For close to a decade, the Left has looked at a “Green New Deal” as the only solution to supposed manmade climate change.
According to the eco-Left, the Green New Deal — a massive federal government stimulus program coupled with a rapid and total transformation from fossil fuels to renewable energy — is the only way to avert environmental doom.
Just last month, shortly after winning election to the U.S. House of Representatives, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said: “We have 10 years left to plan and implement a Green New Deal before cataclysmic climate disaster.”
Although the Green New Deal would be a sweeping piece of legislation that reshapes all sectors of the U.S. economy, it primarily focuses on climate change. Here’s a taste of what the Green New Deal would do:
Green Business Investment
“Invest in green business by providing grants and low-interest loans to grow green businesses and cooperatives, with an emphasis on small, locally-based companies that keep the wealth created by local labor circulating in the community rather than being drained off to enrich absentee investors.”
Unfortunately, this federal funding fantasy would stifle the free market, which is the driving force behind most great innovations and technological revolutions. Not only is this plan subject to rampant corruption, but it also eliminates profit incentives and puts our economic future in the hands of federal bureaucrats.
Green Research Funds
“Prioritize green research by redirecting research funds from fossil fuels and other dead-end industries toward research in wind, solar and geothermal. We will invest in research in sustainable, nontoxic materials, closed-loop cycles that eliminate waste and pollution, as well as organic agriculture, permaculture, and sustainable forestry.”
Deeming fossil fuels a “dead-end industry” is dead wrong. Fossil fuels have increased prosperity and raised the standard of living everywhere they have been used.
Additionally, U.S. carbon emissions have substantially reduced while fossil fuel usage has increased thanks to clean-burning technologies.
Not only that, but this section of the Green New Deal gives the government unprecedented power to decide how Americans live their lives through funding research that would reshape where we live, how we live, what we eat and more.
Green Employment
“Provide green jobs by enacting the Full Employment Program which will directly provide 16 million jobs in sustainable energy and energy-efficiency retrofitting, mass transit and ‘complete streets’ that promote safe bike and pedestrian traffic, regional food systems based on sustainable organic agriculture, and clean manufacturing.”
Anytime the government tries to “provide jobs,” you can expect a boondoggle at best (especially when the number promised is 16 million).
The most successful way to create jobs is a business-friendly environment, which is the exact opposite of the Green New Deal’s massive regulations, spending, taxes, and all other anti-free-market strategies.
Besides the dubiousness of the Left’s premise that climate change is manmade and endangers the future of the planet, it is highly likely that their Green New Deal will cause an economic apocalypse while failing to solve a non-existent climate crisis.
In short, the Green New Deal would destroy the lifeblood of the U.S. economy: fossil fuel energy.
Not only would the Green New Deal lead to an economic crash of unforeseen proportions, but it is equally laughable to believe that the rest of the world would get on board.
The Green New Deal would inflict an economic death blow to the U.S. economy while making little to no impact on worldwide carbon emissions.
Even if you ardently believe in global warming gloom and doom, why in the world would you support a law that would have little effect on the climate and inflict widespread poverty?
Proponents of the Green New Deal claim it will revive the climate just as the New Deal revived the economy. However, that was not really the case.
Former President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal was sold as the solution to the immense pain and suffering inflicted by the Great Depression.
It unleashed the federal spending spigot that led to a flood of new government programs that would supposedly solve the economic crisis.
Despite what most Americans believe, the New Deal was a colossal failure. After its launch in 1933, unemployment worsened, the federal debt increased monumentally, and the Great Depression lingered for years.
If supporters of the Green New Deal believe it will produce the same effects as the New Deal, they’re probably right: The Green New Deal will devastate the economy and give the federal government unprecedented power, not to mention a huge debt increase.
After the New Deal, the federal government began to “solve” all sorts of problems: education, health care, housing, poverty, and substance abuse, just to name a few.
However, every single one of these problems has been made worse by the government’s intervention. Yet most Americans still believe the government can solve any and all problems.
This year, as the left packages the Green New Deal as the sole way to avoid climate calamity, hopefully, Americans will remember how many times they have been hoodwinked by the federal government “solutions.”
Chris Talgo (ctalgo@heartland.org) is an editor at The Heartland Institute.
Read more at American Thinker
Wind Turbines and Acres of Solar Panels are Not Enviromentaly Friendly their a hazard for Birds and Bats and their terribly noisie no matter what we have heard from whining liberals the American Bird Conservancy sued the Dept of the Interior in 2015(Under Obama)to invalidate the Wind Farms 30 Eagles take of Bald and Golden Eagles and the Eco-Wackos did ot whine about it or block the wind farms like the locals did
Green energy idealism does have an upside. It topples liberal governments.
