Virtue-signaling and misguided efforts often have deleterious results on the very people such actions are supposedly designed to help. According to a media voice who made his opinions known on Friday, the results are both predictable and sad. Trace Gallagher was direct and straightforward during the Common Sense segment of his Fox News @ Night program.
“The Fox News Common Sense department understands the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, with 19 million customers, is raising its rate 17%. That’s on top of a property tax increase. Why the rate hike, you ask? Well, if you read the far-left LA Times, you’re told it’s ‘to cover rising costs and conservation efforts’,” Gallagher explained. “Common Sense thinks it’s actually to cover rising costs because of conservation efforts.”
Trace Gallagher continued, explaining how he feels recent government actions have exacerbated the situation.
“It turns out during the drought, which ended last year, Californians were given a mandate — save water or get fined. Residents not only complied, they conquered. They saved so much water, the water district lost revenue,” Gallagher said. “So customers conserved water to not be penalized, but are now being penalized for conserving water. The LA Times explained it away by saying, quote, climate change. Seven times in the same article.”
The LA Times story detailed that “District leaders said the increases are necessary to cover the costs of importing and treating water, as well as finance climate change adaptations to infrastructure and make up for declines in revenue due to widespread conservation efforts.”
As Trace Gallagher noted, the phrase “climate change” has become a catch-all for activists, simply because it cannot be quantitatively explained or defined. Whether it gets hot or cold, wet or dry, the cause is “climate change.”
Regardless of what you think of their rationale, the true zealots are hard-core. Take, for example, the case of the The View host who said this month’s earthquake and solar eclipse were due to “climate change.” Or 86-year-old liberal, Jane Fonda, who said last week at a fundraiser that the “climate crisis” is a “manifestation of racism, misogyny, and patriarchy.” She also apologized, saying her generation has created this “crisis” for young people.
“Not enough rain, climate change. Too much rain, climate change. Normal rain, climate complications,” Gallagher continued. “The Times never explains the complications, mind you, because climate is the new racism, sexism, vaccine-ism. Once the word is written or uttered, there can be no doubt, debate, or dissent. The issue is settled.”
In the article, Metropolitan Water District Board of Directors Chair, Adan Ortega Jr., discussed the rate hike.
“It’s the cost of climate change,” Ortega said. “The reason why we have to invest in our water systems is because we have to use our water systems differently with climate change.”
Many have wondered how this issue of weather, or climate, has become such a politically divisive issue in the first place. After all, most people believe in keeping the environment clean and better for future generations. Don’t litter. Don’t pollute. Leave it better than you found it. Some have said it is simply a matter of from where the motivation comes.
For the Left, it is a matter of worship of the earth.
For the Right, it is a matter of stewardship of the earth.
In an opinion piece published last week in The Hill, Steve Krakauer wrote “Not all of the media’s coverage of climate change is this blatantly stupid. But it does seem to be almost entirely based around a single hysterical narrative. Yes — the climate is changing, and humans are contributing to that change. But there’s so much we don’t know, and yet the mainstream coverage we see is positioned with such certainty and such condescension.”
Many would even argue Krakauer’s basic premise. First, that climate is changing, relative to recent millennia. And second, that humans have anything whatsoever to do with it. In fact, scientists are divided on these basic questions. Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman, who passed away in 2018, used to refer to man-made climate change as a hoax.
The late talk show host, Rush Limbaugh, used to wonder aloud why God would create in man such a yearning for improvement, greatness and innovation – a desire to advance the lives of civilization through industry and technology – if that very progress would destroy His natural creation.
The LA Times article published last week noted that the water rate hike action “stirred controversy.” It explained how the board members representing Los Angeles objected to the increase in the property tax rate and abstained from the vote. They wrote a letter, in which they said “shifting water bill collections onto property taxes will effectively raise the cost of housing for every citizen in the region, especially those in the disadvantaged communities.”
The result, according to Trace Gallagher, is that California residents are punishing themselves. Unfortunately, he doesn’t think it will be the last time.
“Common Sense thinks it’s only a matter of time before crazy California mandates electric vehicles and penalizes drivers for not buying enough gas.”
Rick Schultz is a former Sports Director for WFUV Radio at Fordham University. He has coached and mentored hundreds of Sports Broadcasting students at the Connecticut School of Broadcasting, Marist College and privately. His media career experiences include working for the Hudson Valley Renegades, Army Sports at West Point, The Norwich Navigators, 1340/1390 ESPN Radio in Poughkeepsie, NY, Time Warner Cable TV, Scorephone NY, Metro Networks, NBC Sports, ABC Sports, Cumulus Media, Pamal Broadcasting and WATR. He has also authored a number of books including “A Renegade Championship Summer” and “Untold Tales From The Bush Leagues”. To get in touch, find him on Twitter @RickSchultzNY.
