Chris White Tech Reporter
February 26, 2020 5:42 PM ET
Americans in nearly a dozen swing states could expect to spend roughly $75,000 per year if the Green New Deal is ever implemented, according to a report Wednesday from a conservative nonprofit group.
The Green New Deal would cost households an average of between $74,287 and $76,683 in Colorado, Michigan and Pennsylvania, among others, a report from the Competitive Enterprise Institute noted. CEI worked with Power the Future and the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty on the report.
“Right now, our booming national economy and record low unemployment rate is driven by abundant, domestic, reliable, and inexpensive energy produced by millions of men and women across the country,” Daniel Turner, executive director of Power the Future, said in a statement.
He added: “Any policy that proposes to reverse this success is a threat to jobs, to rural communities, to national security, and to the very prosperity that Americans are experiencing.”
Power the Future is a 501(c)4 group that was founded to promote and defend people who work in the energy industry.
CEI president Kent Lassman made a similar argument.
“Our analysis shows that, if implemented, the Green New Deal would cost for American households at least tens of thousands of dollars annually on a permanent basis,” Lassman said.
“Perhaps that’s why exactly zero Senate Democrats, including the resolution’s 12 co-sponsors, voted for the Green New Deal when they had the chance,” he concluded.
The Washington, D.C.-based think tank’s report builds on a study the group produced in July 2019 showing Americans would incur massive expenses if the Green New Deal passes.
The authors incorporated the costs of electricity production within the first year after Green New Deal’s implementation and the costs of a one-time upgrade to buildings and vehicles. They also determined how the plan’s mandate would increase the cost of logistics in a modern American economy.
CEI said the costs could be much higher due to the vague, overarching nature of the Green New Deal, not to mention other variables that could pop up in an economy run exclusively on green energy.
Other reports have made similar findings. The Green New Deal could cost up to $93 trillion over 10 years, a report from right-leaning group American Action Forum (AAF) noted in 2019.
All told, that amounts to $36,100 to $65,300 per American household per year to meet the lofty proposal’s goals, AAF reported in February 2019. The plan initially intended on producing widespread high-speed rail, guaranteed jobs, universal health care and refurbishing every building in the country.
Republicans in the Senate torpedoed the Ocasio-Cortez’s legislation in March 2019 as Democrats called the vote a dog-and-pony show. The GOP defeated the proposal 57-0; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called the bill a socialistic ploy designed to kill the economy.
Still, Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts are still on board with the idea. (RELATED: Flashback: Bernie Sanders Says His Green New Deal Can Make Electricity ‘Virtually Free’ By 2035 — But There’s A Catch)
Sanders revealed his own Green New Deal in August 2019, promising everything from “virtually free” electricity and a “hunger-free” transition to green energy from fossil fuels. The democratic socialist’s nearly 14,000-page memo also lays out how he will deal with a variety of social justice issues.
People will accept, without thinking, what they are told about climate change being caused by greenhouse gas emissions, and will support vague plans to fight climate change. That is, until they are faced with the costs, either in extra expenses, or forced reduction in travel and home heating. Then they will start inquiring about the science behind the pain they are being asked to endure, and whether their greenhouse gas reductions will even matter.
It’s why all plans for reductions are far out in the future, 2030, 2040, 2050. No green politician is telling public about the significant and specific changes that will be needed in their lives to go to zero net emissions. That would kill the legislation. All concrete action is off in the future, so everyone can ignore today what the costs of that action will be tomorrow.
The UK already reduced its CO2 emissions by 42% on 1990 levels, taking them back to the levels of the 1880s.
Nobody noticed a thing.
We did it largely by closing coal power stations… with one closing next month and one next March, by April 2021 we’ll have only 3 left.
“Only 3 left”? untrue. There are 3 coal power stations in my state alone.
And yet CO2 Levels still continue to climb and all the effort had Zero Effect on the Climate, Local Weather or Local pollution levels
Griff: check out Hornsea One. The world’s largest offshore windfarm 50 miles off the coast of northern England. 174 turbines each the height of a skyscraper with blades nearly as long as a football field. It will generate enough electricity to power one million British households. Total energy produced is 4 terawatt hours per year. British electricity consumption is 309 terawatt hours per year, so that windfarm that covers an area the size of Malta will produce a little over one percent of British electricity needs, The subsidy to build it will cost taxpayers the equivalent of 20 cents per KWh over the next 15 years, and that doesn’t include the cost of the electricity itself. One average sized nuclear power plant would produce more than triple this output.
