The climate cultists just won’t give up, will they? I wonder if the UK Guardian, which published this, realizes that a Green New Deal would restrict their ability to use fossil fuels to gather and disseminate the news? Or that solar and wind wouldn’t be able to power their operations? Since they are also against nuclear, will they hand-crank the servers? How about the two writers? Do they realize how much a GND will restrict their own lives and take their money?
Climate crisis will deepen the pandemic. A green stimulus plan can tackle both
The Covid-19 epidemic is ravaging our tattered healthcare system and shredding our economy. In the past month, over 22 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits, compounding the fear that unemployment could breach 32% absent massive public action. This is an unmitigated human disaster, recalling the horrors of the Great Depression. And it gets worse. We’re also facing the climate emergency. Immediate relief is necessary – but not sufficient. To tackle all these crises at once, we need a Green Stimulus that creates jobs and lifts up communities in ways that also slash carbon pollution, increase resiliency, and develop a just, modern economy.
The world economy right now looks like a world with a GND. Why have Warmists not made their own lives carbon neutral if they really believe?
Climate change is about to supercharge the coronavirus emergency. In April, California’s wildfire season will start. Restrictions on work caused by the pandemic will make it harder for firefighters to conduct controlled burns that steer fires – and smoke – from homes. Californians’ lungs could face Covid-19 and unusually intense smoke at the same time. A third of the country also faces serious flood risk through the spring. And in summer and fall, forecasters predict “above average probability for major hurricanes making landfall along the continental United Statesâ€. We’re already seeing this catastrophic convergence elsewhere: In Ecuador, a muted government response to flooding in indigenous communities, for fear of spreading the virus; in Fiji, devastated by Cyclone Harold this week, 19 confirmed coronavirus cases are casting doubt on how to rebuild.
Hurricanes have always happened. Some periods are up, some are down. Nothing out of the ordinary. Funny, though, because Warmists did dismiss the long periods between landfalling hurricanes, both major and minor, as an aberration. Or blamed it on ‘climate change.’ Most of the wildfires were caused by humans, either by accident or on purpose. Not a tiny uptick in CO2.
Here in the US, green stimulus is easily the best way to create good jobs through public investment. According to a 2011 World Bank study, $1m invested in the oil and gas in the United States creates just five jobs, compared to 17 jobs per million dollars invested in energy-saving building retrofits, 22 jobs for mass transit, 13 for wind, and 14 for solar. Kammen’s research and that of other institutes all concur that investment in a modern green economy is a more efficient job creator than the fossil sector.
In other words, those jobs do not pay as well.
For these reasons, we recently joined nine other experts in social and climate policy to write a letter to Congress outlining a menu of policy options for a Green Stimulus. Our proposals span eight sectors of the economy. But fundamentally, a Green Stimulus is about mobilizing massive public funds – say, $2tn to start – in specific green investments to create high-quality jobs and improve the quality of life, especially in low-income communities, communities of color, and indigenous communities, which have suffered the most disinvestment and pollution in recent decades.
It’s almost like this is really about controlling people, not science.
- Daniel Aldana Cohen is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Pennsvylania, where he directs the Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative, or (SC)2, and a senior fellow at Data for Progress @aldatweets
- Daniel Kammen is professor at the University of California, Berkeley, coordinating lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and former Science Envoy for the United States Department of State @dan_kammen
So both have a vested interest in keeping this scam going. Surprise?
