Guest post by Timothy Nerenz, Ph.D.
Earlier this year, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced the Green New Deal (GND), a public policy initiative whose central goal is de-carbonize the U.S economy in 12 years. She described GND as her millennial generation’s “World War II” and dismissed the question of how to pay for it with the response, “you just pay for it”. With all due respect to the Congresswoman, you don’t “just pay for it”, you pay someone to do it.
Just what is the “it” and who is the “someone” of the Green New Deal? In a recently published peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Human Resources and Sustainability Studies, I examined the scope of industrial mobilization that would be required to realize GND sustainability goals and proposed a conceptual blueprint and strategy to achieve them in the shortest feasible timeframe. Those who care to read it in its entirety can to so here: Thinking Inside The Box
But for those who wish to avoid slogging through the methodologies and citations of an academic paper, the bottom line is this: the millennials’ war on carbon might actually be winnable in a 20-year time span, but only if they are willing leave college and devote their working lives to producing the roughly $53 trillion of Green New Things which must be in place before carbon energy can be banned without completely collapsing the U.S. economy and starving the population. The journal article takes no position on climate change issues and does not argue for or against GND, it merely fills in the blanks so advocates and opponents alike can have some sense of what they are actually proposing and opposing. In strategic decision-making, the common vernacular for this step is a “sanity check”.
We know how many more wind turbines it will take to generate 100 quadrillion BTUs of energy, and we know how many of miles of high-speed rail it will take to replace aviation. We know the number of farms to be re-fitted with electric tractors and combines and such; we know the number of cars and trucks on the roads, and the numbers of off-road trucks, bulldozers, cranes, shovels, graders, and other diesel-powered equipment to be replaced. We know the number and configuration of new production facilities – factories, mills, refineries, mines, shops, etc. – that will be needed to make and service all this new stuff.
From there it is a matter of applying appropriate industry costing rules of thumb and available statistics on capacities and productivity curves for various construction and production processes to model out a matrix of time versus human capital applied to produce $53 trillion of Green New Things, and then identifying the barriers that would have to be eliminated to shorten the duration. The math is not particularly difficult – not nearly as complicated as predicting the average temperature of the whole planet at some distant point in the future. 24 million (mostly) millennials immediately repurposed to urgent GND industrial production could conceivably pull it off with a 20-year surge in manufacturing output and new product development. The keyword is conceivable, not certain or probable.
The historical record of World War II mobilization provides a template for the requisite urgent industrial mobilization of GND – Rep. Ocasio-Cortez got that one right. In constant dollars, GND is 26 times greater of an undertaking than the earlier wartime mobilization, but the blueprint left to us by the millennials’ great-grandparents offers the pathway to 20-year GND realization, provided a three-part strategy to replicate its productive ecosystem is immediately undertaken as the nation’s #1 priority, with numbers 2-n placed into indefinite hibernation:
• doubling of the current U.S. industrial base: building new factories, steel mills, mines, refineries, power generation facilities, and logistics terminals to produce Green New Things
• deconstruction of 65% of post-secondary education: repurposing of students, faculty, and staff to industrial mobilization, replicating the intellectual bandwidth of the 1940s mobilization workforce
• roll-back of the regulatory climate to 1940 levels: re-creating the conditions under which wartime mobilization was entrusted to the capable hands of capitalist industrial entrepreneurs.
Wait, what? Why deconstruct post-secondary? Because the most underappreciated characteristic of the Greatest Generation’s astonishing World War II achievement – indeed its secret sauce – was the intellectual profile of the work-force that was repurposed to wartime industrial production. In 1940, less than 5% of the adult population held college degrees, leaving most of the right half of the IQ bell curve available for duty in the nation’s factories, mills, mines, ports, and terminals, where 600,000 private firms and 24 million bright young housewives and farmhands spontaneously ordered themselves overnight to win the “war on can’t”.
And where we find an available not-working source of similarly suitable human capital to be immediately repurposed to GND mobilization? The first 16 million are sitting in college classrooms pursuing market-surplus and unwanted degree majors; the next 3 million are recent degree holders who are unemployed or under-employed and planning to return to school in hopes of salvaging sunk costs. Vacated classrooms will not need professors and staff and administrators, so another 1.5 million can be added to the tally. Each year, more will graduate from high school to volunteer for service in the cause of averting planetary extinction.
As one might expect, a proposal to deconstruct post-secondary has not been met with wild enthusiasm by my colleagues in academia, despite their overwhelming support for GND in the abstract. But to borrow another idea from the original New Deal, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Deconstructing post-secondary by 2/3 would simply return it to the population proportions of 1972, my freshman year in college. There was no acute shortage of doctors, lawyers, teachers, therapists, nurses, philosophers, historians, architects, engineers, scientists, accountants, managers, and myriad other degreed professionals back then. We will be ok.
The second GND show-stopper is the current regulatory climate, which must be almost completely abolished, another idea not warmly received by GND advocates on campus, but necessary nonetheless. A case in point: replacing commercial aviation will require installation of over 46,000 miles of high-speed rail in 20 years, and operating within the current regulatory regime, the California HSR Authority has spent ten years and billions of dollars not-building a planned paltry 800 miles of the stuff. When the project was finally abandoned this year without a single usable mile of trackway to show for their trouble, the projected completion date had stretched to infinity, plus or minus never. We can have GND or we can keep the regulatory state, but we cannot do both.
