Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott tried to pull a fast one on millions of Texans suffering from massive energy blackouts amid a record cold snap. Looking for a cheap and easy scapegoat, Abbott tried to blame solar and wind energy for the collapse of the state's electrical grid, which is nonsense. But nonsense too often is what substitutes for accountability among Republican leaders these days.

The GOP leadership playbook advises: When the truth is too inconvenient, distract, deflect and always blame someone else.

Inconvenient truths loom large in Texas these days. The state's Republican attorney general is under felony indictment. Its junior U.S. senator tried to subvert democracy and inspired the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection — and on Thursday jetted off to Cancun to escape the cold. Meanwhile, a state touting itself as the world's energy capital found itself literally powerless as 4 million households froze because of a collapsed power grid.

Extreme weather is an inconvenient truth that Republicans have spent years mocking, usually at former Vice President Al Gore's expense for his warnings of the problems to come. When those problems arrived on Texans' doorstep, Abbott pulled out the GOP playbook to divert attention from the very fossil fuels that keep Texas' economy roaring but also cause global warming.

"This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America," Abbott stated Tuesday on Fox News. "Our wind and our solar got shut down, and they were collectively more than 10 percent of our power grid, and that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power on a statewide basis. ... It just shows that fossil fuel is necessary."

But Abbott's own energy department says the grid collapsed because energy providers failed to winterize their power-generating systems. Energy deregulation — a good thing — has boosted pricing competition, but in the drive to keep prices low, too many providers cut corners and failed to prepare for worst-case scenarios.

Some wind farms did freeze up. But others overproduced amid howling winds accompanying the storm. Besides, cold weather doesn't seem to shut down wind farms in countries like Greenland where sub-zero temperatures are normal. Abbott also neglected to mention faulty transmission lines, which in Texas are notorious for failing during weather extremes. He also forgot the other 90% of Texas energy from fossil fuels and even nuclear that also failed when their equipment froze.

The point here is twofold: First, catastrophic weather extremes will only get worse unless Americans reduce their reliance on carbon-emitting fossil fuels. Second, catastrophic leadership failures will only get worse unless Americans stop electing truth-averse politicians like Abbott and Parson to positions of power.

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