What is the source for that info? According to this website http://electricityinfo.org/forecast-carbon-intensity/
you currently get 64% of electricity from Natural gas and 9% from coal. 12% comes from nuclear and only 13% from renewables.
If people really understood the GND and absence of fossil fuels they would realize it’s a suicide watch that fails.
Even if you spent all that money, “Net Zero Carbon” energy schemes like the “Green New Deal” cannot work using wind and solar power generation.
The fatal flaws of a “green energy solution” are intermittency and diffusivity and these cannot be overcome at any price.
You don’t have enough available land area and you cannot solve the intermittency problem with battery storage. End of story.
Regards, Allan
A large majority of the total Green New Deal cost estimate is for social programs unrelated to CO2 emissions.
The rest of the cost estimate is forCO2 related proposals not feasible in 10 years, or 20 years.
Even if feasible in 10 years, the effect on GLOBAL CO2 emissions would be so small that they would keep rising, thanks to China, India and the rest of Asia.
The Green New Ordeal:
Tear down a reliable electricity generation system, and replace it with expensive, unreliable sources of electricity — only a ding-bat, or a leftist (I repeat myself), would want that !
Richard, you are correct.
I solved the fatal flaws of intermittency and diffusivity of grid-connected wind and solar power systems over one year ago.
My work here is done. 🙂
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/11/16/stacking-concrete-blocks-is-a-surprisingly-efficient-way-to-store-energy/#comment-2520849
Here’s an even better solution:
1. Build your wind [or solar] power system.
2. Build your back-up system consisting of 100% equivalent capacity in gas turbine generators.
3. Using high explosives, blow your wind [or solar] power system all to hell.
4. Run your back-up gas turbine generators 24/7.
5. To save even more money, skip steps 1 and 3.
More proof leftards can’t do math.
It’s not so much that the can’t do math, it’s that they have an unshakable belief that rich people have so much money that taxing the rich more can pay for everything they have ever wanted.
No, they can’t do math…
The U.S. Census Bureau reported in September 2017 that real median household income was $59,039 in 2016, exceeding any previous year.
It is a mental disorder.
The fact that they can’t do math and quite possibly don’t even know what it is, is that they are convinced that they can control global temperatures to 1.5 degrees without even knowing climate sensitivity. I’ve had this conversation with such calculator dodgers and, even though some were “educated”, they had no idea what I was talking about, and I don’t think they were faking it to avoid further discussion.
According to many of the leftists I talk to, 99.9% of all wealth is held by the top 1%. According to them, having government seize this money and spend it on them is just “fairness” in action.
They truly believe that they can fund all the government programs they have ever dreamed of just by taking this money that the rich don’t need anyway.
They also believe that by having government take over companies so that the companies no longer have to worry about making profits, that prices can be dropped by 80 to 90%.
It’s fairly astonishing that so many envious simpletons believe that the rich romp in great piles of cash stashed in huge bank vaults just like old Scrooge McDuck (Donald’s rich uncle). It occurs to none of them that the wealth is largely invested in the very companies whose continued operation provides gainful employment to multitudes, even to those skillful engineers and artisans building grand yachts.
Sure go ahead and drain away all that sensibly placed wealth for some one-time distribution in a ‘Green (no doubt referring to that bronze age patina on your fossil free horse-drawn buggy) New Deal’ and then see what you’ve managed to trade away of long sustained community-wide benefit via your own stumblebum greed.
MarkW
You definitely need to reassess your social circle. 🙂
Hey let’s be fair. If they just confiscate all the wealth of all the US billionaires that would cover the first 4 months of Bernie’s plan, no problem.
They’re absolutely convinced that OPM (Other People’s Money) is an endless piggy bank that they can raid as much as they want.
The rich never get taxed as they are rich enough to avoid it. It’s the poor and middle class that are not rich enough t o avoid taxes that end up carrying the bill.
The top 5% of income earners pay about 90% of all income taxes.
The myth that the rich don’t pay taxes is a hard one to kill.
The bottom 50% of income earners pay about 0.1% of all income taxes.
Meanwhile here in Canada, our dufus of a Prime Minister is bankrupting our country at a horrific rate, all in the unspeakably stupid idea that he will just set a few policies “and the economy will take care of itself”. Well Canada is going to melt down in short order at this moron’s rate of illness.
