Late in April Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for the 2020 presidential elections, acknowledged that he is ready to embrace the Green New Deal aimed at making sweeping changes to America’s energy spectrum.
This signals more danger to the American economy, which is already reeling under the pressure of the coronavirus lockdowns.
There is hope the economy will recover from this coronavirus slump, but not if the nation implements the Green New Deal. Here’s why:
The Green New Deal (GND), conceptualized by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), has been a major talking point since 2019. In fact, most of the Democratic presidential candidates praised and indicated that they would embrace it.
Socialist Bernie Sanders was Biden’s last competitor. AOC supported him, and he fully embraced the GND.
Over a live video conference call, Biden assured Sanders that he would fight against climate change and implement the GND.
But the GND is neither new nor green.
Most of the rationale for the GND comes from the United Nations’ periodic assessment reports on climate change. These state that the world is in imminent danger from rising global temperatures.
The GND does not mention that the UN’s reports are based on faulty models, which have often failed to predict real-world temperatures.
The inadequacy and erroneous nature of the models were explained by climate scientist John R. Christy to the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space & Technology on March 29, 2017. The models’ complete inability to reflect real-world climatic patterns (from 1979 through 2016) was even acknowledged by one of the top climate scientists in the UN climate panel.
Furthermore, the solutions proposed in the GND—as a means to tackle the imaginary climate doomsday—are nothing new. They merely echo the exiting popular opinion about climate action. The opinion involves unproven claims as grounds for a transition from conventional to renewable energy sources to offset imaginary dangers from warming.
The truth is that wind and solar—two of the most widely propagated renewable sources—cannot give reliable and affordable energy.
This is why Bill Gates was not shy in exposing the incapability of renewable tech to support energy-intensive utilities and cities, despite his having invested millions into renewable energy ventures. If we were to embrace such unreliable tech, it would come at a very high cost, making energy unaffordable to many Americans.
The GND also does not mention how using wind and solar energy involves a lot of toxic pollution during the manufacturing and end-of-useful-life stages. The renewables do us no favor even when in operation. Wind turbines are infamous for killing birds.
Moreover, embracing renewables is expensive and will achieve nothing on the climate front. Historic data tell us that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations—promoted as the major cause of manmade global warming—do not play a major role in global average temperatures.
A number of false claims have been made in the GND to exaggerate existing conditions. For example, the GND says extreme weather events have increased due to climate change, but the UN IPCC assessment reports on climate change—the very documents on which the GND is based—says that there is no such increase due to increasing global temperatures.
An open declaration to implement the GND by a presidential candidate is disturbing, not only for energy consumers in America, but also for the whole economy, which relies on conventional energy sources like fossil fuels.
To embrace the GND is to destroy the very fabric of energy-based civilization. Suffocating the energy sector with the GND will cause America to cave in on herself.
Vijay Jayaraj (M.Sc., Environmental Science, University of East Anglia, England), is a Research Contributor for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation.