The Green New Deal is based on the assumption that we’ve only got twelve more years to live. That’s what we’ve been told. (“Experts” have actually been making such predictions since the late 1980s. They’ve simply been changing the year of their tipping points.)
If this was actually true, however, wouldn’t our leaders have dropped everything to give the climate change issue top priority? Never mind everything else.
What would be happening if there really was a crisis?
Well, first, Earth’s rulers would be putting all the resources at their disposal into finding alternative sources of energy that are viable, not the antiquated technology of windmills that cause tremendous harm to the environment.
Note that solar panels are also very harmful to the environment and could never hope to serve as a substitute for the combustion of fossil fuels.
In fact, the only energy sources that are really sustainable and could ever take the place of fossil fuels are nuclear energy, geothermal – which is available only in limited areas – and hydropower, also available only in limited areas.
Instead, our leaders would have demonstrated long ago that they are taking energy conservation seriously. For starters they would have found ways to effect real conservation measures such as the following:
- Many more people would be working from home at their computers to eliminate the need for travel to and from their jobs. This is actually possible now with the Internet.
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Those who still need to travel to work would be carpooling.
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99% of all shopping would be done through shopping services – delivering groceries and other needed items – and through online transactions.
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Meetings now involving travel would be taking place by way of Skype. Meeting participants would not be jetting around the world to attend these meetings. They all know that such travel is totally unnecessary, especially in view of the circumstances they claim to be true.
It is the epitome of hypocrisy that participants of meetings held for the purpose of cutting CO2 emissions are still traveling around the world to attend those meetings.
- They would be paying people to recycle. Encouraging people to recycle trash would greatly increase that practice. Governments would spend money to find new and better recycling strategies.
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Climate change activists would find other ways to reach the public than traveling long distances to conduct demonstrations.
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Schools would hire teachers who live closest to the schools where they teach rather than people who live an hour’s drive from the school.
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School classes would be held four days per week instead of five. This would require a modest increase in the length of the school day and the elimination of the fluff. This practice would cut expenses and carbon dioxide emissions of school buses by 20%. The heating and cooling expenses of keeping schools open would also be reduced. A few school districts are already doing this.
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It would be illegal to transport public school sports teams long distances (over 25 miles) to take part in sports competitions.
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Most college classes would be conducted online. This is already happening to a small extent. Students requiring hands-on experience would live at the college while taking those hands-on science courses.
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Most church services would also be held online. Expensive church buildings using only a few hours a week are unnecessary. The money saved in cutting this waste could be used to help the poor and destitute.
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Converting corn to fuel to produce ethanol would stop immediately since ethanol requires more energy and emits more carbon dioxide than the equivalent amount of fossil fuel.
Such waste is now especially unnecessary now that it’s been demonstrated that there’s no shortage of fossil fuel. (You can learn more about this by reading The Green New Deal and Climate Change: What You Need to Know.)
- The billions of dollars now given in grants to perpetuate climate change hype would instead be used for the research and development of viable alternative energy sources, such as thorium-based nuclear energy, which is cheap, 100% effective (meaning no remaining rods), and completely safe.
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The ridiculous cutting down and burning of our earth’s forests (“biomass”) to produce electricity would have stopped long ago. Such a travesty such as what is occurring at the Drax power plant in Great Britain actually requires far more energy, emits more carbon dioxide per unit of energy produced, and destroys the Earth’s natural resources. If we have only twelve years to go, there wouldn’t be time for the trees to regrow, as they say they will.
Yes, our way of life would be totally different.
At the same time, what you would NOT see happening is the replacement of gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles with electric vehicles. And you would NOT see vegetarianism replacing meat-eating.
Anyone who believes that the existence of farm animals is increasing carbon dioxide emissions has never lived on a farm and doesn’t have a clue about how agriculture and nature works.
The raising of farm animals in areas especially suited for this type of agriculture doesn’t cause excess carbon dioxide emissions. What these people don’t know and understand is that plants themselves produce carbon dioxide during respiration.
We need to educate people to the fact that carbon dioxide is a trace gas. It is not the main “greenhouse gas.”
Most carbon dioxide is emitted by warming oceans, with humans producing only about 3% of the CO2 that is currently being emitted. Termites emit roughly twice as much carbon dioxide as do humans.
The bottom line is that climate change is occurring but not at a rate any faster than it ever has. The oceans are not rising any faster than they have for the past 1000 years.
There are many reasons why the climate is changing. Carbon dioxide is not one of them. This is a myth, and our leaders know it. It’s frightening that they’ve gotten as far as they have with this hoax.
