There are only three certainties in this world: death, taxes and the BBC exploiting every weather-related tragedy in order to heighten anxiety over climate change. The recent Texas flooding, in which over 100 people lost their lives, provides the most recent example. The horror of the event cannot help but cause distress to anyone prepared to pause for a moment to contemplate the fate of all those poor children. This is surely not the time to argue the toss over the science behind the tragedy. But I’m afraid I am going to have to do so, if only because the BBC has already beaten me to it with its most recent report.

As is often the case nowadays, the report initially gives no clue as to where it is headed; seemingly providing a straightforward account of the weather conditions leading to the event, together with a recognition that the area is notorious for flash flooding (hence the local name, ‘flash flood alley’). It would seem that history, geography and local weather conditions, combined with highly questionable decision-making, do more than enough to explain the cause of the horror that unfolded. Not, however, enough for the BBC. Despite opening with the headline, “Volatile weather, unusual humidity and the Texan landscape all contributed to scale of destruction”, the article closes with:

The influence of climate change cannot be ignored as another factor in extreme weather events like this. Whilst it is difficult to directly attribute the influence of the warming planet to one particular weather event, sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico, where some of the air originated from, continue to be warmer than normal. Warmer waters mean more evaporation and so more available moisture in the atmosphere to feed a storm.

Nice theory, but scepticism is all about resisting the “theorizing disease”. The empirical sceptic prefers instead to focus upon the data, to see if there has been a recent trend that supports the idea that this tragedy has all the hallmarks of a climate change catastrophe. As Cliff Mass reports, this is what the precipitation history data looks like for nearby San Antonio:

I’m not going to dwell on this; the data speaks for itself and I’m finding the whole idea of discussing such matters whilst the death toll is still rising quite distasteful. We should instead just pause to reflect upon the human dimension; a dimension that most certainly encompasses human frailty, grief and horror, but must also involve a determination to learn from obvious failings. A failure to meet Net Zero may be uppermost in the minds of the average environmental journalist, but surely the proximate failure of those in charge to respond to the more than adequate weather alerts should, at least for the time being, be the greater concern.

Meanwhile, anything the BBC can do, the Guardian can do much better. Even as the bodies and teddy bears still float down the river, the Guardian takes the opportunity to attack Trump, with the suggestion that “Deadly floods could be new normal as Trump guts federal agencies”. As the article explains:

It remains unclear why the early warning system failed to result in the timely evacuation of Camp Mystic, where 700 girls were camped on a known flood plain on the Guadalupe River, but there is mounting concern that the chaos and cuts instigated by Trump and his billionaire donor Elon Musk at the National Weather Service (NWS) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) may have contributed to the death toll.

Why do I feel sickened by this?

By Kyle Moran

America has been sleepwalking through nearly three decades of stagnant energy production. In Louisiana, Governor Jeff Landry has put an end to this by signing HB692 into law.

This couldn’t come at a more critical time. While China has exploded its electricity generation nearly eight times over since 2000, the U.S. has barely budged. We’ve spent decades in regulatory paralysis, which has made it nearly impossible to build serious energy infrastructure just as artificial intelligence is driving unprecedented electricity demand. The result? We’re about to lose our technological edge not by being outsmarted, but because we lack the capacity to power the future.

Of particular importance is the growth of artificial intelligence systems, which is driving unprecedented electricity demand. Data centers alone are projected to more than double their electricity consumption by 2030, accounting for nearly half of the growth in new electricity demand. Consumers play a large role in this, too: A single ChatGPT query consumes roughly 10 times more energy than a traditional Google search, and AI trends are only becoming more mainstream.

Louisiana’s move would encourage and expand both natural gas and nuclear energy production — and this is just the kind of energy realism the U.S. needs. Critics will complain that deprioritizing renewables somehow compromises environmental goals, but this couldn’t be further from the truth: Recognizing that you cannot power an entire state—let alone a country—with renewables is necessary to making progress towards adopting more environmentally friendly approaches. Natural gas, for instance, burns significantly cleaner than coal—and it’s not even close. As for nuclear, it’s truly emissions-free and can far outproduce its renewable alternatives.

Meanwhile, states with renewable-only mandates are discovering the pitfalls of their approach the hard way. California residents — it really is always California, isn’t it? —pay nearly double the national average for electricity and face rolling blackouts, while Germany faced an energy crisis so severe that one of their ministers publicly advocated heating only one room during the winter to cut costs.

We are in a sort of arms race with China on the AI front—and so far, we’re narrowly in the lead, in part thanks to our hardware advantage due to our friends in Taiwan who produce some of the most advanced chips in the world that power everything from iPhones to Nvidia’s AI processors.

It would be snatching defeat from the jaws of victory to squander this competitive lead , not by being outsmarted or out-engineered, but simply lacking the power that these systems will require. China now generates nearly eight times the energy it did in 2000, and the growth shows no signs of slowing down. So much for their non-binding pledges from the Paris accord.

The economic implications ought to command the attention of every governor in the country. Louisiana is already seeing approximately $98 billion in combined announced and in-progress investments for energy-hungry data centers and energy-producing initiatives. Meta has chosen the state as the site for its new $10 billion data center, which will be powered by three new natural gas plants that provide clean, reliable power and support the more than 300,000 men and women working in the energy field.  

This is no coincidence. It’s what happens when a state breaks free from decades of regulatory paralysis that has prevented them from building serious energy infrastructure for a generation.

The U.S. must adapt to the world we live in, and that starts with bills like HB692, which demonstrate how states can reclaim control over their energy destiny from federal bureaucrats and environmental extremists. The outcome is clear: After decades of stagnation in energy production, Louisiana has shown that breaking free from this paralysis is possible. The only question now is which states will follow Louisiana’s lead.

Kyle Moran is an analyst specializing in international affairs and national security. His research has been published in the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project, and his commentary has been featured widely in outlets including RealClearPolitics and the Washington Examiner.

This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.