Biden Admits Green New Deal Would Decimate Economy
By: David Harsanyi (National Review)
Joe Biden won't admit anything. That's not how the politics of make-believe works.
The modern global economy has been built upon abundant, cheap, readily available energy. That is reality and not a modelled abstraction. Every time the neo-liberal global economy reaches the point of unsustainability, politicians, like Biden, dip into the fossil fuel piggy bank. As long as politicians strive to protect their incumbency, fossil fuels won't be going away. Coal, oil, and natural gas provide a quick, easy way to achieve economic growth and revive a failing economy damaged by economic theories, unfettered commerce, and governments controlled by cheaters gaming the system.
The politics of make-believe depends upon fossil fuels. The neo-liberal global economy simply is not sustainable. So, it will require a lot of fossil fuels to keep what cannot work working.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
On Monday, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ordered a “code red,” releasing another “landmark” report warning that global warming was an existential threat to humanity, that humans were “unequivocally” to blame for the problem, and that if rapid action to cut greenhouse-gas emissions is not taken, our grandchildren are doomed to a fiery end. “What the IPCC told us is what President Biden has believed all along,” Jen Psaki noted on Tuesday. “Climate change is an urgent threat that requires bold action.”
On Wednesday, the Biden administration released a statement imploring the OPEC cartel to increase production of oil to help lower worldwide gas prices. “Higher gasoline costs,” the White House admits, “if left unchecked, risk harming the ongoing global recovery.” The WH wants OPEC to go above the 400,000-barrels-per-day increase it already promised to implement, which doesn’t seem to jibe with the notion that we are on the precipice of the apocalypse.
As an economic matter, of course, the request makes total sense — by pressuring exporters to pump more oil, a fungible commodity, we lower costs worldwide. Even though technology continues to create efficiencies that lower emissions, modernity relies heavily on affordable and reliable energy. Economies would collapse without it. And for emerging nations, affordable fossil fuel remains a prerequisite for lifting billions of people out of poverty.
As a political matter, it might seem odd, to say the least, that Biden is imploring foreign nations to increase supply. Firstly, such a position runs contrary to virtually every “green” plan in existence — almost all of which intentionally, through mandates or bans or taxes or contrived “markets,” exist to make fossil fuels more expensive and reduce use. Clean-energy advocates, including the president, argue that, in the aggregate, going green would be an economic plus. But if slightly higher prices threaten the world’s economic health, what would complete weaning from fossil fuels do to the economy? Biden has promised a “100 percent clean-energy economy” with “net-zero emissions” in only a few decades. Without some technological miracle, this is a fantastical, not to mention suicidal, goal.
The reality is that Biden couldn’t go a year in office without pleading with oilocracies to hike production. In his defense, one assumes, people will point out that COVID presents a historically unique situation. As far as the economics of recovery go, not really. In fact, this manmade downturn should be easier to mend than most. And this is certainly not the last recession or downturn or pandemic or world event that is going to affect the energy market.
Though it’s probably an unpopular position, I’d be content importing cheap oil, or allowing others to flood the market, while saving our own supply for a time when new drilling becomes more economically feasible. But the hypocrisy of all this is that Biden works to restrict energy trade only in North America.
Earlier this year, the president rescinded oil- and gas-lease sales from most of the nation’s massive state-owned lands and waters, citing climate change as the reason. He then shut down the Keystone XL, revoking a permit that was needed to build a 1,200-mile project that would have carried around 830,000 barrels per day of Alberta oil-sands crude into the United States — probably more than enough to avoid begging OPEC for oil — again, citing climate change as the reason.
At the same time, Biden lifted United States sanctions that would have blocked completion of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline that will transport fuel from Russia to Germany, which, like us, is a signee of the Paris agreement. Most European nations aren’t abiding by that agreement (well, without the help of an economy-paralyzing pandemic). Which is a reminder that to merely keep pace with the IPCC recommendations on carbon emissions, Americans, who use around 20 million barrels of petroleum every day, would be compelled to induce a pandemic-level shutdown of the economy every year for 30 years.
Americans, despite what they tell pollsters about climate change, demand affordable gas. You might recall that, despite his best efforts to undermine U.S. energy production, Barack Obama took credit for the domestic oil-and-gas boom. “That was me, people,” he told a crowd in 2018. Political pressure is also why the White House made sure its OPEC statement on gas prices was for public consumption, rather than simply making those requests of OPEC through diplomatic channels. The Green New Deal, whatever iteration of the plan you care to support, is unfeasible. Biden’s request is just another reminder.
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Razzle dazzle and double standards can't save the global economy and also save the planet. The odd thing is that saving the global economy requires damaging the planet to obtain abundant, cheap, and readily available resources. These politician's incumbency depends upon it.
As the credit card commercial asks, 'what's in your wallet?'
Biden doesn't want the US to produce oil; so it has to come from somewhere- even if it is at a greater cost to US consumers. Wonder if the left will chastise Biden the way they did Bush Jr for begging the Saudis and OPEC? Nah, they will just stay silent and pretend this is all one vast right wing conspiracy.
Everyone seems to forget that opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline was about American Indians and not about climate change. Tar sand oil has been coming into the United States via rail the whole time.
Biden is wheedling OPEC to pump more oil because of higher gas prices. Biden just makes-believe that OPEC oil is cleaner than American oil. Apparently those on the left side of the political spectrum don't have a problem with that, either.
Tell me about it; every damn time one of those trains derails it affects rail traffic in the area for weeks. Cleanup of that garbage takes forever. Which is another great reason to move it on ancient rail tankers; on inadequate rail lines. At least Soros is getting his money out of it.