And so there it is – a strategy for GND realization from a most unlikely source, a retired industry executive turned B-school professor. To win the millennials’ war on carbon in 20 years, we must immediately double industrial sector capacity, deconstruct post-secondary education by 65% while repurposing its inhabitants to a lifetime of industrial production, and roll back regulations to 1940 levels so that our American capitalists are left alone do what they do best unimpeded, namely get things done.
If the alternative to GND is indeed the certain Climate Change apocalypse its advocates promise, it is difficult to imagine what objections they may have to a plan that would avert it. And it is equally difficult to imagine why GND’s ideological opponents might take issue with re-industrialization, deregulation, and reliance on free-market capitalism, regardless of their opinions of climate science. “Moral truths” aside, the plain truth of GND is that $53 trillion of Green New Things will not build themselves, they will not be Tweeted into existence, and they will not appear magically by government decree.
So let the GND debate resume, only with a clear understanding of what it will take to walk the talk should it adopted as the nation’s top public policy priority.
Article reference:
Nerenz, T. (2019). “Thinking inside the box: A blueprint for Green New Deal industrial mobilization and strategy for human capital repurposing”. Journal of Human Resource and Sustainability Studies. Vol 7 No.3 Sept 2019
Author Bio:
Timothy Nerenz, Ph.D is a retired manufacturing industry executive turned business professor who has written and taught graduate courses in strategy, strategic decision-making, leadership, transformational change, and business law & ethics. He is currently a professor in The Graduate School at University of Maryland Global Campus and teaches in the MBA program at UMGC locations throughout Europe.
Just think, AOC is the future of politicians. The USA will be Chicken Littled out of existence.
With useful side effects like those, the green new deal might actually be a good idea.
Also building all these “green” things will create enough CO2 to keep the planet greening for many years.
You forgot to mention that eliminating the current regulations strangling development will free up large numbers of lawyers and bureaucrats to do the unskilled labour.
The total commitment of America to WW2 is easy to trivialize. This interesting link puts it in perspective.
WW2 was relatively simple. Beat the Axis powers. The GND is anything but simple.
WW2 taxes on the rich reached 94%. Everybody bought war bonds. About half the cost was still covered by borrowing.
Given the current national debt, it is quite possible that the GND could not be financed.
Many consumer goods weren’t available. As many resources as possible were dedicated to military use.
No conflict since WW2 has had anywhere near the effect on the economy that it had. The folks who remember WW2 aren’t walking the halls of power any more. That’s a problem.
Once again, AOC demonstrates her cluelessness.
In the gussied up version of history about the good war, WWII, nothing is said about the growing dissatisfaction of the American public with the conflict before its end. The GND will require enormous loans (bonds) from the public, all public savings, high taxes, lack of many goods, and then probably some labor at way below market rates–then, as our author states, some mechanism to force a large number of people into productive, but underpaid, work.
Just like war, destruction of current wealth, which the GND implicitly demands, will have to be paid for in some way.
There was rationing. You could get one pound of coffee every five weeks. This led to the popularity of Postum. Yummm. Tastes like burned wheat. For some reason, my mother liked it and foisted it on her children in the 1950s and 1960s, long after there was any reason to do so. You can’t give your kids coffee anyway but there’s no reason to inflict ‘that’ on them.
Wartime rationing pervaded all aspects of human life. Actually, it sounds a lot like life in Cuba. Our ancestors fought hard to avoid that kind of existence. Does AOC realize what she’s proposing?
commieBob
Family legend has it that because of meat rationing, my parents moved from Illinois to Nebraska. My father would go out hunting after work everyday. We were ‘forced’ to eat pheasant when he couldn’t shoot any rabbits.
Bring back the draft!
Brilliant article. I’ve always been amused by the fact that the vast majority of Progressives who promote these ideas always expect that it will be someone else who will be doing the hard, physical work, any paying for it. Of all the avowed socialists I knew in school, absolutely none of them envisioned their futures as one of “the workers”.
I’ve also been arguing that like WWII, we will need to draft millions of these millennials to build a massive army to send overseas. China, India and others will not decarbonize just because we do or because we ask nicely. Unless they do as we do, it’s all very pointless, isn’t it?
Nice article which puts some structure into what is at its foundation a nutty idea. But as others pointed out, a large problem is motivating a very large workforce, much of which has none of the requisite skills, perhaps no skills at all, to do the work. Public support for the GND, especially by the elite, is largely based on a cognitive problem. As I said elsewhere, the elite are operating under a delusion that the GND will allow them to maintain their wealth and privileged lifestyles, and at the same time completely reform society to quiet their neuroses–stop the voices in their heads, so to speak. A recognition that this is not possible, that the task is more than just hiring someone else to do the work, might slow them down.
When one decides to abandon fossil fuels as fuels, one is abandoning the economy of scale that allows for cheap plastics, weatherproofing materials, and road pavement, and a host of other products. The production of steel, to continually maintain the economy with the needed replacement of specialty steels in particular, can’t be done with scrap put into electric furnaces. It requires some new primary production which uses coke or some other reducer. Electronics grade silicon uses coke in its production. Estimates of 53 trillion for a complete remake of the economy I think is a WAG. But even if accurate, 53 trillion over 20 years far exceeds current total savings. Maybe we could go into what this implies, which is not pretty, in another post.
Will 1.6 million wind turbines be enough to meet current electrical demand PLUS the recharging needs of 250 million private vehicles, 20 million trucks, a million or more earth-moving rigs, tens of thousands of electric locomotives for transport and five thousand or so for freight, a few hundred thousand tractors and combines, and a couple million irrigation pumps?
