I live in Wisconsin, where it's a balmy 36° today, and my thermostat is set to 68°. I'm cozy and warm and playing 'Return of the King' in the background while I work. As soon as I finish writing this piece, I'll hop in my car and make the 20-minute drive to pick up my son from school. If I had to take a bus, that trip would take over 90 minutes one-way, and if I had to walk, it would take eight hours round-trip.
For all of that luxury. I thank fossil fuels.
I can't imagine what life would be like here if I didn't have reliable natural gas and coal energy. Actually, I can: it would be bitterly cold most of the winter, to the point of deadly. I would also wear out my walking shoes.
We Americans living in 2025 truly have no idea how wonderfully convenient life is. Our forebears would marvel at the modern devices we take for granted, and they would hail our progress as incredible achievements for mankind.
The Left, on the other hand, sees humans as a blight on the planet and human achievement a scourge. The same people who are apoplectically offended at someone using the wrong pronouns also pine for the days when we had to chop wood and beat our clothes on rocks down by the river.
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They can pretend they've got an eye on the future with green energy, but the reality is this: green energy is neither efficient nor abundant enough to meet our needs.
Which is why I'm glad to see Energy Secretary Chris Wright knows this reality, even if ProPublica does not:
New: In his confirmation hearing, the Liberty Energy founder pledged broad support for renewable energy. But when speaking to conservatives, he declared, “We don't have replacements” for coal, oil and gas. https://t.co/Aomtc55v45
— ProPublica (@propublica) March 24, 2025
For Chris Wright, there may be no simple truths. At his Senate confirmation hearing on Jan. 15, the man poised to take control of the U.S. Department of Energy and its vast apparatus of technological research and development sat behind a walnut desk wearing a gray suit and a crisply knotted red tie. Wright, the founder and CEO of Liberty Energy, a $3 billion natural gas fracking company, harkened back to his days as a solar energy researcher and offered lawmakers a vision of open-mindedness and innovation. Climate change is an urgent challenge, he reassured them, and he would address it.
'It is a global issue. It is a real issue. It’s a challenging issue. And the solution to climate change is to evolve our energy system,' he told the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. “I am for improving all energy technologies that can better human lives and reduce emissions.'
Since his confirmation as the secretary of energy on Feb. 3, though, Wright has outlined an anti-climate agenda. Speaking to conservative audiences, he is charismatic, animated and far more zealous. Wright dismissed the transition to renewable energy as nonexistent in a Feb. 18 speech at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference, a gathering associated with the podcast host Jordan Peterson, and called global efforts to boost the use of renewables, which he said drive up the price of energy, 'lunacy.'
These two positions are not, in fact, double speak.
They are an acknowledgment of reality.
Wind turbines fail. They don't work when the wind isn't blowing, obviously, and they're not as green as you'd think. Off-shore wind farms pose a threat to whales, and have killed whales. Turbines also kill birds and bats.
A year ago, a massive Texas hailstorm obliterated a solar farm, thus cutting off that power supply. Also last year, a floating solar farm washed up after a massive storm. In September, I told you that environmentalists planned to cut down thousands of Joshua trees -- a protected plan -- to make way for more solar panels.
How very green.
Leftists also argue that green energy pays for itself by using renewable resources like wind and sun. The math, however, doesn't work.
The up-front costs of building a wind turbine or solar network are often very expensive, and the savings mean it'll take years to recoup those costs. If -- as mentioned above -- the solar panels aren't taken out by hail or waves.
If green energy was cheap and effective, we'd use it, and use it exclusively.
In Germany, where they shut down nuclear power plants and coal-powered plants in favor of net-zero renewable energy, energy prices rose by 33% and the country was forced to buy natural gas from Russia.
You don't need me to go into the geopolitical implications of that one.
The overarching issue is, as always, the Left sees green energy as a means to control, a way to lower our quality of life while putting us at the whims of bureaucrats who decide we're getting a little uppity and need to be put in our places.
The green zealots had plans drawn up in the event Kamala Harris won the election, as I told you last fall:
Environmental activists are drafting blueprints for Harris to take a more aggressive stance clamping down on fossil fuels. But in a shift from their approach to Biden four years ago, they’ve largely held their fire in public and haven’t pushed Harris to commit to policy positions that could alienate undecided voters in key battleground states.
Blueprints include using executive power on Day 1 to:
1. Limit liquefied natural gas exports
2. Shutting down Energy Transfer LP’s Dakota Access Pipeline, which carries oil from North Dakota to Illinois
3. Push for a swift end to oil and gas production using special emergency authority to bar crude exports
4. Curb US public investment in foreign fossil fuel projects.
5. A federal investigation of the oil and gas industry’s approach to the climate crisis.
Instead, we're exporting natural gas to Germany.
The difference is stark.
That's not double-speak.
That's just reality.