Virtually free electricity is so stupid as to be unimaginable.
Even if a magic wand were waved to make this happen, the secondary effects are almost certainly going to be bad.
For example: using electricity for heating.
What about light pollution? Everyone could have a humonguous Christmas light display, all year round.
Let’s not forget that Warren claims the Green New Deal “doesn’t go far enough.”
It doesn’t look like this incorporates the fracking ban Warren said she’d institute with an executive order on day 1.
That “doesn’t go far enough” might be the estimated 75,000,000 jobs lost when the “deal” is implemented!
It will be extremely difficult to come up with $75,000 per household per year if you’re one of the 75 million who have lost gainful employment!!
Such a “deal”!!
But everyone will be guaranteed. Bernie said so.
In the mind of your average socialist, there is no problem so big that more government and more taxes on other people can’t solve.
And it still won’t be enough. It’s like feeding the crocodiles in the hope that they won’t eat you.
Oregon is currently trying to get head of the eco-fascist tide and start screwing us over early with a Cap and Trade bill – currently, the state republicans are again boycotting this short-session where some real slime by the name of Tina Kotek, Peter Courtney, and of course governor-by-corruption, Kate Brown, are trying to force this through without a vote, and then make sure citizens can’t recall the legislation.
Funny that they declare an emergency and then push a plan that does exactly Jack-S*** for the climate, but it sure does line their pockets.
Just got word that Kate the Fascist is going to try to supercede the Oregon construction and the requirement of a quorum for a vote – ramrodding this through, denying the vote.
Did you mean constitution, not construction?
…there’s no difference to them–it’s just that intolerable “c” word!
I was a little pissed when I posted this, so yeah, I fat-fingered that one.
If the Green New Deal cost $93 trillion over 10 years, that’s about $29,000 per PERSON (not household) per year. Since the median family income is about $63,000 per year (meaning that half of American families make less than that), about half of American families consisting of a married couple with no children would be bankrupted by the taxes required to support the Green New Deal.
Democrats to middle-class America: We’re gonna save the planet by making the weather a fraction of a degree cooler, but no eating allowed!!!
If it was expressed in those terms, how many Americans would vote for the Green New Deal?
But Shhhhh! Don’t let those deplorable rubes figure that out!
One thing no one seems to be doing is doubles ng the cost. You can always double any government number of cost.
There is no way I could afford that. Probably better to go Galt should this come to pass.
” go Galt” … is that like maybe … Woketard Bliss. ?
Have you been to Galt? It’s a s*it hole
Who is (John) Galt?
Soylent Red is Republicans
I’ll have to move to Sweden where my tax rate is only 70%.
…do you think Sweden wants a bunch of deadbeats that never pay anywhere near 70%??
Fageddaboutit…
Here’s my respectful response to c1ue who in his post says:
“Virtually free electricity is so stupid as to be unimaginable.
Even if a magic wand were waved to make this happen, the secondary effects are almost certainly going to be bad.
For example: using electricity for heating.”
My home (just north of the Washington State border in a semi arid climate) uses two sources of energy – natural gas and electricity, which powers an air source heat pump. I have operated the heat pump down to outdoor temperatures of -5°F, just to see how well it works under a full load. Normally, I operate it down to a programmable set point of 40°F, which I determine from economics based on the cost of the two sources of energy. I run an engineering model to determine the set point based on the physics of operation of my heat pump, as the operating parameters are non linear. (Yeah, yeah! I know it is a model, but it only looks at an infinitely small part of the universe located outside my back door.) It has been operating reliably now for 12 years.
Bottom line – my electric power source under proper conditions is an extremely reliable cost effective solution to home heating.
Oops. I think I was close to going on a rant. Have a good day.
running a heat pump by electricity,is not hating with electricity..
oil/gas heaters also run with electricity….
‘ hating ? ‘
One of my buddies, a mechanical engineer, got a real good deal on a house because everyone else was scared off by the heat pump. 🙂
You’re in Washington State where electricity prices are subsidized by hydropower supplied from some 1100 plus generating a dams.
Although, if you must use electricity for heat a heat pump is just about the best way.
“Bottom line – my electric power source under proper conditions is an extremely reliable cost effective solution to home heating.”
Is your auxiliary heat gas? Heat pumps don’t work well below about 30F, and are not cost effective when using electric auxiliary heat.