And have you accounted for cost overruns, which afflict roughly 100 percent of large construction projects?
We’re going to need to plant some more magic money trees, I fear.
The above guest post by Dr. Nerenz has so many shortcomings one hardly knows where to begin.
Take this statement: “The math is not particularly difficult – . . .” Well, that is not true if one takes a global perspective in evaluating de-carbonizing the U.S economy in 12 years . . . and no revolutionary breakthroughs are assumed during that interval.
Based on current knowledge, the is NO WAY to replace the CO2-emitting ICE engines (this includes jet turbines) that are needed to power commercial and military aircraft high speed aircraft. Even biofuels or completely synthetic fuels that can provide the necessary energy-density ultimately burn carbon compounds with oxygen from ambient air, thereby unavoidably producing CO2. And there is no possibility for electric battery technology to power such aircraft, especially for the hours it takes to cross oceans of the world.
So, what is the simple math that accounts for the effects (monetary, physical/medical, national security, etc.) on the US from being unable to transport people, commercial products, and defensive/offensive weapons at speeds greater than, say, 50 mph, around the world:
— including the math of the US losing it’s status as a world power?
— including the math of the US becoming non-competitive in sending highly-perishable produce and high-priority parcels with countries outside of the land-connected Americas?
— including the math of the increase in world terrorism and nation-against-nation conflicts as the US slowly degrades in trade and military power?
Next, consider these statements, also taken from the above article: “We know how many more wind turbines it will take to generate 100 quadrillion BTUs of energy, and we know how many of miles of high-speed rail it will take to replace aviation.” Practically, NO, WE DON’T:
a) We don’t have any idea of the failure rate of the type(s) of turbines that would needed to be produce 100 quadrillion BTU of energy, nor do have any idea of the cost (based on math, simple or not) of acquiring the land on which to site these tens of millions of wind turbines since such planning has not yet been done,
b) How many miles of high-speed rail will be required (based on math, simple or not) to replace ocean-crossing aviation? (N.B., I find that I’m shocked at even having to post this question.)
I could go on and on, but need I?
Gordon
It’s ok, greta is coming over to you. She will put you all on the right road.
Tonyb
Electric combines ??? I know an international rep. for a major ag equipment co.
Never heard a peep about any such thing .
Will ask about any R&D .Probably on the unicorn farm …. 😉
Try making new steel from iron ore with fossil fuels. There has to be carbon or carbon compounds somewhere to combine with the oxygen in iron ore (and thereby emit CO2). Electric arc furnaces that start with scrap steel can be (sort of, if you squint a bit) carbon-free, but there’s only so much scrap steel. Once iron ore comes into the picture, fossil fuels must be present too, whether it’s in a blast furnace, a direct-reduced iron furnace, or an electric arc furnace.
Then there’s the limestone flux needed to remove impurities (mostly silica) from crude iron ore. It gives off its CO2 to the exhaust gas stream and ends up as slag.
I suppose the carbon-free GNDUSA could import scrap steel from other countries (China and India being the usual suspects) where they will still be using fossil fuels. Exporting your carbon emissions seems to be palatable because ….. just because.
Then they can try making cement for all this new infrastructure without fossil fuels, and without emitting all the CO2 that’s tied up in the limestone feed.
Oh, yes, of course, CCS. It’s theoretically possible in steel making and cement making. But is it practical? Has it even been tried?
Jokes about sailing ships aside, there is no conceivable way for a modern merchant marine to be “carbon-free” without having nuclear-powered ships. It’s not that difficult, just ask the US Navy. If the promoters of GND can’t accept that, they are either blind to self-evident facts, or terminally ignorant, or just not very bright. Possibly even all three; they are politicians after all.
BTW, we had our own version of the GND in Canada, years before you guys thought of it, even before Justin ascended to the throne. It was called Leap, or LEAP, or something like that. It seems to have disappeared without a trace. So don’t panic, the same thing will surely happen to GND.
A friend sent me this summary of coal plants in the world and what the future plans are. So, if the GND shuts down 15 coal power plants, that represents 0.27% of the total actual and planned coal power plants in the world. Now that is worth $79 Trillion dollars!
I have not verified these comments:
The following shows the major problems with carbon emissions. The US produces a fraction of the world’s total and the rest of the nations shown below will do nothing. This is why the left wingers use climate warming as a speaking point and when asked what the rest of the planet is doing, they will not respond because there is proof they once more, the content of their speeches are without basis or fact.
Subject: ??How many coal plants are there in the world today?
I checked to see if this was true:??
https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants
I am sure you know people who would enjoy this.
Subject: How many coal plants are there in the world today?
The EU has 468 – building 27 more… Total: 495
Turkey has 56 – building 93 more.. Total: 149
South Africa has 79 – building 24 more.. Total: 103
India has 589 – building 446 more… Total? 1036
Philippines has 19 – building 60 more… Total????79
South Korea has 58 – building 26 more… Total??84
Japan has 90 – building 45 more… Total??135
China has 2,363 – building 1,171 more… Total??3,534
That’s 5,615 projected coal powered plants in just 8 countries.
USA has 15 – building 0 more…Total??15??
And Democrat politicians with their “green new deal want to shut down those 15 plants in order to “save the planet.
This is EXCELLENT!!?? I knew the rough idea about the number of coal plants, but had not yet seen actual numbers until now.
This makes the point. Whatever the USA does or doesn’t do won’t make a Tinker’s Dam regarding CO2 unless the rest of the world especially China and India reduce coal-fired power plants, too.
