Comments on ‘Green New Deal’
‘This isn’t just radical socialism, this is madness’
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL (February 7, 2019) – Today, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) released the outline of the “Green New Deal.” The resolution calls for the United States to embark on a 10-year “economic mobilization” with the goal to “achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers.” The plan would shut down virtually all coal, oil, and natural gas electric plants, eliminating millions of jobs in the process; spend unspecified billions on new “zero-emission vehicle infrastructure and manufacturing” and green public transit projects, and it would eliminate as many gasoline-powered vehicles “as is technologically feasible.”
The plan would also require “upgrading all existing buildings in the United States and building new buildings to achieve maximal energy efficiency,” the creation of a federal universal college education program, and it would guarantee “a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States.”
The following statements from energy and environment experts at The Heartland Institute — a free-market think tank — may be used for attribution.
“Extreme. That’s the only way to describe the socialist Green New Deal. With its failure in Venezuela, Ocasio-Cortez, Markey and their fellow democrats have picked a bad time to force socialism here in our country. Rest assured, The Heartland Institute will continue to lead the opposition to this socialist green dream.”
Tim Huelskamp, Ph.D.
President
The Heartland Institute
thuelskamp@heartland.org
312/377-4000
Dr. Huelskamp represented Kansas’ 1st District in the House of Representatives from 2011 to 2017.
“It is no coincidence that the radical socialist freshman congresswoman from New York has made the Green New Deal her top priority. In addition to bankrupting our energy economy, the Green New Deal would impose the very same programs that destroyed Venezuela, transforming the Latin American nation from a wealthy, relatively free society into a poverty-stricken totalitarian dictatorship.
“This Venezuelan model is what Ocasio-Cortez and other socialist Democrats dream for America. They realize that a contrived climate crisis provides their best opportunity to amass the power to do so.”
Senior Fellow for Environmental Policy
The Heartland Institute
“Justifying the need for the Green New Deal on the alarmist and unscientific reports by the International Panel on Climate Change would turn America into a socialist state because of a lie.
“Despite what this resolution states, human activity is not the ‘dominant cause of observed climate change over the past century.’ Sea levels are not rising at a dangerous and accelerated rate. Storms, droughts, and wildfires are not more frequent, nor are they more severe than in even recent history. And the truth is that the United States, by embracing market-driven forces in energy production, is seeing carbon dioxide emissions fall while that of our more-socialist friends overseas is on the rise.
“In a way, the socialist Green New Deal and the IPCC are a perfect match. Both peddle fantasy and not fact.”
Jay Lehr
Science Director
The Heartland Institute
“There are numerous socialist policies mandated under the Green New Deal that would harm tens of millions Americans and drive up the national debt to unsustainable heights. Just some of those policies include single-payer health care, a national tuition-free college program, a promise to provide every American with ‘healthy food,’ a national basic income program, a universal promise for housing and ‘economic security,’ and a plan to ‘upgrade’ every single building in the country, including every American’s home. This isn’t just radical socialism, this is madness.”
Justin Haskins
Executive Editor
The Heartland Institute
The Heartland Institute is a 35-year-old national nonprofit organization headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems.
I am stunned by the utter stupidity of these guys oops girls. Just imagine alone the jobs that would be lost if all the airplanes in the USA were grounded tomorrow. This alone would put the economy in a tail spin.
OK and gasoline guzzling cars are now illegal. Everybody tomorrow is driving their electric car to work. The demand for electricity would shut down the grid almost instantly. I would guess that even if you could supply it the amount of new power needed would be unbelievable. Would not be surprised if 10 times more would not be enough to keep everything going. I suspect that it would be 50 or 100 times or more. OK where are you going to get all that extra power? We know that wind mills and solar are basically useless. So that means building hundreds if not thousands of new electricity power plants run by good old fashioned coal and natural gas to supply it. The good old USA has got lots of coal and gas. But whats the point all these needed new power plants would still be putting huge amounts of CO2 in to the atmosphere. So what would be the difference? We still would be doing that but in a different way. And yes I know that CO2 is a good thing. I am not criticizing that.
Their lack of any brains is astounding, can’t they think anything through.
Heres another thing and that is the amount of power in those 2 huge engines to say get a big Boeing 787 in to the air. The amount of raw energy supplied by the kerosene fuel is huge. You could not supply that with electricity from a battery and even if you could the battery would be took big and way too heavy. The airplane would never get off the ground and would have a significantly reduced payload. Totally out of the question and even if you could do that which you cannot you could not get to your destination. You would run the huge batteries down very quickly. The power drain would be massive. Typically a big airliner engines uses say something like 600 kg of fuel just to taxi from the gate to the runway.
Cheers from a cold Canadian freezing in the dark. Anybody and all like to contribute so I can fly south to Florida in a gas guzzling Boeing? So I can thaw out.
Implementing communism (let’s not pretend what they are advocating is socialism lite, what they are describing is pure communism) is bad enough. Tying it together with mandating only energy sources that can barely produce as much energy as it took to build is a guarantee of civil war and millions of dead.