Heat pump efficiency is calculated by COP-value. Even in -20 Celsius most modern pumps can get 2 kilowatthour of heat using 1 kilowatthour of electricity (COP of 2) Above zero you can get like COP of 5. Then you just calculate how much a kilowatthour costs using different sources, and factor in the temperature to get correct price for the heat from the pump.
The amount of temperature increase between the low and high temperature sides of your working fluid is determined by the compression ratio of your compressor. At -20C, a heat pump might be able to extract some heat from the outside, however the temperature of the hot side is still going to be way below any kind of reasonable comfort level. Just how warm will your house get if the air coming out of the vent doesn’t get above 20C?
They used to sell dual fuel heat pumps. Use the heat pump down to some set temperature (40 to 50F if memory serves) then natural gas heating below that point. Or maybe the heat pump still ran, but they used natural gas to after the heat exchanger to boost the air temperature up to a comfortable range.
We’re being told in the UK that Air Source Heat pumps (ASHP)are the panacea to a cleaner environment.
But a bit like wind turbines there are unintended consequences.
To have them operating efficiently a house needs to be insulated and sealed up as tight as a tick. So as not to endure damp problems, the house also needs mechanical ventilation with heat ex changers.
As an exercise, I costed up fully converting my small, 3 bedroom cottage, into a super efficient dwelling using a Ground Source Heat Pump GSHP). We have a large garden so it’s feasible, but many don’t so they would need an ASHP. What occurred to me is that whilst a single isolated house with an ASHP is an attractive concept, when there are hundreds of them in a closely packed housing development, the elevated ambient noise pollution would rise considerably. And after a few years, even with limited wear to bearings and mechanical components, collectively the noise would increase dramatically.
Our barmy government is about to pass this exercise into law using the Climate Change Act which has also seen the the legal deadline for the banning of petrol/diesel/hybrid cars sales brought forward from 2040 to 2035, and within days, to 2032.
They have, however, never provided indications of cost so The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) commissioned an expert to do it for them.
They figured the cost of converting a regular home (not dissimilar to mine) would cost the owner in the region of £75,000 0 £100,000. Co-incidentally, this is what I estimated using an envelope, a pencil, a calculator and a telephone. An exercise that took me a matter of a few hours out a slow day.
The GWPF also commissioned two experts to examine the cost of upgrading our National Grid to accommodate innumerable wind turbines and decommissioning all FF burning power stations. Natural Gas powered home heating has already been banned for new build houses.
To cut a long story short, the total cost of the entire exercise came to around £3 trillion.
There has been no costing to convert the entire country to electric vehicles but amongst the ~26m households I think it could be confidently anticipated that the whole exercise of the UK achieving it’s own GND by 2050 will cost around £5tn. Which is roughly £200,000 per household, roughly half of which would be funded by Taxes.
Quite apart from the obvious violent assault on our freedom of choice, the cost represents for many, the requirement to borrow at least £100,000 to refurbish their home which in many cases is worth, say £300,000 and fund the public spending with eye watering Tax hikes.
Were this exercise even possible without bankrupting the country, the only people to benefit from it would be the Banks, lending all this money to every householder.
Laughably, the twist in the tail in the report was that the country simply doesn’t have the physical manpower to achieve this insane exercise.
It also occurred to me that the massive increase in production of insulation and building materials, and the transport needed to achieve this, would likely produce emissions that would utterly swamp any savings made by householders.
All this to satisfy the single Member of Parliament from the Green Party we have who represents Brighton.
If you described this to George Orwell he would laugh at the utterly preposterous prospect.
What it would “cost” is your ability to govern your own life and to live in a civilization made by free people who have the right to govern their own lives. That’s what it would “cost.”
brianjohn,
I live about a thousand kilometres (600+ miles) north of where you describe. Heat pumps? Nope. Electrical heating? Only if I’m ever forced to. (And we have hydro.) If you’re describing a “semi arid climate just north of the Washing state border”, you must be in Kamloops BC or nearby, among the hottest climates in Canada. It gets to -40 (C or F doesn’t matter, curves cross there) here. Thankfully, natural gas is still cheap in spite of the 20% CARBON TAX applied here. Electric heating and heat pumps are rare, if not non-existent in the north.
Ground source heat pumps would work and would save a lot of energy. link However,
commieBob
I had a new combination Gas boiler installed just before Christmas 2019 which cost £3,500.
The cost of a GSHP is around £30,000!