Green New Deal???
Oh, we will SAVE the planet!!
Dr. Bob, I think your friend misled you on the number of coal-fired power plants in the US, and very likely on the numbers for the other countries you listed.
According to the EIA (https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/eia860m/ ; you will have to download and sort the linked May 2019 Excel file): as of May 2017, the US had exactly 500 OPERATING coal-fired-conventional-steam power plants with a nameplate capacity of 100 MW or greater.
Beyond this, for reference, as of May 2019, the US had 1263 OPERATING natural gas fired combined cycle power plants and 475 OPERATING natural gas fired gas turbine power plants and 225 OPERATING natural gas fired steam turbine power plants, in all cases tabulating only power plants with a nameplate capacity of 100 MW or greater.
Who in their right mind seriously believes just these 2,463 electricity-generating, fossil fuel-powered large power plants can be replaced by ANY alternate technology within a 20 year time span from now, even under a “crash program”?
“De-carbonizing” the US? . . . pfffftttt!
Sorry, folks, but one typo identified and a clarification regarding my previous post (above):
Typo, in second paragraph, it should read “. . . as of May 2019 . . .” (reference to “2017” was a typo).
My use of the phrase “power plant” was to indicate a single generating unit (with nameplate capacity above 100 MW) . . . what the EIA Excel table has indexed as “Generator ID”. This was not meant to refer to a named power plant facility, which can include more than one identified generator. For example, the Shawnee power plant facility in Kentucky has 9 separate conventional coal fire steam turbine generators, each with a nameplate capacity of 175 MW.
Nevertheless, there hundreds of separate coal fired steam turbine power plant FACILITIES in the US (per EIA Excel spreadsheet “Plant Name” entries), not just the 15 alluded to by Dr. Bob.
Much more sorry this time folks. 🙁
In further examining details within the EIA downloadable Excel spreadsheet that I referenced above, I have discovered that the EIA designation of “conventional steam coal” under “Technology” for specific generators within the US is misleading: there is another column labeled “Energy Source Code” that indicates “DFO” or “NG” for natural gas for many of the generators listed as “conventional steam coal”. This reveals that most such “coal” technology-identified generators have in fact been converted to burn natural gas or distillate fuel oil.
In fact, the May 2019 data base lists only 20 generators above 100 MW nameplate capacity that are still burning bituminous coal to produce steam, and these are contained within just 16 separate power plant facilities.
Facts matter, and I do strive to be factual in my posts.
So, with apologies, Dr. Bob in his above post was closer to being CORRECT than incorrect with his reference to just 15 (large output capacity) coal fired power plants being currently operational within the US.
Hey Gordon, you are approaching the math model wrong. You cannot really add up the nameplates of existing and infer that is what it takes to run US.
Many existing plants sit idle for months in the Spring and Fall, and then may run full-bore only during Peak in the hottest of Summer for Air Conditioning. The concept is sometimes called “Time of Production” and “Time of Use.” An optimized Generation system would align Time of Production and Time of Use — but with all the over-built Coal and Nukes baseload, which have to run all night without regard to low demand, and then cannot ramp up to hit the Daily Peak . .. we have anything BUT an optimized system.
A more successful modeling method would be to consider what the Actual Load is and work backwards.
So the overall US Grid Load per year is about 4E15 Watt-hours. Presently the Cheapest, Fastest, Cleanest, least Risk New Generation is Silicon Solar PV. So let’s do the model with that? In the US, fixed (non-tracking) Solar PV has an average run time of 6 hours a day, or about 2000 hours per year.
So if we take the 4E15 Watt-hours and divide by 2000 hours — that gives us — 2E12 Watts of Solar required. At around $1 per Watt full install costs that is a Full Replacement Cost of around $2 Trillion (US) or $2E12. Spread across the years while existing Coal and Nukes are taken off-line, and the Solar is installed — it has become cheaper to bear the full cost of New Solar than it is to even continue operate the existing Coal and Nukes.
So yes, we can switch the US to Solar PV, and drop Coal, Nukes, and Gas — except to keep some around as emergency and backup which do not need to operate — and the whole thing costs less than what we are doing now.
Where, oh where, to begin to respond?
1) Your argue about “Time of Production” and “Time of Use” and needing an optimized system for the existing electrical power generating system . . . and then fail to discuss the even larger extent that solar PV varies with time-of-day/night? Seriously?
2) You neglected (intentionally?) to describe how to stabilize the grid for energy demand every day for those times beyond the “6-hours-a-day” you claim that every installed solar PV generator will be working. What will be the total ADDITIONAL cost of the needed batteries, flywheels, pumped hydro, compressed gas, etc. it do this effectively and with peak-demand margin?
3) You neglected (intentionally?) to mention the ADDITIONAL acquisition cost for the land on which so many solar panels must be sited. And you neglected to mention the infrastructure cost to connect these solar PV installations, wherever located, into the grid.
4) You neglected to mention the ADDITIONAL cost and inefficiency of converting the DC electrical output of solar PV into AC electricity and simultaneously boosting the voltage to about 345,000 Vac that is typical for high power transmission lines over the long distances typically between power plants and grid distribution points to customers.
5) “The average price per watt for solar panels ranges from $2.58 to $3.38”— source: https://news.energysage.com/how-much-does-the-average-solar-panel-installation-cost-in-the-u-s/ . So, what is the basis for you claiming a 60-70 reduction in the cost per watt of solar PV?
Now, you started with something about “approaching the math model wrong” . . .
