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Townhall...
Blue Over Green
Energy Promises
By David Limbaugh
The promises of pie-in-the-sky liberal environmentalists that we can
convert to “clean” energy sources and stimulate our economy are based
on dubious environmental and economic assumptions, fantastic notions
about alternative energy, and a disturbing acceptance of the tyrannies
inherent in command-control economies.
It would be bad enough if President Obama and his Democratic allies
were pushing budget-busting green energy solutions during an economic
boom and times of a manageable national debt. But it’s inconceivable
that they would do so under the current dire fiscal circumstances.
They begin with the assumption that we have an urgent need to
restructure our energy sources for environmental, economic and national
security reasons. It’s interesting they don’t see the same urgency in
our looming entitlement crisis -- a menace that will swallow our entire
budget in a few generations, absent major reform.
They attempt to bolster that assumption by manipulating the playing
field to deliberately suppress our production of oil and nuclear energy
and then claim we have a catastrophic supply problem. To be sure, our
supply of oil isn’t unlimited, but if Democrats got off their pristine
high horses about domestic oil production, the problem would be
considerably mitigated. A logical first step would be to admit they are
smothering production, an objectively provable fact about which the
president brazenly prevaricated earlier this week.
We know Democrats are philosophically comfortable with using their
power to artificially skew demand in favor of their preferred sources
of energy. During the presidential campaign, Obama boasted that opening
a coal-fired plant would be a bankrupting proposition, and he has
otherwise allowed as how he has no problem with gas prices increasing
(so people will be forced to consume less). His transportation
secretary, Ray LaHood, has said he wants to coerce us out of our cars,
and the administration is prepared to bludgeon this society into some
high-speed rail system.
We also know that they intend to foist their environmental edicts on us
irrespective of the damage they would almost certainly cause to our
economy and standard of living. The Heritage Foundation has calculated
that the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill would create an average
annual cost for a family of four of almost $3,000 from 2012 through
2035, during which it would also reduce gross domestic product by an
average of $393 billion annually, for a cumulative loss of $9.4
trillion. (We must remember that the cost of energy affects the costs
of many goods we consume, so increases in energy costs will certainly
increase the costs of many other goods.) If these things don’t make
your jaw drop, then consider that the projected effects of the
legislation’s global warming-deterring measures would be to reduce the
Earth’s temperature by merely 0.1 to 0.2 degree Celsius by 2100.
But now President Obama tells us he wants to invest billions of
borrowed dollars in clean energy that would not only bring us Utopian
environmental benefits but also -- voila -- create untold green jobs.
There is not even a consensus on what constitutes a green job, but we
certainly can’t be expected to place our faith in an administration to
artificially create permanent green jobs when its promises to create
other jobs have failed miserably.
We are told to ignore our lying eyes, ears and brains -- and especially
the signals of the market -- and believe that within no time, we could
start supplying a major portion of our energy needs from wind turbines,
solar panels and biofuels. Even though the nation’s smartest money
managers -- private entrepreneurs -- have not been salivating to invest
their hard-earned dollars in these alternative energy sources, we’re
told that if the government forces the expenditure of money into these
projects, we’ll see a payoff of our investments and a healthy profit to
boot. We’re urged to commit the money of future generations based on
the activists’ less-informed and wholly biased assurances.
This nation gets less than 1 percent of its energy from wind and solar
power. When you throw in hydroelectric power, you’re still not above 3
percent. Also, wind and solar are significantly more expensive.
These alternative sources are also not without controversy, as we saw
with the flap over the proposed windmill in the late Ted Kennedy’s
“backyard.” Ironically, these “clean” energy sources are not always so
clean, e.g., hazardous waste is involved in the disposal of solar PV
panels.
With all these unrealistic assumptions, dubious projected benefits,
additional problems and complications, and enormous costs, one has to
wonder why, apart from a blind faith in the secular religion of
environmentalism, liberals are pushing these programs so vigorously.
Read it at Townhall
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