The only reason these fearmongers have made an issue out of this is to get more taxes and power. Implementing the Green New Deal or a similar plan will bring down the economy of the world and take us back to the stone age.
Lynne Balzer taught science at the high school and college levels for about twenty years. A project director for Faraday Science Institute, she has studied this issue for a long time. Her new book, The Green New Deal and Climate Change: What You Need to Know, is available from Amazon in paperback and Kindle format.
Good article. I certainly agree that the government’s role (primarily) should be to support R & D and promote conservation. Research money needs to be focused on whatever can be the “Next Big Thing” in Energy.” Whether it’s fusion, distributed nuclear (thorium), molten salt batteries, “Lean” combined cycle natural gas…ALL of these show promise and potentially meet the required energy imperatives of cost, density & scale. Wind & solar will NEVER reach those thresholds and as such, huge subsidies and continued waste of research dollars should be redirected to better alternatives. One other thing that needs mentioning to compliment this article. I think a bunch of folks are confused about how the U.S energy system is structured. Even IF you could provide 100% renewables for electricity generation, that is ONLY 20% of our primary energy. The remaining 80% is involved in transportation, industrial heat, residential & commercial consumption. Nobody is talking about that “Lion’s Share” that won’t be easily replaced. Fossil fuels are the pre imminent source of energy because they are really GOOD sources. They are going to be needed for a long time until technology catches up with a suitable replacement. Short sighted and uninformed proposals like the Green New Deal promote nothing, ultimately, other than energy POVERTY…
Is the Earth producing fossil fuel as quickly as we are using it?
More and more huge reserves of carbon based fuels are being discovered each year. Some scientists believe that they are seeping up from Earth’s mantle. If this is the case they did not come from fossils. Planets and moons – e.g. Saturn’s huge moon Titan – in the Solar System that are too cold to ever have supported life contain more methane and other carbon based compounds than have ever been discovered on Earth.
There is one theory that there is oil deep under the oceans that comes from geological processes rather than be fossil in origin. The theory states that this geological fuel is a full magnitude greater than all of the fossil fuels. Perhaps some day we will find out if this is true.
I always doubted that all hydrocarbons came from rotten prehistoric life. Geological made more sense.
Fifty years ago, the Athabasca tar sands looked hopeless unobtainium. Fifteen years ago shale oil and gas was “locked away” .
The Left is run by Luddites.
“We need to educate people to the fact that carbon dioxide is a trace gas. It is not the main “greenhouse gas.””
Water is the main greenhouse gas.
You need to put “gas” in quotes if you apply it to vapor. And to be even more accurate, “greenhouse” should be replaced with “atmospheric”. It’s astonishing that current physics texts include a fanciful description of the principle that greenhouses rely on and fail to recognize that a plastic film works as well as glass (even better, being easier to seal).
Greenhouse effect was simplistic to a fault. You should see what frozen water vapor (hailstones) can do to a glass greenhouse.
The Green New Deal should be called the Green New Scam because it is a scam being carried out against the American People by the Democrats,Globalists and the Eco-Freaks
If the premise of The Green New Deal was actually true there was a major, major adaptation left out of the article. Immigration both legal and illegal would be put to and end. People moving to this country from third world countries significantly increases their emissions. It has always been easy to control immigration. There just hasn’t been the political will to do it. Employers need to be required to verify the eligibility of those that they hire. If they skip that requirement and are caught employing an illegal it should be a $100,000 fine per person. By swelling the population immigration makes all environmental problems worse. Those who want to reduce emissions but do not want to be aggressive in eliminating immigration are every bit as hypocritical as those flying in private jets to conferences on climate change.
Though well intended the author missed the boat on church services. Many churches have sacrament services which can’t be done on line. With all churches part of the reason for going is to develop friends. This works much better in person than on line. There are some things that churches can do. My church has three different meetings on Sunday. These use to be at different times throughout the day. During the so called energy crisis the schedules were changed so that one meeting followed the other and people would only drive to church once.
My point is that IF WE ACTUALLY HAD ONLY TWELVE YEARS TO LIVE we would have to curtail church services, because survival is more important than making friends. Of course this premise is baloney, so churchgoers should continue to attend church.
Lynne you are right. My reaction shows one of the problems with the scenario you defined in that some wouldn’t realize the full extent of what needed to be done. After my post it did occur to me that families could bring home enough of the blessed bread, wine or water to last for weeks for the sacrament meetings. There would be another problem if your scenario was true. Many people would conclude that it was all hopeless so they would live it up for the time they thought that they had left including continuing to have higher emissions. It is too bad that more authors don’t respond to comments on their articles.
sanders is a Hypocrite