'Climate change' hypocrisy

 J. Allen Cartwright:

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Despite their dire warnings, however, leftists have been oddly reluctant to fully embrace policies that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  Although progressives have advocated for renewables such as solar and wind power, they often oppose any increase in nuclear power, a carbon-neutral and readily accessible energy source.  The far-left also disparages natural gas usage, despite the fact that the transition from coal to natural gas has lowered greenhouse gas emissions by 13% since 2005.  One would expect, at least in the short term, environmentalists to embrace nuclear and natural gas as part of a greener energy portfolio, with a corresponding reduction in coal consumption.

Although renewables have exhibited tremendous growth over the past year, a quick look at Germany's energy policy indicates that renewables are not sufficiently mature to power the entire globe.  The country's heralded transition to carbon-neutral energy has suffered from a lack of reliability, high costs, and general ineffectiveness.  Similar problems have arisen domestically, where ultra-liberal states such as California have struggled with reliability as they transition to renewables.  Even in deep-red Texas, a lack of reliability from the state's heavily subsidized wind power contributed in part to the deadly blackout that plagued residents last February.  Indeed, countries that have shut down nuclear plants have typically encountered both higher emissions and higher energy costs.

Opponents of nuclear power argue that nuclear waste and safety concerns make nuclear a non-starter.  Yet that argument doesn't withstand logical scrutiny: if the left truly believes that climate change will bring about Armageddon over the next decade, it would seem that nuclear power would be worth the risks to mitigate greenhouse gas emission.  The reality is that the progressive movement's distaste for nuclear and natural gas is driven by something far simpler: their hatred of corporate greed.  Editorials from publications such as The Hill, Bloomberg, and the Chicago Tribune have decried subsidies for nuclear energy, despite the fact that as of 2016, nuclear energy was subsidized significantly less ($365 million) at the federal level than renewables ($6.682 billion), coal ($1.26 billion) and natural gas ($773 million).  Natural gas corporations, too, incur wrath from both progressive politicians and the mainstream media.  In other words, nuclear power and natural gas are viewed by the left as "Big Energy," and, although they could be a boon in the fight against greenhouse gas emissions, progressives cannot bring themselves to embrace corporations.

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There is more.

Scientists are beginning to comprehend that "climate change" is also overrated.  Their computers are found to be wrong in their projections because they are incapable of computing the effects of clouds on the climate and are off by a significant degree.  Germany has even come around to declaring that nuclear energy and natural gas are green sources of energy.

That their projections have been wrong for the last 50 years should be hard to ignore.  They serially predicted gloom and doom 10 years out for decades since the 1970s.  While a blind hog finds an acorn every now and then so far the climate projections continue to be off.