Biden against the environment

 David Harsanyi:

In anticipation of Thursday’s virtual Leaders Summit on Climate, a two-day global gathering of more than 40 world leaders, President Joe Biden declared that the United States had a “moral imperative” to adopt an “ambitious” goal of cutting greenhouse-gas emissions by 50 percent from 2005 levels by 2030 and 100 percent by 2050.

Such an effort, if we were serious about it, would entail massive destruction of wealth, a surrender of our international trade advantages, the creation of a hugely intrusive state-run bureaucracy at home, the inhibition of free markets that have helped make the world a cleaner place, and a precipitous drop in the living standards of most citizens — especially the poor.

Of course, it should be said that those who oppose the expansion of fracking and nuclear energy — most elected Democrats, it seems — aren’t even remotely serious about “tackling” carbon emissions, anyway. Around 80 percent of American energy is generated by fossil fuels and nuclear right now. Around 20 percent is generated by “renewables” — predominantly wind and hydropower (which is unavailable in most places). Only around 2 percent of our portfolio consists of inefficient and unreliable solar power — this, even after decades of subsidies and mandates.

It’s always funny to hear people speak about solar panels as if they were some sort of cutting-edge technology. The discovery of the photovoltaic effect goes back to 1888. President Jimmy Carter declared a national “Sun Day” in 1978 and put 30 solar panels atop the White House. One of those panels is now on display at the Science and Technology Museum in China — not only the top producer of solar panels and carbon emissions, but also the nation that would most benefit from the United States’ unilateral economic capitulation.

To reach Biden’s goal, the United States would need to envelop most of the nation in panels and windmills, and then rely on enormous Gaian prayer circles — may she grant us sunshine and gale-force winds. We would be compelled to eliminate most air travel and cars — making new ones produces lots of carbon emissions — and retrofit every home, factory, warehouse, and building in America to utilize this type of energy. We would need to dramatically cut back on our meat and dairy intake as well.

“The signs are unmistakable, the science undeniable,” Biden claimed. “Cost of inaction keeps mounting.” Now, I realize that people repeat these contentions with religious zeal, but the evidence is extraordinarily weak. For one thing, there is action. Market innovations keep creating efficiencies all the time. For another, we live in the healthiest, most equitable, most prosperous, most safe, and most peaceful era in human existence. Affordable fossil fuels have done more to eliminate poverty than all the redistributionist programs ever concocted. By nearly every quantifiable measure, the environment is also in better shape now than it was 20, 30, or even 50 years ago. A lot of that is grounded by an economy that relies on affordable energy. Also, though every weather-related event is framed in a cataclysmic way, not that long ago, being killed by the climate was serious concern for most people. Today, it is incredibly rare.

Progressives, however, regularly maintain that we are facing an existential crisis. One might point out that science’s predictive abilities on climate have been atrocious. But, really, these days, “science” is nothing but a cudgel to push leftist policy prescriptions with little consideration for tradeoffs, reality, or morality.
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Projections and predictions of the end of the world have a long record of being wrong.  The same is true of climate change doom and gloom.  For over the last 50 years there have been several predictions that we have only 10 years to save the planet.  Do I have to tell you that they have all been wrong?  The north and south poles are still not "ice-free" and New York City is not underwater.

  Biden who has a long history of being wrong about almost everything is wrong again but this time he is going to try to destroy the economy to save it.