Who gave you the right to deprive us of our living standards, aspirations and loved ones?
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg earned her moniker Doom Pixie because of her diminutive height and shrill accusations of human and planetary doom allegedly due to climate change caused by fossil fuels.
Her most famous tirade was directed at world leaders for allegedly doing too little to stop it.
“How dare you?” she fiercely scowled at United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, presidents and prime ministers, dignitaries and functionaries in the UN’s General Assembly Hall.
“You have stolen my dreams, my childhood with your empty words…. People are suffering," she said. "People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. How dare you?!?”
No, Miss Thunberg and the politicians, bureaucrats and activists who turn your diatribes into policy.
How dare you employ bogus scares based on computer models that can’t even recreate past climates, much less predict future climate and weather? How dare you turn every temperature and weather event, flood, drought and forest fire into assertions that wildlife, humanity and planet face imminent demise?
How dare you claim plant-fertilizing, planet-greening, life-sustaining carbon dioxide from fuels, manufacturing and agriculture somehow endangers our human health and welfare?
How dare you demand that we shut down the energy systems that make our lives, health and living standards possible? That we must be deprived of modern comforts, aspirations and loved ones, because you force us to eliminate energy systems that work – and replace them with expensive weather-dependent substitutes that bring blackouts, poverty, disease, deprivation, joblessness and shortened lives?
How dare you tell the poorest people on Earth that they must renounce their God-given right to modern technologies, health and living standards – and sacrifice their landscapes and wildlife with wind turbines, solar panels and renewable energy trash on your altar of climate fanaticism?
How dare you demand that we abandon free enterprise democratic capitalism that has brought health and prosperity to billions – and replace it with socialist-communist-
Shortly after the October 7, 2023 barbarities, Doom Pixie shifted her focus to promoting Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorist dreams of eradicating Israel and Israelis “from the river to the sea.” Perhaps her audiences had tired of her climate rants, perhaps because they realize the “crisis” is wildly overblown, the world will need oil and gas for decades to come, and mining, manufacturing and installing wind, solar and battery power is environmentally horrific. Or maybe vilifying Israel simply pays better.
But her climate harangues continue – and her acolytes still glory in imposing diktats that raise costs and cost lives, while doing nothing to stabilize Earth’s frequently and perpetually fluctuating climate.
Indeed, I am eternally astonished at how often I think their callous insanity and depravity couldn’t possibly sink any lower … and I’m proven wrong.
California policies have forced oil drilling and production, refineries, coal, gas and nuclear power plants, and even hydroelectric plants to shut down. Big surprise: it now has the highest electricity and gasoline prices in the continental USA. Kind bureaucrats now say they will shave a few cents off per gallon – by mandating improved “tire efficiency,” so tires glide along roads with less resistance. All-season 65,000-mile US tires must now be replaced with 27,000-mile Euro tires. That will at least double tire costs over a vehicle’s lifetime. Far worse, it will bring more accidents, injuries and deaths, because the new tires require longer stopping distances, especially under wet conditions.
California, Connecticut and New York also lead the US on Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and Net Zero policies – with Virginia’s “moderate” governor and legislators working feverishly to catch up, thereby driving household, school, hospital, business, factory and data center electricity and operating costs ever higher. You need heating, air conditioning, cooking, lighting and computing? Too bad.
Under those same climate-centric policies, Britain’s per capita primary energy consumption has plummeted since 2005. Its wealth and living standards have done likewise. Meanwhile, its electricity prices are among the world’s highest, thanks to wind and solar replacing coal, natural gas and nuclear power plants. Jobs and entire industries have disappeared, and residents have been forced to remove air conditioning units if they actually use them during heatwaves.
The jobs, energy cost and industrial situation are just as bleak in Germany, where “bathroom ministers” now inform homeowners they cannot have a shower and bathtub in the same bathroom.
As absurd as all this is, nothing compares to the totalitarian imperialism of the UN, Europe, World Bank, World Economic Forum, Obama-Biden and other “climate crisis,” “energy transition” and “traditional agriculture” ministries. For decades, they have imposed their “moral” and “ethical” principles on poor countries, to keep them from developing “excessively.” Until recently, they’ve gotten away with it.
Obama science advisor John Holdren insisted that the United States and other industrialized nations must “de-develop” – and then tell underdeveloped countries what “ecologically feasible development” they will be permitted to reach.
For decades, this meant no grants or loans for coal, gas or even nuclear power plants – because impoverished countries were expected to “leapfrog dirty fossil fuels” and go directly to “clean, renewable, sustainable” wind and solar.
That’s why, even today, the average Sub-Saharan African has electricity 20 minutes a day, 141 minutes a week, 123 hours per year (out of 8,760) – sporadically, at totally unpredictable times, for a few minutes or hours at a time. Homes, shops, and even schools and hospitals are severely energy-deprived, and access to clean water is a luxury.
Eco-imperialist, neo-colonialist policies have also dictated agricultural and health policies. Farmers were told for years that they must not use pesticides, herbicides or biotech seeds – especially if they want to sell their produce in European markets. They should even forego tractors and be content with ox-pulled plows and “traditional,” “ecological” subsistence farming.
Even malaria control must be done without pesticides, with often counterfeit and substandard drugs, and with hospitals that lack clean water, adequate electricity and even window screens.
Thankfully, President Trump has restored regulatory sanity and American energy dominance – and ended the use of foreign aid as a weapon to browbeat poor countries into accepting these lethal policies.
That compassionate approach – and the refusal of China, India and other emerging powerhouse economies to buy into the insanity – has further encouraged still poor developing countries to reject eco-imperialism and neo-colonialism. They now tell the world they want, demand and expect rapid, dramatic transformations in living standards, nutrition and health, through modern energy, industrial, agricultural and healthcare infrastructure. As is their sacred right.
The world is changing, at least in many states and countries. It’s about time. But there is still much left to be done – beginning with electing American, European, Asian and African leaders who understand and champion these realities.
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books, reports and articles on energy, environmental, climate and human rights issues.
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