RCEnergy writer Gary Abernathy was on “The Rod and Greg Show” on KNRS-AM in Salt Lake City this Wednesday to discuss his new article on climate messaging from the left. “Some of these folks who firmly believe in the climate change narrative, you know, they believe manmade climate change is a real thing,” Abernathy said. “Even they’re starting to say, we need to admit, we don’t know what we don’t know.” “We need to get away from just this alarmism and trying to scare people all the time and admit, we don’t know what’s going to happen,” Abernathy told the hosts. “We think it’s bad, but we let’s quit trying to pick a day and predict that by here, by this date, you know, we’re going to see the solid result of climate change. And I think that’s a smarter way to go about it.”

ROD ARQUETTE, CO-HOST: It’s crazy. It’s crazy. Well, let’s move on to another topic. Let’s talk for a few minutes about climate change. Isn’t that funny, Greg, how things are starting to change. The Democrats are trying to rebrand their message and joining us on our newsmaker line to talk about that right now are any, our newsmaker line is Gary Abernathy. He’s an author and editor. Uh, also, um, the rights for real clear or real clear energy. And he’s on our newsmaker line right now. Gary, you write about this about how the Democrats are changing their branding. I want to start off and ask you, first of all, do you think those on the far left, the climate zealots have really ever believed their own rhetoric when it comes to climate change? GARY ABERNATHY, REAL CLEAR ENERGY: I think, uh, I would say some of them did. I questioned whether a lot of them were just playing a game of follow the leader and, you know, not to be too cynical, but I’ve worked in politics and journalism, both back and forth a little bit. And I see, you know, you see some people who are more sincere about what they believe in than other people. And you see some folks kind of go the direction where it looks like I can raise the most money with this message or I can fund my campaign the best with this message. So let’s hitch our wagon to that message. And I think a lot of people who never really fully bought into climate change to begin with are starting to say, look at election results, you know, and say, it’s not working that well anymore. I point out in the 2024 election, you had Kamala Harris and the Democrats campaigning hard on the usual climate rhetoric, the usual climate doomsday talk. And Trump was saying, drill, baby drill. And you know, how did the election come out? Trump won, uh, Republicans kept control of Congress. Republicans continued to dominate at the state level. And a lot of Democrats are finally saying our doomsday talk about climate, maybe not, is not working as well as, as we thought it was. GREG HUGHES, CO-HOST: So I’m bipolar on this issue. Cause some days I wake up and I think, you know, the American people just figured out this was a scam. Nothing they’ve said works. It’s, this is paper straws or for the insane, you know? And they just, the American people kind of turned away from this aggressive agenda. Other days I wake up and say, you know, they all realize with AI and everything else, they need more power generation than known to man. And now they got to be bullish on any kind of generation of power. So they’re abandoning it for the money they’ll make on the, the need for more power that we just don’t have on the grid. Which of those stories, which of those theories in my that run around in my head do you think is most accurate? ABERNATHY: Well, I think that the reality shows that, you know, especially with the emerging data centers that are coming up that need a tremendous amount of power. A lot of people are just starting to realize the alternatives aren’t going to do it. You know, solar, wind, so on. They just don’t supply the juice so to speak that we need to power the things that are coming online, particularly the AI data centers. And you know, some of these, some of these data center people are even financing the building of their own grids and their own gas fired plants, because really natural gas is really more than anything. The source that gives you, that generates the electricity that you need. And of course, you know, gas is cleaner all the time. And a lot of people call it the natural, the natural green energy or clean energy. So I, you know, I just think there’s a reality happening here when, when people want, people want their internet, people want their you know, AI is a controversial thing right now, but there’s no getting around that. That’s, you know, we’re going to develop it or the Chinese are going to develop it. Who’s going to lead the way with it. We need to corral it. We need to control it, but it takes a tremendous amount of not just electricity, but a tremendous amount of water to cool these things. And this is, this is the future it’s coming, whether we like it or not. And to keep up, or not just to keep up, to really be the world leader is going to require us to, to power these things sufficiently. And that’s just, that happens much better with traditional energy, energy resources. So I think a lot of it is just economic reality, hitting them in the face. And then also you look at the weather, you know, the weather we’ve had, I think it was just a year ago, the New York times, I think had an article saying, well, how come we don’t have snow anymore? What happened to the snow? They’re worried about that this week. So, you know, reality sometimes has a way of interfering with your political narrative. ARQUETTE: Gary, when do you think this started to a fade among the American public? I mean, I think we’ve always been quite skeptical of what they’ve been telling us about, you know, the, uh, the icebergs melting and oceans rising, but when did it start to fade? Has it been gradual or has it been a sudden change? Where do you see happening? ABERNATHY: Well, when you say, when did it start to fade? I don’t think it ever reached a great Chris crescendo. It was never in anyone’s top five things. Here are the issues I’m voting for, or at least not when you did a poll of the general public for some people, probably. Yes. But it was never one of those top issues, you know, along with the economy and so on that people put as their top reason for voting for someone or for a party. But I think it, I think just over time, lies start to, you know, add up. I mean, people start to see for themselves, well, you know, this city was supposed to be underwater by now. And, uh, we weren’t, we weren’t supposed to be able to grow any crops this year. And, uh, you know, they just see these while, you know, and the ice was supposed to all be gone by now. There’s no glacier supposed to be left, uh, according to what they said 20 years ago. And I just think, you know, over time, and in some cases, you know, I’m exaggerating some of this, but, but you can go back and look at some of these very specific predictions that were supposed to have come true by now. And the fact that they don’t, I’m sorry, you lose people. And that’s why I think a lot of Democrats, I wrote another column a few weeks ago saying that, you know, some of these folks who firmly believe in the climate change narrative, you know, they believe manmade climate change is a real thing. Even they’re starting to say, we need to admit, we don’t know what we don’t know. We need to get away from just this alarmism and trying to scare people all the time and admit, we don’t know what’s going to happen. We think it’s bad, but we let’s quit trying to pick a day and predict that by here, by this date, you know, we’re going to see the solid result of climate change. And I think that’s a smarter way to go about it. HUGHES: So a lot of these people made a lot of money, carbon credits. They just, there was a, there was an economy, there was some kind of, you know, there was some cottage industry that came with this whole cause. I don’t think these people just go and find new causes somewhere. I think they’re going to try and repackage it, re re re bring it to the American people, maybe in a different form. What does that look like? If they don’t go away, but, and they’re still wanting to make their money inside this little cottage industry, what would they tell the American people this time around about this topic? ABERNATHY: Well, I think instead of blaming, you know, instead of trying to point at ice melting and cities being covered with water, we’re already seeing what they’re, what they’re changing it to. They’re morphing it to this affordability argument. And they’re basically saying climate change is the reason that your electric bills are higher. Climate change is the reason that food prices are higher. And I think they’re trying to bring it more to this micro level than the big macro level. That’s I think what they’re shifting to is to say the reason that costs are going up is, is because of climate change. And I think it’s just as tough of a sell as their other argument, but we already see that kind of, you know, they come up with a word affordability and very sadly to me as a, as a journalist, it’s sad to see so many in the media just jump on, you know, like lapdogs jumping on, Oh, the Democrats say the message is affordability. Let’s go write a bunch of stories about affordability. So that’s what they line up to do. But I think that’s what you’re seeing. They’re going to try that. Every, every reason that something costs you more is because of climate change.

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