The Democratic Party has made "green energy" a central plank of its platform for years. They subscribe to Al Gore's fear-mongering that the planet has a fever, and if we don't stop using fossil fuels, we're all going to die in a heap of fire and flood. Of course, none of their predictions have come true. When this writer was in elementary school, teachers told her the ozone would vanish, we'd have to hide from downpours of acid rain, and Florida would be under the Atlantic.
Now, 35 years later, the hole in the ozone has shrunk, there is no acid rain, and Florida is still very much above water. But that's still not proof enough for these climate cultists. And here's why: back when the Berlin Wall fell, and the U.S.S.R. was on the way out, Rush Limbaugh said communism wasn't dead, and he predicted it would rebrand as environmentalism.
That's why every "solution" to climate change sounds like it came directly from 'The Communist Manifesto' and why it's safe to call environmental cultists "watermelons" — they're green on the outside, but deep red on the inside.
And because their goal is not actually helping the environment — America has lowered carbon emissions, but that's all offset by places like India and China — but enacting communism, they don't care if their policies or the products they push actually work. What matters to them is the control, the ability to virtue signal, and the smugness they can feel by lowering our standard of living a peg or two.
In Western New York, where winters get harsh, parents are warning that a mandate to make all school buses electric by 2027 is harming their children.
FREEZE FACTOR: Parents in western New York are sounding the alarm after a new mandate requires all school bus purchases to be electric by 2027 — and they say kids are already paying the price with cold rides and frequent breakdowns.
— Fox News (@FoxNews) December 22, 2025
One local grandmother says she was horrified… pic.twitter.com/i5IitJWeps
According to Fox News, one boy came home cold and told his horrified grandmother the buses can't turn on the heat because it drains the batteries.
Local outlet WIVB reported that the law has drawn the ire of parents in the Lake Shore Central School District. The station received "several calls" over the electric buses, with parents claiming that their children are freezing when they come home from school.
Per WIVB, the district operates 23 electric buses, 24 gasoline buses and four full-size diesel buses.
"The heaters on the bus run off the same electricity as the bus itself," Scott Ziobro, a local parent, told WIVB. "They were told that it drains the battery capacity of the bus itself."
And this is true because cold weather quickly drains the battery of electric vehicles. According to the Department of Energy, "weather-related battery drain can especially be a serious issue for EV drivers in cold climates, as frigid temperatures can drain the battery significantly faster."
The range of EVs can drop by up to 32 percent in freezing temperatures, meaning EVs will need to be charged more frequently in cold weather, which increases electricity use and requires fossil fuels to power the grid that runs the chargers.
That doesn't seem very environmentally friendly to us.
Not only do buses forgo heat, but they also break down. Parent Chris Lampman told Fox News a bus "broke down en route" and that his son was forced to stand outside for more than 30 minutes waiting for a bus that never came.
This can be deadly, too.
Lake Shore Central School District is in Angola, New York. That city has average winter temps at or near freezing with daytime highs in the low 30s. Under those conditions, an electric bus without heating can become dangerously cold in a short time. Hypothermia sets in once a person's core body temperature drops below 95 degrees Fahrenheit, and that risk increases significantly for children. Without adequate insulation, clothing, or blankets, hypothermia could set in in under 35 minutes.
Does this mean the district will be forced back to more remote learning on days when buses can't run because of the cold? Many people, including this writer, warned that the Left would use environmentalism to enact COVID-like policies again (e.g., lockdowns, remote learning), and it seems that prediction is going to come true, at least in Western New York.
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