It follows Republican outrage over Mamdani offering the same heatwave advice as everyone else.
The US Department of Energy reportedly deleted about 6,000 pages related to energy conservation as a historic heatwave tears across the country.
The deletion was suspiciously timed, following Republican outrage over Mayor Zohran Mamdani asking New Yorkers to help reduce strain on the grid by setting their AC to 78 degrees. Republicans like Ted Cruz (who has famously fled severe weather in his home state), Nikki Haley, and Representative Nancy Mace (South Carolina) quickly pounced, framing the request as socialism and an act of war on women in menopause (the Republican Party is notoriously friendly to women’s health).
Of course, this is pretty standard advice during a heatwave. It was the official stance of the Department of Energy that Americans should set their thermostats between 75 and 78 degrees, and Republican governors in deep red states like Texas have issued the same advice in the past — including current governor Greg Abbott.
So I don’t get chewed out: obviously energy conservation is important and obviously taking these pages down is a bad thing. That said all this government telling me to be hot for the greater good pisses me off when no ones been arrested from the Epstein files and we aren’t taxing the rich and were still building data centers.
To me this feels like someone telling me climate change is my fault because I threw out a water bottle or drive an ICE vehicle. Like ya someday I’ll get an electric car and I should have recycled the bottle but wtf. So many larger more massive issues with energy conservation at larger scales than me running the AC at 70.
I made the switch from ICE to EV a couple months ago, and it wasn’t really even about climate change. It’s just cheaper and more convenient in terms of fueling, and there’s far less maintenance to keep on top of. It just no longer makes sense to choose ICE (usually) if you already need a new vehicle, can charge at home, and don’t drive more than like 200 miles per day. I just did a road trip in it last month and it really only made the journey maybe 5-10% longer than if I used an ICE vehicle since we needed to stop for food and bathrooms anyway.
Recycling plastic is almost completely a lie. Very few recycling plants can recycle your water bottle, and it’s incredibly wasteful and costly even if they can. The better choice is to not buy plastic water bottles in the first place, and if you do then reuse them several times, but also you’re just a drop in the bucket compared to industries’ waterfalls, so don’t beat yourself up about it when you’re not perfect.
lol his advice is like the most standard advice anywhere in the world. A NYC mayor giving advice isnt the government trying to control your life. Calm your paranoid fascist brain cells down.
I have a pretty long history here of not being a fascist and this overuse of the word over something trivial is why its lost its meaning.
It doesn’t even have to be about climate change. It’s also about balancing the electrical load of everyone in NYC blasting their AC at once. So they don’t have brown and blackouts
I get this, a solid point esp in high demand areas.
A lot of the people making these decisions are also not individual people but building managers for corporations and other businesses.
IMO the reason the feds issue most these kinds of guidances is so managers can point at them and say “I’m just following best practice, don’t yell at me”
Another solid point I can appreciate that.
Strictly speaking, Epstein and Ghislaine got arrested.
That’s the liberal response.
“We’re going to give you a choice between the cheap dirty consumerist good and the expensive efficient consumerist goodAnd if you pick wrong, it’s your fault that climate change is happening.”
The conservative response is some combination of
“Actually, the biggest source of climate emissions is Al Gore’s farts”
and
“It’s both gay and Chinese to talk about energy efficiency”