Artilce neglects the GND requirement to rebuild or retrofit every home and building in the U.S. to meet some unknown energy efficiency standard. My guess is that it might take the entire world population to pull off just that one aspect within 20 years.
Quite frankly, eliminating most carbon emissions is pretty simple and not that expensive ; small modular molten salt reactorsm fueled by uranium or Thorium can be construced at a fraction of conventiona nucear – roughly 2.5 billion per GigaWatt. They can be constructed entirely in factories and installe with little required site preparation and no need for any bodies of water for cooling. They can be located ANYWHERE and are instrinsically safe. Leaving current nuckear and hydro powee generation in place (30% of power) these SMRs can provice the remainder of current power neeeds PLUS the power nees of an electrified transporttion sector for roughly $1 trillion dollars and will lower electric costs from what they are now (levelized power costs 4 cents per kWhr). These SMRs will start appearing commerciallty in the mid 2020s. Quit all this ignorant nonsense
about need to change lifestyles and spend enormous amounts of money.
“24 million (mostly) millennials immediately repurposed to urgent GND industrial production could conceivably pull it off with a 20-year surge in manufacturing output and new product development. “
Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge had similar ideas of re-purposing an entire country’s civilization.
– Pol Pot, just like many of today’s college-Leftist indoctrinated Millennials, was a highly educated in Western ideas and an elitist. It develops a mindset of “we know what best for everyone else, and we’re willing to use authoritarian means to achieve it.
“Born to a prosperous farmer in Prek Sbauv, French Cambodia, Pol Pot was educated at some of Cambodia’s elite schools. In the 1940s, he moved to Paris, France, where he joined the French Communist Party and adopted Marxism–Leninism, particularly as it was presented in the writings of Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong. Returning to Cambodia in 1953, he joined the Marxist–Leninist Khmer Việt Minh organisation in its guerrilla war against King Norodom Sihanouk’s newly independent government.”
– Like many Millennials today, Pol Pot wanted one Party government with authoritarian powers to re-driect the economy to more “agarian” ways, and less intensive urbanization. Those who resisted either outright killed or worked in slave camps to death. We hear exactly this same kind of rhetoric today from Antifa and other extreme econ-nutter groups.
“Pol Pot reformed Cambodia as a new, one-party state called Democratic Kampuchea. Seeking to create an agrarian socialist society, his government forcibly relocated the urban population to the countryside to work on collective farms. Those regarded as enemies of the new government were killed. These mass killings, coupled with malnutrition, strenuous working conditions and poor medical care, killed between 1.5 and 2 million people, approximately a quarter of Cambodia’s population, a period later termed the Cambodian genocide.“
Even the Khmer Rouge’s uniform of control era remarkably resemble those of Antifa activists.
There needs to be NO mistake what AOC, Commie Bernie and the rest of the US neo-Marxists are wanting. Their GND would be the the license to bring the Killing Fields to the US, in the name of political power and ideological purity.
There is almost a “Law of Conservation of Emissions” that will defeat any attempt to thwart it. For example, making electricity more expensive simply displaces manufacturing elsewhere, probably incurring more energy use for transportation. If the entire world cycles to work that will increase the demand for food energy, and more food energy means more carbon from tractors, transportation and refrigeration.
Which is why the True Green fanatics want global genocide: Reduce the human population by 90%.
Of course they always envision it is someone else getting “reduced.”
Since climate change is always beneficial to the population, nothing needs to be done.
Warming is usually beneficial. Climate change not necessarily so. Glaciers have a tendency to crush everything in their paths.
Worthwhile video:
Ten Things You Should Know About Socialism | Thomas J. DiLorenzo
July 22,2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFrrovr7GVs
Time 5:33
“Socialism will destroy your economic future…. The Chief of Staff of this Cortez woman… the author of the Green New Deal… admitted that it had nothing to do with the climate, it’s all about socialism.”
Ten Things You Should Know About Socialism | Thomas J. DiLorenzo
July 22,2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFrrovr7GVs
14:41
“Every socialist is a secret dictator.”
Howdy Dave O.
“Climate change is not always beneficial to the population. Humans almost went extinct during the coldest part of the last glacial phase.
The number of early humans may have shrunk to as low as just 2,000 before it began to rise again in the early Stone Age, an extensive new genetic study suggested yesterday.
The close brush with extinction for human beings came around 70,000 years ago, according to the report published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.”
It is interesting that the Left is starting to wake up to the fact that due to basic engineering and economic reasons the green schemes fail.
The evidence presented in this new documentary, “Planet of the Humans” is that the green scams are increasing, not decreasing our environmental impact.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/09/consuming-the-planet-of-the-humans-the-most-important-documentary-of-the-century/
Hats off to Michael Moore for being a left wing leader who has the courage to speak the truth even when it is politically incorrect.
