Commentary
I purposely avoided any mention of Earth Day on April 22, 2024, because as Veronique De Rugy so appropriately put it in Reason Magazine, “It’s time to stop freaking out about humanity’s imminent demise.”
But those who are freaking out, like President Biden, who has been taking us down the path to economic ruin with his fanciful plan to transform our source of energy from fossil fuels to alternate sources like wind and solar, used the day to announce further steps at taxpayer expense.
Commemorating the 54th anniversary of Earth Day in Triangle, Virginia, Biden announced an “investment” of $7 billion for “Solar for All,” a plan to award 60 grants for the development of programs that will enable low-income and disadvantaged communities to benefit from residential solar power. “It’s a big deal,” he said.
With Solar for All, 900,000 households will have solar on their rooftops for the first time and soon, adding that families will save over $400 a year on utility bills. Never mind that electric bills are rising.
He also announced that Americans can now apply to become the first members of the American Climate Corps – his answer to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s.
“We’re recruiting for over 2,000 positions in 36 states to start,” he said, adding “You’ll get paid to fight climate change, learning how to install those solar panels, fight wildfires, rebuild wetlands, weatherize homes, and so much more.
“When you finish your service, you’ll be eligible for a streamlined path to federal government jobs related to clean energy.”
Checking the website for the organization, you will see a vast collaboration of various agencies in the bureaucracy, but absent is any mention of pay and benefits.
Biden concluded his Earth Day message saying, “Anyone in or out of government who willfully denies the impacts of climate change is condemning the American people to a very dangerous future.” He then accused MAGA Republicans who “deny climate is in crisis.” Perhaps it was that quote that turned me sour on doing an Earth Day blog. We know a real crisis when we experience it, and it isn’t climate change.
Recalling how the first Earth Day was organized by Wisconsin’s Sen. Gaylord Nelson in 1970, Biden took credit for introducing the first climate bill in the Senate.
Back to De Rugy’s Quote
In her piece, “When Earth Day Predictions Go Predictably Wrong,” she reminded her readers of the American Enterprise Institute’s Mark Perry, and his collection of wrong predictions made around the world around the time of the first Earth Day. Here’s one:
In 1969, Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich wrote, “By 1975, some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions,” but in 1970 he warned that “between 1980 and 1989, some four billion people, including 65 million Americans would perish in the “Great Die-Off.”
Regular readers may recall my criticism of Biden’s premature closures of coal and gas-powered plants while he aggressively sought to transform of energy sources from fossil fuels to wind and solar.
It continues, and at a time when energy demands are surging. At the EPA, where unelected bureaucrats are directing our future energy needs, they continue to shutter coal fired units, and gas plants are in their sights, in spite of overreach warnings that wind and solar energy will not be sufficient.
The rule also disregards the Supreme Court’s decision that limited the agency’s ability to regulate carbon pollution under the Clean Air Act.
“With electrical rates already soaring amid the government force-fed green transition,” notes the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, “Americans didn’t face energy rationing in Mr. Biden’s first term, but they might in a second.”
Gone With the Wind
In a major setback for Biden’s green energy agenda, three large New York offshore wind projects were scrapped, projects that were aspired to achieve 70 percent renewable energy by 2030.
Like the funds provided for Biden’s Earth Day announced projects, the offshore wind industry continues to suffer despite the availability of generous tax credits coming from the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act.
Another Anniversary
While the president was celebrating the 54th anniversary of Earth Day, fellow blogger Frances Mention was looking at the three and a half years in the Biden presidency coming up in this piece, Tracking The Demise Of The U.S. Green Energy Transition, in Manhattan Contrarian.
“(It’s the) presidency which from the outset promised an ‘all in government’ regulatory onslaught to force a transition from fossil fuels and to green energy. The regulatory onslaught has indeed come forth. But how about the actual transition in energy use? Not much,” he wrote.
Covering just 20 of the Institute for Energy Research’s list of “200 Ways the Biden Administration and Democrats Have Made it Harder to Produce Oil & Gas,” Menton concludes saying, “Our current rulers think that they have infinite ability to tell the people how to live, and infinite money to force people to change their ways. They are wrong, and reality will catch up to them, if only gradually.”
How about on November 5, 2024?
May God continue to bless the United States of America.