It appears that the left believes that the New Deal was a good thing, but conservatives know otherwise. This shows who understands history better.
When the left is calling for mobilization as we have had in the past they show their ignorance in another way. During the Great Depression America was really in a bad way. Even though it didn’t work, the New Deal was welcomed as an attempt to improve the standard of living. Today, America is not in a bad way. The Green New Deal would certainly lower the standard of living. In addition, it would impose government control on how we lived our lives. This will not be welcome.
Other leftists have advocated full mobilization for climate change as we mobilized for World War II. In this war Pearl Harbor had been attacked and bombs were falling on London. Today, climate change is at the bottom of the issues most are concerned about so there is no support for World War II mobilization.
“Although the Green New Deal would be a sweeping piece of legislation that reshapes all sectors of the U.S. economy, it primarily focuses on climate change. Here’s a taste of what the Green New Deal would do:”
For instance, Nine million cadmium telluride solar modules now cover part of Carrizo Plain in southern California. The modules are part of Topaz Solar Farm, one of the largest photovoltaic power plants in the world. At 9.5 square miles (25.6 square kilometers), the facility is about one-third the size of Manhattan Island, or the equivalent of 4,600 football fields. A $2.5 billion project that took 3 years to complete.
Topaz Solar Farm produces sufficient electricity to power 160,000 average (California) homes. It is a photovoltaic power station, designed for the supply of merchant power into the electricity grid, supplying power at the utility level, rather than to a local users or homes BUT this exercise is just for comparison purposes equating Topaz Solar Farm’s claimed potential of homes served.
Now. Let us see how this “Green New Deal” would work. In Indiana for instance… using their numbers.
The current taste…
The average monthly residential electricity bill in Indiana is $105 or 0.2% of Indiana’s annual median Household Income.
Indiana – 2017 Total Housing Units in 2017 (estimate) 2,885,304
Indiana’s median Household Income in 2016 was $52,289 X 2,885,304 = 151 billion dollars.
Indiana would need about 170 square miles of solar panels (18 Topaz solar farms) to supply electricity to 2,885,304 single family homes in Indiana at a cost of approximately 45 billion dollars to build. 30% of Indiana’s annual median Household Income would be required to build an electrical solar power plant to supply electricity for 2,885,304 single family homes.
The Green New Deal Taste…
For 45 billion dollar you get a 170 square mile solar power plant that could potentially meet…
100% of the electrical needs for 2,885,304 single family homes for about 3 hours on an ideal day in July.
50% of the demand for 2,885,304 single family homes, about 8 hours on an ideal day in July.
0% of the demand for 2,885,304 single family homes, 8 hours OR MORE on any day in July.
0% of the demand for 2,885,304 single family homes, 16 hours OR MORE on any day in January.
Yuck!
Has AO-C reached her level of incompetence? Her rhetoric sells well to the converted, probably turns off every one else.
Al Gore carries too much hypocritical baggage and won’t live forever. She would be a natural in his role as The Warmist Alarmist Cheerleader.
FDR’s “New Deal” should not be repeated – remember it was World War Two that got the US economy going again…..
Absolutely correct, remember
Franklin DeLano’s first two terms ended January 1941
with the country no better of than it was in March 1933
when he took office.
Had he confined his ego to two terms, as tradition,
his presidency would have been considered an
ABJECT FAILURE !
What rescued the USA from the depression that Franklin
magnified at the expense of his predecessor ?
World War II that Franklin promised to keep us out of
in the 1940 election .
Just like when Lyndon Johnson said in the 1964 election :
” I’m not going to send American boys half way around the world
to do what Asian boys should be doing for THESSELVES “
One thing that bothers me in articles like this is the use of “Carbon” instead of Carbon Dioxide when discussing emissions. I sent an email to Chris who wrote this asking if he’d use the proper scientific terminology instead of the lying term use by the leftists. Surprisingly he responded to me quickly and said he would do so in the future and thanked me for my reaching out to him. It’s a start but one I think is important that we not fall into the trap of using the lying phrases that the left uses.
” Climate Change ” is also a Lying Phrase.
It was adopted when it was becoming embarrassing to talk about a
“Global Warming” that wasn’t happening.
The mythical “Greenhouse Effect” was their foundation lie.
The “Barnhouse Effect” is more credible.
The best compromise would be for the Greens to migrate to jurisdictions that already share their Utopian dreams. New York, California, British Columbia. Let them be the lab rats. Giant communes.
Another benefit would be realized from the electoral college. Use the ” birds of a feather flock together” axiom to purge Democrat voters from purple states .
Who cares if it’s bad for all Americans ?
It’s great for world Communism and that’s all
that matters to the Smellocrats.
We dont need any Green New Deals because its all just a lot of Snake Oil selling their fake and hazerdoius product to the world