This is a short audio of Michael Moore’s Comments on the documentary “Planet of the Humans” (The film was produced by Jeff Gibbs, not Michael Moore.)
https://youtu.be/fX0aX2091LQ
“ infinity, plus or minus never”
I love it. 🙂
The thought of the snowflake Millennials adapting to a WWII environment is beyond comical. It’s the most absurd fantasy I’ve ever heard. Picture the 21st century Rosie the Riveter walking home (walking because electric cars are back ordered for 5 years and cost 3 years wages anyway) after her 12 hour shift stopping at McDonalds and being told it was meatless Tuesday, then ordering a Big SoyMac only to be told she didn’t have enough ration stamps, then walking to the grocery store for a can of green beans only to find that there are no more canned goods because all the steel and tin are prioritized to railroad and wind turbine manufacture, so settling for a bag of pinto beans. Then when she arrives at home and tries to cook the pinto beans finding she can’t because the hot shower of the day before had used up all her electricity ration. So after a meal of 3 slices of bread and some water she climbs into bed after checking the alarm is set for 4 AM and the thermostat set at the required 50 degrees so she won’t bust her heating ration and freeze to death like that old couple down the street last month. As she drifts off to sleep she remembers how good it felt to epoxy herself to the street for a few hours before going home to a hot meal and a warm bed. Saving the world was so easy then. (cue Barbie Streisand singing “The Way We Were”)
The war on carbon must surely require the elimination of all carbon from the human body. Since around 18% of the human body is carbon, it’ll be an interesting exercise: will AOC be the first to volunteer?
I live and work in the US Northwest. Most of the Democrats who now hold state and federal elective offices in California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington State strongly support the Green New Deal. These politicians will have much influence in Washington DC if Democrats gain full control of the federal government in 2021.
In its current form, the Green New Deal has a target date of 2030 for a 100% carbonless economy. However, the 2030 target date for 100% is merely an opening bargaining position for subsequent political negotiation. Over the next several years, the GND’s goal posts will gradually shift back towards President Obama’s original target of an 80% reduction in America’s carbon emissions by 2050.
Even with a target date of 2050, it is impossible to reach an 80% reduction without imposing considerable sacrifice on the American people in the form of strictly enforced energy conservation measures combined with steep increases in the cost of fossil fuel energy. For one example, according to Mark Jacobson’s analysis, per capita consumption of electricity in America must drop to half of what it is today if we are to achieve 100% renewables without nuclear.
Regardless of what Mark Jacobson believes, it is impossible to reach the Green New Deal’s targets without a massive commitment to nuclear power, and to manage the energy market transition in a way which leaves no choice but to sacrifice the benefits of market competition with natural gas in keeping a lid on nuclear’s costs.
If the national polls are accurate, Green New Deal advocates are likely to be in full control of the federal government in 2021. They will then be forced to put real meat on their GND energy policies. Will their 2021 plan be something new and different? Or will it be a rehash of Barack Obama’s plan updated with Green New Deal rhetoric, but containing little else of real substance?
If Democrats are truly serious about quickly reducing America’s GHG emissions, they must do what current law and what past practice demand they do. They must give the president and the EPA full responsibility for the tough job of reducing America’s carbon emissions.
Here is a plan to reduce America’s GHG emissions 80% by 2050 using the Clean Air Act augmented by existing national security legislation. This plan is similar to the one that was being pushed a decade ago in 2009 by 350.org. In this new version, the original 350.org plan is augmented by a system of carbon pollution fines which is the functional equivalent of a legislated tax on carbon.
Moreover, if carbon pricing combined with massive new spending on green energy projects doesn’t prove to be fully effective, the updated plan adds a provisional system for imposing direct government control over the production and distribution of all carbon fuels, implemented in the form of a carbon fuel rationing scheme.
These are the six major phases of this plan:
PHASE I: Establish a legal basis for regulating carbon dioxide and other carbon GHG’s as pollutants. (2007-2012. Now complete.)
PHASE II: Expand and extend EPA regulation of carbon GHG’s to all major sources of America’s carbon emissions. (2021-2022)
PHASE III: Establish a fully comprehensive EPA-managed regulatory framework for carbon. (2023-2025)
PHASE IV: Implement the EPA’s carbon pollution regulatory framework. (2026-2050)
PHASE V: Implement the provisional system for direct carbon fuel rationing. (Start and End dates are contingent upon Phase IV progress.)
PHASE VI: Declare success in reducing America’s carbon emissions 80% by 2050. (If complete by 2050 or earlier.)
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A Detailed Description of the 80% by 2050 Plan:
The plan might be accurately described as implementing Virtual Peak Oil. That is to say, the regulatory powers of government are applied in ways that will make all fossil fuels as scarce and expensive by the year 2050 as they otherwise would be fifty years later in the year 2100.
Phase I: Establish a legal basis for regulating carbon dioxide and other carbon GHG’s as pollutants. (2007-2012. Now Complete.)
— File and win lawsuits to allow regulation of CO2 and other carbon GHG’s as pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
— Publish a CAA Section 202 Endangerment Finding as a prototype test case for regulation of carbon GHG’s.
— Defend the Section 202 Endangerment Finding in the courts.
Phase II: Expand and extend EPA regulation of carbon GHG’s to all major sources of America’s carbon emissions. (2021-2022)
— Issue a presidential executive order declaring a carbon pollution emergency.
— Publish a CAA Section 108 Endangerment Finding which complements 2009’s Section 202 finding.
— Establish a National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for carbon pollution.
— Use the NAAQS for carbon pollution as America’s tie-in to international climate change agreements.
— Defend the Section 108 Endangerment Finding and the NAAQS in the courts.
Phase III: Establish a fully comprehensive EPA-managed regulatory framework for carbon. (2023-2025)
— Publish a regulatory framework for carbon pollution under Clean Air Act sections 108, 111, 202, and other CAA sections as applicable.
— Establish cooperative agreements with the states to enforce the EPA’s anti-carbon regulations.
— Establish a system of carbon pollution fines which is the functional equivalent of a legislated tax on carbon.
— Establish the legal basis for assigning all revenues collected from these carbon pollution fines to the states.
