By pure chance, I listened to “Science Friday” on National Public Radio while on a Florida road trip last September 24. I heard host Ira Flatow interview New York Times climate reporter Coral Davenport. The transcript is posted online at Congress Is Considering Two Climate Change Bills. What’s In Them? (sciencefriday.com). The podcast is at September 24, 2021 – Science Friday
Until then, I thought that both the “bipartisan” $1 trillion “infrastructure”, and the “progressive” Democrat $3.5 trillion “reconciliation” packages were just obscenely bloated versions of previous “stimulus” spending we had with Obama and Trump.
Now I know that both bills are far more radical and dangerous. They are sponsored by people who hate America’s large, prosperous, and politically independent middle class. These “woke” Democrats are determined to break us.
The premise of both bills is that by enjoying safe and comfortable lifestyles, we are causing floods, fires and droughts that are ruining the planet. They say this is because we are burning too much fossil fuel. The goal of both bills is to cut America’s fossil fuel use in half during the next nine years. If these bills become law, the federal government will heavily fine every power company that does not systematically shut down most of its coal, oil, and natural gas power plants by then. It would also pay billions as bribes to companies to build and use new solar panels and wind turbines instead.
The federal government would also pay people, businesses, and schools to buy electric cars, trucks, and buses. It would also pay for more solar panels.
This would permanently end prosperity in America. Solar panels and wind turbines cannot power a modern economy. The electricity they generate is too weak, intermittent, unpredictable, and unreliable. Solar and wind energy is often wasted. It cannot be stored when not needed. It saves little if any fossil fuel. That is because back-up generators must always be running to give the grid steady power whenever the wind stops, night falls, or a cloud goes by.
Nuclear power plants are a reliable, cost-effective alternative to fossil fuels. They provide 71% of the electricity in France. Of course, neither bill promotes new nuclear power plants.
If both bills pass, power companies will be in an impossible situation. If they keep fossil fuel plants to provide reliable power, they will pay big fines and pass that cost to their customers. Everything we buy will then cost more. If power companies comply and rely on unreliable solar panels and wind turbines, frequent power failures will be become normal.
People with electric cars, trucks, and buses will often find it difficult or impossible to charge them. As in the days before railroads and steamships, every long trip will be difficult and uncertain.
Americans will again walk or ride horses or bicycles in the heat, the cold and the rain. Homes, schools, and businesses will again be cold in the winter and hot in the summer. The comfortable, middle class American Dream will be gone for all but the rich.
Germany and Denmark already have invested heavily in solar panels and wind turbines. They have the highest electric rates in Europe. They avoided disaster only by buying expensive nuclear electricity from France, and natural gas from Russia.
Yet in spite of this, “progressive” Democrats have good reasons to think they will get the support and votes needed to pass these bills.
Their union teachers and professors made the last three generations of students virtually illiterate in basic science. Few Americans today know that climate changed to create an Ice Age 10,000 years ago, and that the earth has warmed ever since. They know nothing about how we convert the energy of spinning wheels or sunlight into electricity. They never had science fairs. They never did experiments to see how many solar panels and wind turbines it takes to power a microwave or washing machine. They know nothing of reputable scientists like Michael Shellenberger, author of Apocalypse Never. Shellenberger makes a persuasive case that man-made climate change is “slight and manageable” and that “climate alarmists” do more harm than good.
Democrats carefully designed both massive spending packages to bribe every interest group they need to get elected and re-elected next year. Their combined $4.5 trillion spending plan includes $18 billion for homeowners, $13.5 billion for vehicle charging stations, $5 billion for “free” electric firetrucks and school buses, $27.5 billion for “green” energy “loans” that don’t get paid back. The evillest spending is roughly $6 billion paid to schools, colleges, and “community organizers” for “climate justice” programs.” These are pure propaganda campaigns to promote their fake science and to elect Democrats who support this radical agenda.
Finally, Democrats know that their allies in the media will scare voters into supporting this program. Every day they will falsely report that every hurricane, tornado, heavy rain, drought and brush fire in America is caused by “climate change.” They will falsely blame anyone who opposes these spending packages as being responsible for every death and loss.
Will conservative Americans wake up and fight back in time to stop this?
Fossil fuels may be speeding up a natural long-term pattern of climate change, or perhaps postponing the recurrence of a new ice age, which has a way of happening every 10,000 years or so. How much harm this climate change will cause, and when, is not known. Most reasonable, evidence-based projections suggest not until near the end of this century. By that time, all sorts of other disasters, including wars and plagues, will probably make the possible harm caused by global warming seem trivial by comparison.
But there are other, more urgent and certainreasons to take action to scale back the use of fossil fuel and gradually transition to less toxic forms of energy production. One of these is oil spills, as demonstrated by the present southern California oil spill disaster. Polluttion of streams and rivers and underground water channels by coal mining, is another legitimate concern. So is the increase in asthma and lung diseases in urban areas , caused by air pollution.by Fracking also adds to this problem.
However, alternative, less dangerous power sources have not been developed sufficiently to replace fossil fuels in the near future. I do think that more r&d research should be done to improve their efficacy. Two alternative fuel sources, hydrogen and geothermal, seem to be the most promising.
Solar panels and small wind turbines installed on roofs not only can but already are reducing electricity costs for customers in some parts of the United States, including the county where I live.
If fossil fuel shortages lead more people to ride bicycles, that will be good for their health.
Solar panels do far less damage to the environment than large-scale, high wind turbines, which threaten bird populations and cause soil erosion when place on hilltops.
However, fossil fuels will necessarily be the main source of energy for the forseeable future. Environmental damage from fossil fuels can be greatly reduced by carbon capture technologies, and these should be widely implemented. The government should pay the entire costs the introduction of improved carbon capture technologies for power plants, cars, etc., so that private companies are not bankrupted. In order to avoid major tax increases, boondoggle spending to subsidize all sorts of special interest and lobbying groups and anti-white woke propaganda, as in the Democrat-sponsored massive spending bills,should be cut out in order to avoid massive tax increases to fund carbon-capture and R&D for making less toxic technologies more viable.