Hear no oil, see no oil, speak no oil

New York Times reporters' energy transition narrative can't stand on the facts, and they don't care

It’s always funny and perhaps a little sad when the wretched hive’s narrative comes crashing head-on into the wall of cold, hard realities. The New York Times, one of the hive’s elite publications, was recently involved one such incident, and I invite you to behold the resulting twisted pile of steel.

In August 2023, the New York Times, published thousands of words under this headline: 

The piece gushes about the glories of the wind and solar industry, while conspicuously navigating a minefield of pesky facts about the energy mix to maintain its narrative. After providing all kinds of data showing subsidy-driven increases in the amount of wind and solar on the grid, it tosses a passing acknowledgement that the bulk of our energy comes from fossil fuels. 

Even as the pace of change in the United States is surprising everyone from energy experts to automobile executives, fossil fuels still dominate energy production at home and abroad.

Corporations are building new coal mines, oil rigs and gas pipelines. The government continues to award leases for drilling projects on public lands and in federal waters and still subsidizes the industries. After posting record profits last year, leading oil companies are backing away from recent promises to invest more heavily in renewable energy.

Though this admission disputes the authors’ claims about an energy transition, they are not deterred in the least from their narrative. Notice how these “reporters” avoid providing any hard numbers or graphs on the amount of fossil fuel-based energy the globe consumes? The narrative-destroying data is just left out, and I believe that’s intentional.

The NYT writers also assign the cause of this fossil fuel domination to a cruel government that allows evil fossil fuel companies to produce products that billions of consumers across the globe willingly purchase in increasing amounts every year. The Two Minutes Hate can’t be directed at the audience, of course. The whole performance needs a villain, and governments refusing to carry out the economy-destroying climate agenda and maniacal oil companies fit this narrative’s role nicely.

The article goes on to parrot repeatedly the false claim that wind and solar are the cheapest form of energy. 

The cost of generating electricity from the sun and wind is falling fast and in many areas is now cheaper than gas, oil or coal.

The reporters also praise the subsidies the renewable industry is receiving, and they never bother to ask why an economically superior form of energy needs our tax dollars if it is as cheap as proponents claim.  

One of the reporters who wrote this self-contradictory article was technology reporter Brad Plumer, and according to his bio, he writes “about the policies and innovations that governments, companies and people are pursuing to try to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” Last week, Plumer’s biased reporting came careening head-on into a massive concrete wall of facts and reality. 

Oh. How peculiar that all this super, super cheap wind and solar has not resulted in a rapid decrease in fossil fuel use, which Plumer and his colleagues had reported just a year ago was happening faster than we all thought. Plumer wrote last week: 

Even though renewable energy sources like wind and solar are growing rapidly around the world, demand for electricity has been rising even faster, which means countries are still burning more fossil fuels each year. Geopolitical conflicts, from the U.S.-China rivalry to war in places like Ukraine and Gaza, have made international cooperation on climate change harder. And rich countries have failed to keep their financial promises to help poor countries shift away from oil, gas and coal.

For some reason, Plumer sees absolutely no contradiction in reporting that poor countries need “help” from rich countries to transition away from forms of energy that he claims more expensive. He also claims, without any substantiation, that Middle East and Russian conflicts — as opposed to basic physics of electricity generation —are preventing us from realizing the glories of the energy transition. Plumer’s “transition is happening faster than you think” narrative smolders at the foot of unyielding facts, and he still can’t doubt for a moment his energy transition narrative. 

This would be hilarious if were just some clueless, sloppy energy reporters providing us with material to mock. The problem with spreading energy illiteracy is were spending trillions of dollars to prop up this illusions that we can replace fossil fuels with intermittent, expensive, undependable energy sources. These policies that Plumer is helping to advance waste tax dollars, drive up energy costs and undermine economies. This kind of energy misinformation has real consequences, and Plumer and his colleagues are doing real harm.