I started reading the New Green Deal and stopped when I read something about racial injustice in it. At that point I knew it was hogwash.
Took you that long? Well, points for making the attempt I suppose.
The Heartland Institute is worth our support Venezuela has been run on exactly these lines.
Thank You Democratic Socialists for this gift. We will use it to maximum effect
My son calls it “The Green Leap Forward” in memory of Mao’s “Great Leap Forward”. It fits.
Should be the “Green Leap BACKWARD.”
I believe in their proposal they acknowledge that zero emissions is not possible so they are looking for net zero emissions, which I guess means carbon credits and a robust carbon trading market. What could possibly go wrong with that?
/sarc
All I can say, even if this were technically feasible (which of course it is not), to have the Government run this huge change in our economy is suicide. First of all it will cost 10 times what it would need to cost and would work one-tenth as well if private company acted to implement it.
Anyone remember after the billions and billions that the Government spent on putting together a simple Obamacare website. When they flipped the switch, only a dozen people a day could purchase healthcare. This was also repeated as failures on state run websites also.
To a kid starting out, 10 years from now must seem like an eternity away,
but to the more wiser amongst us, we know it is just a blink
As has been said many times before, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. If the SCotUS doesn’t squash most, if not all, of their plans, look for states, from the borders of Mexico to Canada, to secede. It will be quite simple if it comes to that. By then, anyone with assets, skills, incomes, or intelligence will have moved to one of those states. Perhaps legislatures in those states will enact pre-emptive “sanctuary state” laws saying they will not participate in any of these proposed government programs.
The east and west coast morons can watch each other starve. If it comes to a physical confrontation, guess which side has all the guns and ammo.
Wealth, guns, income. Want it? Molon Labe. And I’m one of the more peaceful, non-violent, non-confrontational guys.
“Guess which side has all the guns and ammo.”
Indeed, one side has 350 million weapons and maybe a trillion rounds of ammo, while the other side can’t work out which bathroom to use.
This is not a serious proposal, of course. If the GND was at all serious about weaning the country off of fossil fuels, front and center would be Nuclear Power, straight up. To go one step further, we would be talking Thorium, as well as Uranium. There is no other possibility.
Above, MarkV1 frets that China will steal a march on us if we do not go down this path. This is a standard talking point from the Left by now. Curiously both China and India have vigorous Thorium programs. They very well could steal a march on us with our moribund nuclear industry.
Of course, to the modern Left, and nuclear proposal is more radioactive and lethal than any nuke plant ever was.
So the GND is not serious, but it is dangerous. Very dangerous.
They are promising Free Stuff to the Free Stuff Brigades, and the troops are turning out in force.
Vast numbers of young people want free college and free health care. Worse, they feel entitled as this is their Right. Free “Clean and Green” is just more of the package.
Dangerous. Very Dangerous.
Seriously move to Australia before it’s too late.
If you’re young, you have less than 50-years.
If you’re old, it’s too late.
Socialist hell is coming to America.
The ‘billionaires’ are currently paying for it and there’s very little anyone can do about it (including Trump & Co).
Do you think the billionaires are incompetent investors?
Don’t be rediculous! Australia has its own complement of green lunatics and imbeciles.
Folks,
We’ve seen this before.
It (the Green gambit) is an effort to dominate the political conversation via
flooding the idea market to see what floats and what doesn’t catch on with
the voting public.
An omnibus plan like the “Green New Deal” is a bit like a smorgasbord. where
you can either try a little bit of everything or just stick with the meat and potatoes
with a bit of dessert at the end.
It does no good to name-call the proponents of such lofty ideas… they wear such
epithets as badges of courage, proudly considering them as battle scars.
If you successfully pick apart one part of the “Deal” they’ll simply move on to
another aspect of the plan and you get to play the game again. Meanwhile they
lambaste you for being obstructionists or worse.
The “Deal” is an opening move in power politics.
As the Queen recommended to the pro/con Brexit folks, be polite.
She won’t get a second term. The Democrats won’t allow it and anyone who thinks they can’t stop her is naive. She’s already recognized as a loose canon and along with the other radical house members recently elected ….. all on platforms of Socialism and minority appeasement …. people are taking notice of the beast that’s been created. That beast only plays in big cities and universities where the majority, but not all, are disconnected from reality in the USA. Successful minorities, and there are many more than unsuccessful, don’t want the American status quo upset because they worked for it and it works for them. Yes my glass is half full.
Nah ….it’s just twice as big as it should be …
8>))
Thomas Sowell said: “Activism is a way for useless people to feel important, even if the consequences of their activism are counterproductive for those they claim to be helping and damaging to the fabric of society as a whole.”
There is only one type of person who could come up with this idea.
First part of the word rhymes with duck, the second part is wit.
Let’s just be thankful that their entire green wet dream would require tearing up the entire constitution, so it has no chance of actually happening. More likely it will just result in middle america moving more towards the GOP in the next election, while the liberal echo chamber on the coasts whip themselves into a frenzy.
