He'll save the inedible bait fish, the weed that no one's ever heard of, elevate meritless executives, and kill the gas car. Those are the highest environmental aspirations of Gavin Newsom, the alleged visionary governor of California, whose distorted priorities have combined to create the conditions for LA Inferno 2025. As the smoke begins to clear, the cruel environy is dawning.
Even now, the homeless LA gliteratti, who soon may be allowed to sift through the ashes of their homes in hopes of finding the gold coins that looters haven't dug up yet, wonder how they could have been so gullible. They bought Newsom's climate change diktats hook, line, and gas can, and now their electric car doesn't work. Their beloved Tesla and their neighbor's Nissan Leaf are charred carbon hulks considered by the environment police to be portable toxic waste dumps. I'm sorry, sir, and you can't move it until we've studied the environmental externalities of your charred car. Grab a number.
And no mocking these poor folks, America, because this Caltastrophe may have bought more time for the rest of the country to shout down the climate cultists in state houses across the country. California's proof of concept showed that climate nirvana doesn't protect the environment for humans.
Indeed, though less important, it's now dawning on Angelenos, more than a week after the fires started, that they're witnessing the incineration of all the "greenhouse emissions reductions" promised in Newsom's 2035 gas car ban.
Related: Video: L.A. Fire Official Pleads With Homeless to Stop Setting Fires
More pointedly, if you have no power for a week, as thousands of Los Angeles residents who live near the evacuated fire areas have experienced, you can't charge your car battery. What happens if the fire spreads and you can't get out?
When their lives depended on it, the diktats and mandates didn't help, but gas cars sure did.
The LA Times reported — and I'm sure it killed them to do it — that EV drivers are having a tough time of it.
You’ve plugged your electric vehicle into your home charger and hit the sack. Overnight, high winds topple a power line. Your charger blacks out. Then, a report of a fire, followed by an evacuation order. Your battery’s only charged to 25%. And it’s your only car.
Such are the fears some California car buyers are expressing amid the fires that have devastated Los Angeles County and forced people to evacuate their homes at a moment’s notice.
Believe it or not, there were no woke follow-up promises of ponies and unicorns in the LAT, though I'm sure they would have proved more useful than cars with dead batteries.
The Times brought anecdotes crystallizing some of the biggest problems with forcing people to have nothing but electric vehicles by 2035.
A gasoline car “can evacuate in any direction on any road and still get fuel when needed,” said Matthew Butterick, a Los Angeles attorney who lives near Griffith Park. “The EV stations on evacuation routes would have massive lines and delays, gasoline stations less so. And the electric grid may not be available. Power companies turn off power to avoid sparking a fire and also to avoid legal liability. This is probably the future of all the hillside neighborhoods.”
His sentiments were echoed by Val Cipollone, who lives in the wooded hills above Berkeley. She owns a Nissan Leaf, a full electric vehicle with a roughly 220-mile range, which she plans to sell.
“Who knows how far you’d have to drive” after a disaster, she said. “I used to think I’d only need to drive to my place of work. But who knows, I might have to go much farther.”
It bears noting that Jimmy Carter-like lines for electricity to power cars aren't any better than waiting in gas lines in 1973. Nobody wants that.
Related: Stunner: California Saved a Shrub Instead of Protecting Humans From the L.A. Firestorm
These people are waiting in subfreezing temperatures for gas — propane — with which to cook and keep warm. It's a three-mile-long line. This has been going on for weeks for the people in the hurricane-stricken areas of North Carolina.
They wouldn't make it in a line that long in EVs.
It's for these reasons that some car companies manufacture hybrid vehicles instead of EV-only vehicles.
Californians still remember when Newsom announced his 2035 diktat and within days asked people not to plug in their cars because it would be too big a strain on the electrical grid. Does this make sense? The question answers itself.
Just this week, Newsom announced he was halting his ban on diesel fuel from the state and withdrawing his request for a waiver from the EPA to switch the state to all-electric delivery and commercial trucks. Maybe he'll see the light on EV mandates also.
EVs have their place, of course, just maybe not when you are running for your life.
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