If bacillus Bernie’s plans were to come to pass, and using his modest costs of $97 Trillion over ten years, it would cut 25% from GDP, cut after tax pay by 50%, send the stock market lower by 50% (your retirement). I think these are not realistic estimates, they under-estimate because they assume government to be as competent as the median private concern, but even so, these costs pale in comparison to the usual costs of socialist enterprises which are life, liberty and pursuit of happiness — except for the chosen.
Geothermal denial is probably the most lucrative hoax of all time.
https://phzoe.wordpress.com/2020/02/25/deducing-geothermal/
Zoe,
Your link doesn’t go directly to the topic. I didn’t say it wouldn’t work, but I would pay a decade’s worth of gas bills for the cost of installation. You might make a case for incorporating it into the construction of a new home, but I can’t see many people swapping out their natural gas heating systems for geothermal unless they’re worried about CO2 emissions. At least not at current gas prices.
hey mods,
this person constantly posts links to his/her (hell I dunno) blog and links to completely unrelated posts.
person is using your comment section to drive people to their own site to increase traffic.
while there, with ad blockers turned off, you can view source and see a whole shitload of ad elements and trackers.
how about placing person in mod queue and examine posts before allowing this crap? is that possible on your end? if not I apologize.
Those are ads by wordpress for wordpress.
Geothermal denial is a very serious and costly social problem.
How is that unrelated?
I take it you’re offended that gases that don’t raise temperature. It’s not my fault we were both miseducated. But I figured it out and I would like to share.
Why is ignoring one of the most costly to install and difficult to maintain sources of heat a form of denial?
You didn’t read the article. It’s about the fraud of the greenhouse effect masking the reason why the surface is hotter than what the sun provides.
So your site is a multi-dimensional scam.
What a jerk.
Part of me wants this deal to go through, so (1) I can say I told you so and (2) we finally have another civil war and rid ourselves of these idiots.
Unless they win, and they have the advantage of a huge treasury to buy hardware and influence, and the enthusiastic support of the fittest members of the community, young men and women. Then add in the tendency of the forces of law and order to run away from any confrontation ( as seen recently and currently in UK and Canada).
Hi Philo. Actually, I live NORTH of the US border in BC. We have a utility that charges us on a 2 tier system depending on total bi monthly demand. Go over the threshold and you pay more. Pricing is roughly $0.075 per kwh to the high rate of $0.12 per kwh. (converted to US$). And almost all of the electric power in BC is hydro.
At the north end of our lake is a sizable residential development that utilizes ground source heat pumps for the heating season. They don’t care how cold it gets (it doesn’t get THAT cold here. A cold day is probably -10°F.
Hi PeterT. Actually I live in Osoyoos, BC. One of Canada’s “hot” spots. Our weather is great by the way. It’s why I chose to live here. I’ve lived in Drayton Valley (no heat pumps there), Calgary (maybe a few) and Saskatoon (none there either). I also lived in the middle east and north Africa (no heat pumps in these places – only air conditioning – which are a form of heat pump. So I guess my point is that there are no absolutes. You use the most expedient cost effective method available to you. Natural gas (and LPG) work pretty much everywhere on earth if what you want is heat. Lets hope that the genius’s running our governments don’t screw things up by changing this.
And since you were guessing where I live I’m going to guess that you live in Fort Nelson or Fort St. John. I experienced the coldest temperature of my life in the gas fields north of Fort Nelson. (minus 50°F. ) No heat pumps or air conditioners there either.
Risking preaching to the choir, here…
These people – crazy Bernie, Fauxcahontas, every other one of their political ilk – shouldn’t be thought of as “merely” misguided, ill-informed, lefty politicians capable of “coming to see some more sensible philosophical path” if-only “someone” had the proper education access to them. Murdering socialist/communist dictators differ only in minor detail, once we’re beyond the “murdering” bit.
Uncle Joe preferred enforced starvation and active executions, a man of multiple tastes.
Mao was mostly a starvation guy.
Pol Pot was a mini-Uncle Joe.
Sub-Saharan African guys have been all over the board.
Venezuela’s despots? Time will tell.
Point being, not a one of them is a rational human being, who may even be your neighbor, who wishes you and the country well. Each is a wannabe dictator, who understands full well their policies will result in millions of deaths (this is a feature, not a problem, for some of ’em), and who figures they’ll somehow or other remain safely atop the heap of battered survivors of the trash heap that once was the civilization they’ve destroyed.