— Research and publish a provisional system of direct carbon fuel rationing as a backup to the carbon fine system.
— Defend the EPA’s comprehensive system of carbon pollution regulations in the courts.
Phase IV: Implement the EPA’s carbon pollution regulatory framework. (2026-2050)
— Commence operation of prior agreements with the states for enforcement of the EPA’s anti-carbon regulations.
— Commence the collection of carbon pollution fines and the distribution of fine revenues to the states.
— Monitor the effectiveness of the EPA’s carbon regulatory framework in reducing America’s GHG emissions.
— Monitor the effectiveness of renewable energy projects in reducing America’s GHG emissions.
— Monitor the effectiveness of energy conservation programs in reducing America’s GHG emissions.
— Adjust the schedule of carbon pollution fines upward if progress in reducing America’s GHG emissions lags.
— Assess the possible need for invoking the provisional system of direct carbon fuel rationing.
— Defend the EPA’s system of carbon pollution regulations against emerging lawsuits.
Phase V: Implement the provisional system for direct carbon fuel rationing. (Start and End dates are contingent upon Phase IV progress.)
— Issue a presidential proclamation declaring that Phase IV anti-carbon measures cannot meet the 80% by 2050 target.
— Initiate the provisionally established system for imposing direct government control over production and distribution of all carbon fuels.
— Apply the Phase IV system of carbon pollution fines in escalating steps as needed to incentivize Phase V compliance.
— Defend the government-mandated carbon fuel rationing program in the courts.
Phase VI: Declare success in reducing America’s carbon emissions 80% by 2050. (If complete by 2050 or earlier.)
— Assess the need for continuing the EPA’s anti-carbon regulations and the US Government’s mandatory fuel rationing program beyond 2050.
— Defend the government’s anti-carbon measures against emerging lawsuits if these measures continue beyond 2050.
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The Political Landscape of 2021 and Beyond:
If current polls are to be believed, Donald Trump will be soundly defeated in the 2020 election. Democrats will remain in control of the House of Representatives in 2021, and control of the Senate will probably pass into the hands of the Democrats as well. What will the Democrats do once they are back in full control of the federal government?
If past history is any guide, it is unlikely the Democrats in Congress will enact a legislated tax on carbon. It is just as unlikely the Congress will acknowledge the need for carbon fuel rationing if their massive spending on green energy projects isn’t achieving their carbon reduction targets.
So the question arises, is new legislation from the Congress needed to pursue a highly aggressive, nationally-enforced anti-carbon policy based on strict enforcement of the Clean Air Act?
The answer is no. Not another word of new legislation is needed from Congress to begin the process of greatly reducing America’s GHG emissions as far and as fast as climate change activists claim is necessary.
The Supreme Court has already ruled that the EPA has full authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate all sources of America’s carbon emissions. Furthermore, the court has ruled that the process used by the EPA in 2009 to determine that CO2 is a pollutant was properly followed.
Some history concerning 350.org’s previous efforts at pursuing climate lawsuits through the courts is in order.
Phase I of this plan, establishment of a legal basis for regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant, was complete in 2012. The legal foundation needed to impose aggressive across-the-board regulation of all major sources of America’s carbon emissions remains in place awaiting the appearance of a president willing to use it.
When Barack Obama was Chief Executive, his Clean Power Plan and his other anti-carbon measures might have achieved possibly one-third of his Year 2050 GHG reduction goals. But the remainder depended upon a highly uncertain combination of accelerated technological advancements and raw unvarnished hope.
And yet, when President Obama had the opportunity and the means to move forward with the 350.org plan, he refused to go through with it. Nor were 350.org itself and the other climate activist groups willing to push hard for adoption of their 2009 plan after their initial victories in the courts.
From 2012 onward, climate activists could have worked closely with the EPA using the ‘sue and settle’ process to put their 2009 plan into effect. If the dangers of climate change are as severe as they claim, then why didn’t the activists go forward with it while they were still in control of the Executive Branch?
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The Intersection of Climate Action Moral Obligation with Climate Action Policy:
Let’s examine the intersection of climate action moral obligation with climate action policy as it concerns those who have taken a strong stand in favor of the Green New Deal.
As currently envisioned, the Green New Deal will eliminate most forms of carbon-fueled transportation in favor of electric vehicles and passenger trains. The GND relies on wind and solar backed by batteries and by pumped-hydro storage to power all of these EV cars and trains.
As I said previously, most of the Democrats who now hold state and federal elective offices in California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington State support the Green New Deal. These politicians will have much greater influence if Democrats gain full control of the federal government in 2021.
Because Boeing builds jet airliners in Everett and Renton, let’s address the question of what role the large jet aircraft manufactured in Washington State will be playing once the Green New Deal is adopted as our national economic and energy policy.
1 – Jet airliners of the kind Boeing now manufactures cannot fly in a Green New Deal world. The GND recognizes this fact and shifts most air travel onto trains or onto other forms of EV-powered ground transportation.
2 – If Governor Jay Inslee and his likely successor Bob Ferguson are to act in accordance with their professed beliefs, they must demand that Boeing commit to developing and producing an airliner which does not emit carbon dioxide.
3 – If Boeing will not commit to producing a hydrogen-fueled or electric-powered airliner by the end of the 2020’s at the latest, then Inslee and Ferguson have a clear moral obligation to force an end to production of Boeing airliners in Washington State.
4 – If current jet airliners continue to fly into the early 2030’s, then GND-friendly politicians in California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington must begin restricting the number of flights passing through the major airports located in their respective states.
