Russia invaded Ukraine yesterday, because President Biden supports transgender rights, canceled the Keystone XL pipeline, and like all world leaders, was bent to the incredible power of international energy and climate overlord Greta Thunberg.
That’s the view from denierland, and we honestly wish we were joking or exaggerating or otherwise misrepresenting the online reactions from climate and general rightwing “experts”
So here’s the roundup of reactions from crazytown:
No quicker than you can say “moment of uncertainty ripe for disinformation,” Tucker Carlson (who’s been defending Putin) had Marc Morano on his show to –what else – blame Biden and climate concern for the Russian invasion.
Matt Walsh, a comedian of sorts who works at Ben Shaprio’s fracker-funded propaganda shop and has written a whole “children’s book” attacking trans people, tweeted that he was “so glad that the west (sic) gave up on energy independence because Greta Thunberg yelled at us.” This is of course exactly backwards. If Greta’s calls for replacing fossil fuels with renewables were heeded, then countries would already be providing clean energy for themselves without needing to rely on Russia’s fossil fuels.
And despite what you may expect, Walsh was hardly the only one attributing Putin’s aggression to Greta Thunberg, as though that makes any sense at all.
Similarly nonsensical is tobacco-shill turned fossil fool Steve Milloy, who claimed Putin’s invasion is just like COVID and climate mandates, also quote-tweeted a story about Ukrainian people in traffic leaving Kyiv, with the comment “imagine you were in this and driving an EV”. As though it would be better to be beholden on the fossil fuels imported from Russia while Russia invades your country, than it would be to merely be reliant on the electricity generated by power plants running on Russian fuels.
While we’re imagining though, imagine having an electric car and clean energy grid to power it, so you’re not reliant on Russian fossil fuels for your car or electricity!
Similarly wrong yet Right was Dan Crenshaw, Texan Republican who has received $689,000 from the oil and gas industry for his campaigns for one of the most obviously gerrymandered districts in the country. He suggested that the Keystone XL pipeline could have replaced the fossil fuels we import from Russia, as though that pipeline was for US consumption (and not the global market it’s already reaching anyway). “Relying on Russian oil is a choice.” he added, “And it’s a stupid one.”
And he’s right! It’d be infinitely smarter to not rely on oil at all!
(But we somehow doubt that’s what he meant.)