Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo said Sunday that the real climate-change emergency is America’s declining investment in fossil fuels, not finding renewable sources to gain energy independence. (Watch the video below.)
As debate over global warming continued to boil amid soaring summer heat, the conservative TV personality attempted to talk down Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) in an on-air argument. But Khanna kept his cool.
“And the climate emergency, look, if there were ever a time to go to the American people and say we don’t want petrostates like Russia to have power, we don’t want our president to have to go to beg to Saudi Arabia for oil, we don’t want to be going dependent on Iran or Venezuela, the way to do that is to have a moonshot on renewable energy, and to make that stuff in America, not China,” Khanna said on “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“That’s what a climate emergency would do — it would say because of this war, let’s have a long-term energy independence strategy, and make the solar, the wind, the batteries here.”
Replied Bartiromo: “Oh, I think it is an emergency, but it’s an emergency because we have completely iced out investing in fossil fuels. I mean, that’s really where the emergency is. You go to any investment portfolio manager today, and they’re being told, you better get onboard with ESG, or you’re going to have major problems. You’re not going to be investing in fossil fuels.”
“So, if you’re talking about an emergency, why not reinstate the XL pipeline?” she continued. “Why not allow drilling on federal land right now, Congressman? Wouldn’t that get gasoline prices lower, rather than going hat in hand to Saudi Arabia?
Khanna snapped back: “What would get gasoline prices lower is, stop exporting the oil while these oil companies are making billions of dollars. I mean, it’s not like they’re not making huge, record profits — 30, 40 billion dollars of profits — while Americans are getting fleeced at the pump. And they’re selling their oil overseas to make that profit.”
Bartiromo called the oil companies’ strategy “democracy and capitalism” while lamenting “massive pushback against oil companies.”
Khanna noted that the companies were “doing just fine” and making record profits, prompting Bartiromo to attack the Biden administration’s “climate change agenda.”
Bartiromo’s argument reflects the steadfast conservative resistance to the reality of climate change and the necessity of reducing fossil fuel consumption despite the rising frequency of temperature extremes, droughts, storms, fires and flooding.
Former Vice President Al Gore said on Sunday that reliance on fossil fuels for short-term benefits is causing long-term harm to the planet.
“That’s why the heat records are being broken all the time now,” said Gore. “That’s why the storms are stronger, why the ice is melting and the sea levels rising and why the droughts and fires are hitting us so hard and so many other consequences,” he said.