Most voters in Washington State wouldn’t particularly care if Boeing was pushed out of the Northwest. Our regional businesses combined with the spending activities of a number of government agencies are easily capable of supporting the Northwest’s economy without Boeing’s presence.
On the other hand, the situation is different concerning what most Washington and Oregon residents might think about restricting air travel for business and for pleasure.
What happens in 2030 if you work in Seattle, Bellevue, Redmond, Spokane, or Portland and you can’t fly to Los Angeles or to San Francisco on business whenever you want to? What happens if you want to take a two-week vacation in Hawaii but the limited space available on airliners is booked eight months to a year in advance?
What if you run a tourist business in Honolulu and most of your customers must travel to Hawaii using a wind & solar-powered ocean liner, because airline flights are restricted and the large fossil-powered cruise ships have been banned from Hawaiian waters?
Furthermore, what if your tourists arrive in Hawaii after a two-week journey across the ocean only to discover that much of what had been a tropical forest is now covered with solar panels, wind turbines, and energy storage facilities?
All this said, the EPA, operating under the authority of the Clean Air Act, has determined that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant if present in the atmosphere in excessive concentrations. The courts have given the EPA full authority to regulate all of America’s carbon emissions.
If Jay Inslee, Gavin Newsom, David Ige, Kate Brown, and our Representatives and Senators in Congress are to avoid taking extreme political heat for enforcing strong anti-carbon measures, they must do what current law and past practice demand they do, and that is to give the president and the EPA full responsibility for the tough job of reducing America’s carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050.
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The Moral Imperatives of Climate Change Activism:
The climate activists who are pushing the Green New Deal have not yet been forced to come to grips with the basic conundrum of their own position regarding the true dangers of climate change.
As the activists are now promoting it, the Green New Deal can quickly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions while imposing little or no hardship on the American people. But what if the climate activists are wrong and their Green New Deal plan is completely unrealistic in how far and how fast it can actually go in reducing America’s GHG emissions?
If the dangers of climate change are real and are severe, and if quick action is needed to reduce America’s GHG emissions — but if the Green New Deal can’t get us there nearly as far and as fast as the climate activists say is necessary — then how could hardship and sacrifice not be demanded of the American people?
Phrasing the question of a moral imperative another way, if the Green New Deal won’t work, are the dangers of climate change so serious and so close on the horizon that GHG reductions must be quickly and forcefully imposed, not simply encouraged?
If this is indeed the case — if the massive new spending legislated under the Green New Deal doesn’t prove effective — then is there not a strong moral imperative to begin using the broad powers of the federal government in coercing the needed reductions?
Historically, over a period of more than forty years, the EPA operating under the authority of the Clean Air Act has been our most effective means of managing and coordinating the hard choices which have to be made in reducing emissions of substances identified as dangerous atmospheric pollutants.
Predicting that the Green New Deal won’t prove effective in actual practice — and assuming America’s voters won’t voluntarily commit to the necessary hardships and sacrifices if the GND can’t be made to work — then climate activists have no other choice but to impose their GHG reductions through aggressive enforcement of anti-carbon regulations.
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Summary:
Assume for purposes of argument that carbon emissions are in fact the main driver of climate change; that the dangers of climate change are in fact real and are severe; and that these dangers are close on the horizon if not here already.
The basic legal foundation necessary to quickly reduce America’s carbon emissions through aggressive anti-carbon regulation is already in place, waiting to be augmented by the enhanced set of regulatory tools needed to reduce America’s GHG emissions 80% by 2050. These enhanced regulatory tools are completely within the existing authority of the Executive Branch to develop and to enforce.
Assuming the dangers of climate change are in fact what the activists say they are, then what is currently lacking is a climate activist president and an EPA administrator who are willing to take the political heat for doing what current law and past historical practice demand should be done — to use the Clean Air Act to its maximum possible effectiveness in reducing our carbon emissions.
No. Now why on Earth would anybody want me to do that. It would not have anything to do with getting me to tacitly concede the point, would it?
Anyway:
I find some problems with your stepwise plan. I shal fix it for you, starting with PHASE III.
PHASE III: Establish a fully comprehensive EPA-managed regulatory framework for carbon. (2023-2025) OK, so far
PHASE IV: Implement the EPA’s carbon pollution regulatory framework. (2026-2027)
Not to 2050, only to 2027
PHASE V: 2027 The economy of the United States collapses. The currency, the US Dollar is rendered worthless. All production halts, including agriculture. What was once a mighty country becomes Venezuela North. Famine is widespread.
End Note:
No serious person doubts that the US federal government is powerful enough to destroy the country using nothing more than Policy and Regulations. Either through abject stupidity or malicious intent, it makes no difference. The outcome is the same.
“… we know how many of miles of high-speed rail it will take to replace aviation.”
What about overseas flights? Will we build VERY long bridges, or tunnel under the bottom of the ocean?
Oversea flights are likely the last on the list and least of concern when you see how few actually occur compared to Domestic. (e.g. US to US, or even what is sometimes called CONUS). 90% of US flights are in the US to the US — and can all be replaced — Cheaper, Faster, Cleaner, Safer — with a combination of High Speed Rail and Tunnel/Tubing, such as Hyperloop.
After that, if it were still desirable to end burning Oil based fuels from Intercontinental Flights — Synthetic and Biofuels can handle the job without any additional Net Add to Carbon in the Air.
Cannot wait to see Alexandria the riveter with a grease gun in her hands, standing on a production line.