditch meat from their diet, claiming that eating only vegetables would lead to 75% fewer carbon emissions.
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