OPINION - EDITORIAL

Not easy being green

So-called New Deal looks like a bad deal

Milton Friedman once said that one of the greatest mistakes in public life is to judge policies by their intentions rather than their results. No doubt those who put together this Green New Deal have all the best intentions. But you know where the path of best intentions leads.

What would be the environmental result if the United States--tomorrow--sent nary a gram of carbon into the atmosphere, no more forever? Answer: Not much. Not as long as China and Russia and India and Indonesia and every other developing country keep coughing carbon into the air. Business Insider reports that the Red Chinese are building hundreds of new coal-fired plants even now.

This was always the problem with the Paris Accords. Other nations "promised" to do something about their coal plants and carbon footprints--always in the future. Some nations didn't even try to disguise their real agendas. In its Paris Accord promissory note, if we may call it that, India used much of its space in the document explaining how it was a poor country and needed to catch up first. And it would voluntarily try to reduce emissions by 20-25 percent in the next few years "despite having no mitigation obligations as per the Convention." It wanted to make that clear.

The United States however, has the Environmental Defense Fund, the Energy Action Coalition, Greenpeace, the ECO-Warrior Foundation, the World Wildlife Fund, the Citizens Climate Lobby and hundreds of other environmental groups, all with lawyers at the standby. If the United States had signed off on the Paris Accords, some group would have sued to force Americans to comply, and doubtless some federal judge would have been happy to oblige. Note well: The ChiComs on mainland China don't worry about Greenpeace lawyers.

The Paris Accords would have stifled the American economy, but at least it wouldn't have had any effect on climate. Donald Trump was right to abandon the silly thing.

Back to the Green New Deal:

There's been a lot of bluster--on both sides--since Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez & Co. came out with this little number. Even Nancy Pelosi seems to have shrugged it off. And conservatives have been hooting about some of the more extreme scenarios. It might help to actually read the resolution. And a resolution it is. Even if it passes, it wouldn't be law:

If we can read through the lawyerly bureaucraticese, which is how congressional members write, the Green New Deal seems to suggest fighting climate change and improving the environment "by elminating pollution and greenhouse gas emissions as much as technologically feasible."

That seems an important detail, "technologically feasible." We'd imagine that eliminating airplane travel and building a high-speed train track to Hawaii is considered not feasible.

The resolution also calls for "meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources."

We could have had that years ago, if we hadn't listened to the same limousine liberals in the 1970s that scold us today. Back then they held No Nukes concerts, telling us that safe, efficient, clean nuclear power was leading to the end of days. Today we know that to be completely 180-degrees wrong. And that if we had nuclear plants at every turn in the river, then we could meet every human energy demand cheaply and cleanly. But there hasn't been a new nuclear power plant built in this country for a generation. That's what we get for letting musicians and certain Hollywood types make energy policy.

The Green New Deal also says this country should upgrade "all existing buildings in the United States and building new buildings to achieve maximal energy efficiency, water efficiency, safety, affordability, comfort, and durability, including through electrification."

Sounds expensive. Sounds damn expensive. That sound you hear is the hooting again, among conservatives. And they have a point.

The resolution also says the government should direct "investments to spur economic development, deepen and diversify industry in local and regional economies, and build wealth and community ownership, while . . ." yada yada yada. That sounds like central planning to us. When has that ever worked?

In fact, the whole document is a great weapon in the war of words between the right and left in this country. The right can use this as a cudgel. And will. If the term "socialist" is thrown around too often in this country, this Green New Deal resolution may be a great example of proposed socialism. You can see the document for yourself here: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5729033/Green-New-Deal-FINAL.pdf

Which brings us to politics. But of course. Every road leads in that direction. And for once, it appears that the Republicans have the upper hand, and Democrats can't find a sense of humor.

The leader of the majority in the United States Senate, one Mitch McConnell, has ordered up a vote on the Green New Deal resolution. If the gentlelady from New York wants a vote, she'll get a vote.

Her fellow Democrats are ticked.

The minority leader of the Senate, who shares a state with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, took to the Senate floor to complain about the scheduled vote. He called it a "cheap, cynical, political ploy."

Politics? In the United States Senate? Consider our pearls clutched.

"You think it might embarrass Democrats to vote on a non-binding resolution that some of us may support but not others?" Sen. Chuck Schumer asked/whined. "Trust me, we'll be fine, because the American people know that our entire party believes that climate change is happening and it's caused by humans."

So . . . . The New Green Deal is the right thing to do, and how dare the Republicans ask us to vote for it?

Surely the GOP wants presidential candidates in the Senate on the record about this stuff. This is part of the process. For a better explanation of what's going on, we give Gentle Reader another Democrat in the Senate, somebody with experience in reality, Mr. Dick Durbin, the gentleman from Illinois, who told The Hill:

"How many times have Republicans tried to call up a Democrat's budget resolution and Democrats tried to call up the Republican budget resolution . . . to embarrass the president's party? This is not a new tactic, this is old school. He's going to do it, we do it. Everybody does it."

So let's vote.

Editorial on 02/24/2019

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