Michael Bloomberg’s recent opinion piece blaming “climate denialism” for the tragic Texas floods isn’t just opportunistic, it’s dishonest. While communities are still searching for loved ones, grieving, and rebuilding, Bloomberg couldn’t resist swooping in to exploit their suffering as a marketing opportunity for his brand of alarmist hype and centralized energy control.
Natural disasters are heartbreaking. They also deserve clear-eyed analysis, not cheap rhetorical stunts designed to terrify voters into surrendering their energy freedom. Bloomberg’s argument boils down to this: if politicians had just embraced more subsidies for wind turbines and solar panels, lives would have been saved. That’s a fantasy, and he knows it.
He claims “the scientific evidence is clear” that climate change is driving more frequent flooding. Yet even the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which he selectively cites when it suits him, admits there is very low confidence about any detectable changes in extreme precipitation events on the short time scales that cause flash floods.
As Roger Pielke Jr. has documented in The Honest Broker, “Precipitation Paradox? How climate advocates exploit flood disasters.” That’s not “denialism,” it’s scientific nuance Bloomberg refuses to acknowledge. Because nuance doesn’t sell fear.
Instead, he deploys emotionally loaded language, describing floods as a “death penalty” imposed by political opponents. He even uses the phrase “body count,” a term younger generations recognize as slang for how many people you’ve slept with. In Bloomberg’s case, the term is almost too fitting, given how many working families he has economically harmed through policies that drive up the cost of living. Whether it’s carbon taxes, renewable mandates, or his crusade against affordable fuels, his approach always leaves ordinary people paying more for less.
That’s the real body count: seniors forced to ration heating, families squeezed by skyrocketing electricity bills, and small businesses bankrupted by regulatory overreach masquerading as compassion.
Bloomberg also seems offended that Texas policymakers considered legislation to hold renewable generators accountable for the hidden costs they impose on the grid. He even credits Gov. Abbott for stopping the legislation. What Bloomberg, or his millennial aide who wrote his op-ed, doesn’t know is that it was Abbott in 2021 who directed the Public Utility Commission of Texas to “allocate reliability costs to generation resources that cannot guarantee their own availability, such as wind or solar power.”
When intermittent sources like wind and solar fail to show up in extreme weather, traditional power plants are forced to stand by. These costs get shifted onto residential ratepayers and small businesses.
Bloomberg prefers this cost shifting remain hidden so he can boast about “cheap renewables” in press releases. But Texans have learned the hard way that no amount of green virtue signaling will keep the lights on or their bills affordable when the wind stops blowing.
He also laments that the federal government isn’t spending more on China-dependent energy handouts, as though the solution to every problem is simply to shovel billions at politically favored industries. Yet Europe’s ongoing energy crisis proves where this thinking leads: rationing, blackouts, and an economic gut punch to working people.
Bloomberg’s prescription would make our Texas grid more fragile, our energy more expensive, and our families more vulnerable the next time nature shows its power.
Even if you accepted every dire prediction about rising temperatures, there’s still no evidence that wind and solar subsidies prevent floods or hurricanes. These are primarily infrastructure and preparedness challenges. Texas is making major investments without needing lectures from billionaires in Manhattan.
Texans know how to come together in a crisis. What we don’t need are opportunists exploiting tragedy to push policies that benefit the financial portfolios of the climate elite.
It’s particularly rich to watch Bloomberg scold leaders for refusing to join his crusade while ignoring the fact that his own climate policies in New York City and elsewhere have imposed staggering costs on low-income communities.
Real leadership empowers communities with abundant, affordable, reliable energy, the kind that built Texas into the economic engine of America.
If Bloomberg truly cared about resilience, he would champion investments in hardened infrastructure, flood detection technology, and transparent markets that reward reliability, not a blank check for so-called renewables that underdeliver when needed most.
Texans deserve honest debate, not moral panic. We deserve respect for our ingenuity and self-reliance, not condescension from a billionaire who has spent years demonizing the fuels that keep this country running.
The next time Bloomberg wants to lecture Texas about preparing for disaster, he might start by looking in the mirror. His climate agenda is not rooted in science, math, or facts. It is rooted in an obsession with control. And Texans know better than to hand over control of our energy, our economy, and our freedom to someone who will never pay the price for the consequences.
Jason Isaac is the founder and CEO of the American Energy Institute. He previously served four terms in the Texas House of Representatives.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America / Wikimedia Commons)
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