Entire state of South Australia without power due to storms. This means that roughly 1,700,000 people are without power. For those of you outside Australia following this thread, this is a sparsely populated, mainly arid state (with the exception of Adelaide and the southern wine regions) roughly the size of France and Germany combined. It is likely to continue for at least a few days, as numerous vital transmission towers were destroyed in the storm.
Naturally, an arch-conservative politician used a natural disaster to try and push his own agenda, stating that it was the renewables that dadgum diddit. Not just any conservative polly, but the Deputy Prime Minister,
Barnaby "Is it a crime if I shoot a woman in the belly and kill her unborn child?" Joyce.
Sarcastic people were quick to point out that it was more likely the 80,000 lightning strikes and very high winds that tipped over the transmission towers. In this case, the renewable energy wind turbines were still functioning, they just couldn't deliver any power to the grid, as the transmission towers were dead!
I'll just leave this image here, courtesy of Senator Scott Ludlam:
Gina Rinehart is a wealthy inherited billionaire. Think a female Trump, though slightly less insane. Rinehart's the heiress to the Lancock mining fortune, a family of miserly, racist shitheads. Her father was well known for promoting an idea that he set up a waterhole for local Aborigines to drink at and poison it. Gina herself has said that she considers the Australian economy to be faltering because quote "Furthermore, Africans want to work and its workers are willing to work for less than two dollars a day. Such statistics make me worry for this country's future."
So yeah, insane conservative MP in bed with the worst kind of capitalist blaming renewable energy? barely makes news, here in Australia.