They are evil. They are dangerous. They are thugs at heart. To even semi-seriously consider voting for one of them ever again for ANYthing, much less for president is a sign insanity is devouring your mind from within.
The only reason none of them are yet mass murderers is they haven’t yet managed to grasp the levers of centralized national power.
Failing to consider these realities while arguing-over/debating this-or-that aspect of their espoused policies and their associated costs is to risk arguing over the trees in the forest while failing to consider the fact the whole damn forest will be torched by those policies.
There. No need to thank me. I feel better now…
hey mods,
this person constantly posts links to his/her (hell I dunno) blog and links to completely unrelated posts.
person is using your comment section to drive people to their own site to increase traffic.
while there, with ad blockers turned off, you can view source and see a whole sh**load of ad elements and trackers.
they also use criteo,
To identify users across websites, Criteo relies on cross-site tracking using cookies and other methods to follow users as they browse. This has led them to try and circumvent the privacy features in browsers.
how about placing person in mod queue and examine posts before allowing this crap? is that possible on your end? if not I apologize.
There would be rioting in the streets as soon as unemployment starts to climb and industries are forced to close and move to the developing countries where electricity is cheap.
Massive forced spending on green stuff would send the country into a depression and have no affect on climate change.
There has never been a comparable scam. Our country runs on energy.
Gee if only we knew making electricity super expensive and unreliable would create jobs. Germany has proven that the green scams stop reducing CO2 emissions at point when power storage is required.
German CO2 emissions are no longer dropping even though Germany continues install more and more green stuff.
At that point the energy and efficiency loss to store power kills the scheme’s ability to reduce CO2 emissions.
Bernie’s talking points concerning his NGD are made up…
… and in addition Bernie is advocating for ‘free’ post secondary education, payment of all student debt, ‘free’ preschool child care, and so on. The US is running a Trillion dollar a year deficit.
Bernie’s NGD:
‘Transform our energy system to 100 percent renewable energy and create 20 million jobs needed to solve the climate crisis.
Ensure a just transition for communities and workers, including fossil fuel workers.
Ensure justice for frontline communities, especially under-resourced groups, communities of color, Native Americans, people with disabilities, children and the elderly.
Save American families money with investments in weatherization, public transportation, modern infrastructure and high-speed broadband.
Commit to reducing emissions throughout the world, including providing $200 billion to the Green Climate Fund, rejoining the Paris Agreement, and reasserting the United States’ leadership in the global fight against climate change.
Invest in conservation and public lands to heal our soils, forests, and prairie lands.
End the greed of the fossil fuel industry and hold them accountable.”
I apologize for a possibly ignorant question but why would the New Green Deal, if implemented, only affect swing states? Wouldn’t it affect all of them?
It would, but the swing states are where such costs might influence voters to vote against the advocates of such a destructive and expensive plan.
It’s all smoke and mirrors – like Bernie’s $15 minimum wage.
For 40 hours/week that’s $31,500 p.a.
For Medicare for all, tax the “rich” making more than 29,000 at 53% – oops, that’s EVERYONE.
Meaning the $15/hour mandated minimum will, after tax, be $7.20/hour.
BTW, current minimum is $7.25/hour…
The big scam regarding raising the minimum wage from $7/hr to $15/hr, is that within a year or two, everyone who used to make between $7/hr and $15/hr will be unemployed and on welfare. Of course this means that they will be permanently locked in as future Democrat voters, which was probably the plan all along.
“ The Green New Deal would cost households an average of between $74,287 and $76,683 in Colorado, Michigan and Pennsylvania, among others, a report from the Competitive Enterprise Institute noted. ”
How many significant digits are appropriate in this average range? Poor use of precision reflects poorly on report results.
I don’t think you all see the one, and only one, good thing the GND would bring about: the border ‘wall’ would finally be built. Of course, it would be to keep people in the country, not out.
You may find the latest UK court decision interesting in this connexion.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/28/campaigners-celebrate-heathrow-ruling-as-beginning-of-the-end
This is a dreadful warning to all legislators in countries where there is an independent judiciary. Make sure you mean what you say!
What happened was that Parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008, which set mandatory levels for CO2 emission reduction. It did this without taking any steps to implement the reductions, or even find out what it would take to implement them. It then signed up to Paris. Again, without taking any steps to even estimate what it would take to meet the commitments it had made.
All this was done in a spirit of showing how virtuous they were, how green, how dedicated to saving the environment. Applauded by the Guardian of course. And with no intention of doing anything differently.
