Commentary
On August 13, 2020, Pew Research released its findings on issues respondents considered “very important” to their vote in the 2020 presidential election. Climate change ranked 12th out of 13 issues, led by the economy.
On November 12, 2020, while votes were still being counted in a number of states, Brooks Hays at UPI wrote that “Even if global greenhouse gas emissions are reduced to zero by the end of the year, new research out of Norway suggests Earth’s climate will, after a brief decline in global temperatures, continue to warm through at least 2500.” Yes, 2500.
“Yet, now it seems that we are shortly to have a president and bureaucracy firmly committed to impoverishing the American people and undermining their security by making energy less available and driving up its price. And all to accomplish absolutely nothing.” – Francis Menton
A Little Background
On May 13, 2020, Joe Biden thought he could mollify “the Squad” by selecting its presumptive leader, Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, to co-chair his Climate Change Unity Task Force with none other than former Sen. John Kerry. He added climate activist Rep. Pramila Jayapal for good measure.
However, when Biden appeared on ABC News’ town hall on October 15, 2020 with George Stephanopoulos, you just knew he was in for trouble when he spoke of his climate plan dismissing the Green New Deal’s call for elimination for all fossil fuels by 2030. “You can’t get there,” said Biden.
Biden’s plan focuses only on reducing carbon emissions, while the $93 trillion Green New Deal is viewed as a World War II type mobilization to address the perceived threat of climate change. It goes beyond environmental policy with a series of plans for infrastructure, universal health care, affordable housing, good paying jobs, social justice and free college education.
“In short,” noted the Washington Examiner, “climate became useful camouflage for a lot of really bad ideas.”
Not happy, Ocasio-Cortez brought her friends together for a press conference last week in front of the Democrat National Headquarters to take a shot across Biden’s bow. With her were three newly elected Democrats. She claims to have 100 cosponsors of the Green New Deal, who could cause problems for Nancy Pelosi’s diminished Democrat House representation.
Claiming that she had secured a commitment from Biden, Ocasio-Cortez said, “We’re not going to forget about that agreement, for the sake of an election. What we’re gonna do is that we’re going to organize and demand that this administration keep their promise. We have to bring the heat for it.”
Meanwhile, in a kind of in-your-face move, Biden responded by selecting Kerry to serve in a newly created senior climate post on the National Security Council, putting climate change on the situation room agenda for the first time. It was Kerry, as secretary of state, who committed us to finance climate adaption efforts in developing countries in support of the Paris Accord.
“Perhaps this is meant to be diplomatic theater to appease the climate left,” suggests the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal. “But it is a bad signal if Mr. Biden considers climate to be a leading national security issue. The fracking-led boom in U.S. oil and gas production has enhanced American security in many ways,” as President Trump put America first.
Originally, President Obama committed $3 billion to a United Nations fund to finance climate efforts in the development world, and just three days before leaving office in 2017, he contributed an installment of $500 million, knowing of Donald Trump’s intention to withdraw from the Accord. How’s that for a smooth transition gift?
Biden’s pledge to return to the Accord is seen as boon to China, who doesn’t have to reduce its carbon emissions until 2030. The Journal foresees China’s willingness to make promises on emissions in return for American acquiescence to their security priorities in the South China Sea and Taiwan, viewing Kerry, who as a negotiator, was someone, “who never drives a hard bargain.”
The Biden’s plan is said to “ensure 100 percent clean renewable energy by 2035,” however, the heavily-subsidized wind and solar generated electricity now provide just nine percent of our electricity, and that’s achieved because of the 100 percent of fossil fuel available.
He has a plan for infrastructure projects, a massive move to electric cars and trucks and environmentally-pure buildings, all of which will require fossil fuels to achieve.
Biden’s plan to spend some $1.7 trillion to basically reverse our sources of energy will not be a pushover with a Republican Senate. “Whether you want to get to carbon-neutral by 2030 or 2035 or 2050, whatever it is, I think you ultimately need new legislation,” says Nathan Richardson, associate law professor at the University of South Carolina.
And don’t count out the Supreme Court. Creating a nationwide climate program is “completely off the table,” said Jeff Holmstead, who served as EPA chief for George W. Bush.
Recalling the Obama era Clean Power Plan that the justices saw as too expansive, Glenn Schwartz of the Rapid Energy Group said, “There’s no world in my mind in which (that) can live again.”
“The Trump administration wiped out or rewrote several dozen Obama era climate and environmental regulations, and undoing each of those or replacing them would involve a years-long, intensive regulatory process,” noted Abby Smith in Washington Examiner.
The Climate Change Craze Goes Deeper
It isn’t just an ignorant president-to-be, who refuses to look at our energy independence as one would look a gift horse in the mouth, I find it incomprehensible that a number of supposed smart businessmen with wealth have been taken in by the climate scam, unable to see through the decades of continuous end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scares.
Amazon mega-billionaire Jeff Bezos created his Bezos Earth Fund with an initial $10 billion, and funnels grants to lobbyists and attorneys who will help block infrastructure projects involving fossil fuels, including drilling and pipelines.
Bezos claims that he has been learning about climate change from incredibly smart people, who have made it their life’s work, indicating that he was “impressed by what they’re doing.” Those “smart people” are academics who receive grants to produce studies with the dire climate predictions they seek.
Commenting on pieces written for the Harvard Gazette in which contributors congratulate each other on how brilliant they are, Francis Menton writes, “You only need to read a few of these things before you realize that what might seem like the very ‘smartest’ people – the ones with the fanciest degrees and the fanciest professorships at the fanciest universities – are actually painfully stupid.”
There are others. Michael Bloomberg has contributed tens of millions for his “Beyond Carbon” initiative, and Tom Steyer, who has invested billions in support of green candidates and even his own recent failed run for the presidency.
So there you have it. An issue ranked near the bottom of importance to voters, to be addressed by an establishment swamp figure, that is likely to be a costly venture for taxpayers with no viable results to benefit us in sight.
May God continue to bless the United States of America.