The only real risks I see are 1) if Trump wins reelection, the Calexit movement may very well proceed in earnest, with the end being either mass arrests for treason or outright civil war, and 2) if the libs win, their only chance to implement any of this nonsense is to proceed with their “stack the court” strategy, which could also lead to civil war.
And having California exit would be bad because? (Note, I live in SoCal.)
When Trump wins re-election.
There, fixed it for you.
As for the rest of that, CA is not going anywhere.
They need us more than we need them.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) is that special kind of stupid that keeps on giving to Republicans across the Nation. Joined now with his fellow traveler AO-C. One could add their two IQs together and still not break a 100.
Snarky Malarky and Coco Loco Cortez – Chief editor and publisher of “The Deranged Donkey” . When the world is gonna end in 10 , sanity is not an option, and you’re planning on running in 12, what do you have to lose ?
And should this madness come to pass, thus will begin the next civil war!
What is the difference between a government job for those unwilling to work and forced labor camps?
Eerily similar cut-and-paste of the 2015 “Leap Manifesto,” … authored by a who’s who of Canadian “eco-socialists” and leftists, such as Naomi Klein … environmentalist David Suzuki … and 350.org … Bill McKibben.”
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-green-new-deal-is-actually-an-old-socialist-plan-from-canada
“Given Ocasio-Cortez’s direct connections to former members of McKibben’s 350.org and the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, as well as the close similarities between the language of the Green New Deal and the policies proposed by key environmentalists involved with the “Leap Manifesto,” it seems very likely much of the Green New Deal is nothing more than a recycled version of a failed, three-year-old socialist proposal from Canada.”
I have not had time to read the comments and see how many have considered the farmers ability to continue.
Are they going back to horses or use half their farm to produce ethanol? Either way it takes a lot of energy to produce high yield crops.
“Are they going back to horses”
Well, the Green New Deal proposes to do away with cattle because they produce methane gas as part of their biology, and I think that probably applies to horses, too, so we may have to resort to harnessing humans to pull those carts and wagons.
The resolution calls for the United States to embark on a 10-year “economic mobilization” with the goal to “achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions…”
Let’s say they manage to accomplish their impossible fantasy in ten years. What good will it do? Other countries will not be stupid enough or able to afford to do the same thing. So if 4.4% of the world’s population living on 6% of the world’s land are able to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, it won’t put a dent in the worldwide emission rate. The fossil fuels we don’t use will be scooped up by other countries at a discount rate. China and India alone will increase their emissions by more than what we currently emit in short order. That means we will spend trillions to accomplish nothing except to destroy our economy and make us ripe for takeover by our enemies.
Yes. This is really not about taking action on global warming. The universal demand among the climate activists is that the US shall take hugely expensive actions which will obviously, on the most basic analysis, neither lower US emissions materially nor affect global emissions at all.
What you notice is that there is never any explanation of what the effect of the proposed measures will be.
This is a cultural crisis, not a climate crisis. There may or may not be a global climate crisis, but the US cultural crisis is the widespread mania for doing things which, if the alarmed are correct, is a totally ineffective response to it.
The US, and not just the US, but the US to a greater extent than any other nation, has spent the last 50 years teaching its entire population of college students that reality is whatever you think it is. The products of the Left Bank nonsense factory dominate liberal arts faculties, and AOC as a typical product of the culture has no idea how even to think connectedly.
And so it seems reasonable to her to propose eliminating US fossil fuel use in ten years, and it doesn’t occur to her or her supporters that you might need any kind of plan to show the stages of how that would be brought about and what the country would look like. And it also seems reasonable to her to do this in the name of solving the climate crisis, without it being at all necessary to specify what quantitative effects the action, even were it sucessful in itself, could have on the climate crisis.
The current American cultural revolution began sometime in the sixties. It continued to gather momentum through the early decades of the present century. We are now approaching Thermidor, and the reaction will begin. Trump is only a precursor of it. When it comes with full force it will be unmistakable, very far reaching, and dramatic.
After Thermidor comes some form of authoritarian rule focussed on completely different matters from those which dominated the revolution. They vanish from view, they simply become irrelevant, no-one thinks about them any more. And a while after that, we have the Restoration.
Rebuilding or upgrading all buildings in the United States would require a lot of seasoned timber as it is the typical framing material. and it would need to move by rail and truck so the building will need a lot of time to be completed.. Global Warming will be upon us by then according to the received opinion.
As to to the builders, these days they need to be qualified and they use electrical tools !
Where do all the builders come from if they cannot travel by air? By ship? At present many professional building technicians travel around the world to scenes of disasters. They won’t go where they need hammers and handsaws.
Jobless youths can be trained if they have the aptitude but that takes time and where are the instructors to come from?
Imagine the wasted energy and resources involved in these rebuilds/upgrades.
It is usually pretty wasteful to demo something long before its useful lifetime is approaching.
I have tremendous respect for bartenders. I’ve known some great ones. The one at my local is near perfect.
I would never vote for him to be anything other than a bartender, though.
I mean, we elected our AOC as Prime Minister up here in Canada so we can’t really brag about getting things right, but still…