They therefore, in a spirit of careless abandon, as if the Climate Change Act had never been passed, and as if no-one had heard of a thing called the Paris Agreement, started planning to build new roads and more runways. Notably, another runway at Heathrow.
This gave rise to a lawsuit. After all, said the protesters, there is a law, it demands reductions, and here you are at Heathrow doing things that will increase and not reduce them.
To everyone’s horror and dismay, the court agreed. The law says reduce, this is a way of increasing, therefore its unlawful.
We are seeing the collision of reality and dreams. Because the same logic is going to apply to any road scheme, of which there are many. It can be used against any sort of permission for any sort of business activity.
The Greens are now rejoicing, because they see a way of closing down all internal combustion engine use, probably all concrete use, and imports of manufactured goods, which are heavily CO2 loaded. There will be, if the law stands, and the Greens can persuade the courts to enforce it, minimal manufactured goods imports, no airports, no auto or truck industry, no oil or coal fired heating, no building of the conventional sort. Not much industry except for hand crafts making things from locally grown wood using hand made tools, fired by charcoal.
The political class is in shock and awe. They cannot understand that the Greens did not understand what they thought everyone knew, that all these laws are not passed with any intention of implementing or complying. The endless proclamations about global heating and the climate emergency were obviously not meant to be taken literally. And yet somehow the courts are demanding that it all be taken perfectly literally and seriously, just like any other law.
All we ever meant was to have a talking shop where people could identify themselves as being one of us. What on earth has gone wrong?
Meanwhile, the wonderful thing this decision has made clear is what is really required to meet the Green agenda. It really does mean no cars, trucks or planes. it really does mean closing the airports and stopping building in concrete. It really does mean biking to work, and stopping petroleum based agriculture. Get those horses out in the fields to plow. Get those unemployed out there with scythes, and start threshing manually again. it really does mean building tens of thousands of wind turbines, and buying enormous quantities of batteries, and raising the price of the only available energy, electricity, by a factor of 10 or 20. And even then not using hardly any of it, which you will not be able to afford to do, anyway.
Oh my goodness. Whoever would have thought it? Why didn’t someone tell us?
Any reduction of carbon dioxide would be a total waste of money. The Obama EPA, admitted during testimony to Congress that any reduction of carbon dioxide by the US would be symbolic. Al Gore agreed. Trillions of dollars for a symbol? Even if carbon dioxide were a factor only a global reduction would matter. All of the US carbon dioxide is just a drop in the global bucket. China alone would overwhelm our reduction and their agreement in the Paris Accord is no reduction until 2030.The reduction of global temperatures? The United Nations IPCC and the Obama EPA’s computer model titled MAGICC estimates that reducing the US carbon dioxide emissions to zero will prevent a grand total of 0.018 degrees centigrade by 2100. This is the symbol that they are talking about. Why so little? This is true because developing countries like India, and China will not depress their economy with useless and expensive non-solutions. Cheap energy is required to reduce poverty and imposing carbon emission restrictions would encourage poverty by raising the cost of living. The developing countries are not going to make our reduction of carbon dioxide relevant ever. The reality is that the change of temperature is related to natural forces. I can show you data which indicates that the US temperatures were higher in the 1930’s than now when carbon dioxide was 300 parts per million vs 400 parts per million now.
https://youtu.be/hElTSfQEdsk
Reduction of carbon dioxide would have no measurable effect on the environment even if the US could make a significant global reduction. When the temperature increases the oceans act like a giant soda and expel carbon dioxide. Temperature increases fist then carbon dioxide increases. This has been verified by ice core samples for millions of years.The result of carbon dioxide reduction programs: De-industrialization; the higher cost of energy for the poor, the middle class, business and no measurable effect on the environment.The increased cost in California [Similar results in Europe]:clip_image0041.png (577×452)A new peer-reviewed paper by Dr. Bjorn Lomborg published in the Global Policy journal measures the actual impact of all significant climate promises made ahead of the Paris Climate Summit. Paris climate promises will reduce temperatures by just 0.05°C in 2100 (Press release). [If they meet their goals.]By the way, the International Energy Agency claims that United States recorded the largest emissions decline on a country basis, with a fall of 140 million tonnes, or 2.9%. US emissions are now down by almost 1 gigatonne from their peak in 2000. Emissions in the European Union fell by 160 million tonnes, or 5%, in 2019 driven by reductions in the power sector. This is due to our use of natural gas.