Pirate's Cove

We’ll be more secure while deal with rolling brownouts and blackouts, planned power outages, and giant energy bills under the plan (and lots more bad things, but energy is the specific topic). And the inability to travel very far or often. Thor Hogan attempts to tell us why this would be great

The best sales pitch for the Green New Deal

The Green New Deal has faced a bevy of criticism since its introduction, most of it from climate-denying Republicans. Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Sen. Edward J. Markey (Mass.) have led the charge for the proposal with an emphasis on its potential economic benefits as the pathway to victory. But an equally good argument, and one that may even bring skeptics and Republicans into the fold, involves the national security benefits of fighting the climate crisis.

Put bluntly, the Green New Deal is the biggest step we can take toward a more secure America.

For nearly two decades, since 9/11, most Americans have been convinced that Middle East-based terrorism is the greatest threat to our nation. What most of us failed to ask, however, was why we were targeted. After the attacks, cable news anchors asked “Why do they hate us?” without really seeming to care about the answer.

The explanation isn’t particularly complicated. For close to three-quarters of a century, Americans have involved themselves in the domestic politics of many countries in the Middle East, often with little regard for how those actions affected the residents of these nations. Unsurprisingly, this behavior angered many people in the region.

Gotta love the Leftist belief that the attack on 9/11 was our own fault, eh?

Anyway, Thor jumps through an interesting look at oil production since World War II, how it gave power to the Middle East and particularly Saudi Arabia (failing to mention much of America’s problems with our own production is due to Leftist’s blocking drilling and new refineries here in America)

The costs of this decision have been immense. American foreign policy became focused on four objectives: to persuade the region’s oil-producing nations to increase production and avoid embargoes; to provide them with military aid to ensure their internal and external security; to encourage the discovery and development of new oil fields; and to send U.S. military forces to the region if required to guarantee the flow of oil to America’s allies.

As a result, the United States found itself engaged in three petroleum-related wars over a quarter-century, which cost us thousands of lives and at least $4 trillion — costs that never show up at the pump. At the same time, we earned the hatred of millions of people who were oppressed by the autocratic rulers we kept in place to do our bidding. Some of them joined terrorist organizations that aimed to punish the “Great Satan.”

Interestingly, the only war that was really about oil was the one Obama launched with France and Britain against Libya, meant to protect the flow of oil to those two countries when Libya was in a civil war.

This is where the Green New Deal can come in. As a former energy secretary and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Bill Richardson, has written, “Every American can make the intuitive connection between global dependence on Middle Eastern oil, dissent in Middle Eastern societies, and terrorist attacks on the United States.” Removing ourselves from the region would eliminate this problem. If we depart, anger toward our nation would fade over time, as would the threat to our country.

So, we’re going to drill our own oil, right? Because the U.S. has a ton of proven oil fields. Heck, we can also get a lot from Canada. This would make everything go, right?

Adoption of a Green New Deal would make this possible by providing newly developed clean energy supplies to power electric vehicle fleets as they enter the market en masse. If we don’t need Middle Eastern oil because renewables are providing us with what we require, then we don’t need to intervene in the region in toxic ways.

See? It’s so simple! We’ll simply wave our magic wand and everyone will have electric vehicles in their driveways powered by unicorn farts and pixie dust. It would be great if we (and a goodly chunk of the world) didn’t need Middle East oil: we could leave that region to mostly burn. But, since the world is nowhere close to being able to replace oil with “clean energy supplies” at this time, and won’t be for there’s no telling how long, this is just another pipe dream.

Read: The Green New Deal Can Provide For America’s Security Or Something »