Paul Driessen

Green New Deal disruption and destruction

Kamala Harris co-sponsored the Senate resolution to support the Green New Deal. Now Joe Biden has endorsed the plan. Naturally, people want to know what the GND will cost – usually meaning in state and federal government spending. But that is the wrong question.  The real question is, how much do Green New Dealers expect to get out of it, at what total cost? Mr. Biden says he wants the feds to spend nearly $7 trillion over the next decade on healthcare, energy and housing transformation, climate change and other GND agenda items. But that is only part of the picture. 

Why don't these black lives matter?

Marathon Petroleum recently announced it will "indefinitely idle" its Martinez Refinery. The decision will remove hundreds of jobs, billions of dollars, and nearly 7 million gallons of gasoline, diesel and other petroleum liquids per day from the energy-hungry California economy. It will also send fuel prices even higher for minority and other poor families that already pay by far the highest gasoline prices in the continental United States: $1.32 more per gallon of regular than in Louisiana and Texas. 

Food Security in a Post-Covid World

US-EU trade talks are already stalled over agriculture issues. And yet the European Union's new "Farm to Fork" strategy doesn't just double down on the EU's contentious agricultural regulations. It promises to use access to European markets to compel the United States and other countries to adopt EU-style organic farming, precautionary and other regulations if they want to remain trading partners with Europe. "Farm to Fork" (or F2F) is being billed as "the heart of the European Green Deal." Like recent energy, climate and other initiatives, it is largely an environmentalist wish (or demand) list – with little basis in science, practical experience or real world impacts. It sets out three primary objectives, which the EU intends to implement fully by 2030, barely nine years from now:

Hold China accountable – or give it even more control? 

China unleashed Covid-19 on an unsuspecting world. It knew by early January 2020 (if not by December 2019 or earlier) that it was dealing with a vicious, fast-spreading disease in Wuhan, a city with more people than Chicago and New York City combined. But first it said nothing. Then it lied repeatedly, expelled foreign journalists, and threatened, silenced or "disappeared" Wuhan doctors who tried to warn the world. 

Ban neonics – hurt farmers--and bees

The honeybees, bumblebees and other little pollinators swarming over my flowers remind me what important roles they play – and how some misguided folks could inadvertently hurt them.  Montgomery County, Maryland now prohibits "weed-and-feed" lawn fertilizer and most "synthetic pesticides." But it allows homeowners, farmers and orchardists to use "organic" products that are often more dangerous to bees, other wildlife and even humans. New York is considering a five-year statewide ban on neonicotinoid insecticides; this action too would likely result in the use of chemicals that may actually be much more toxic to the birds and bees it seeks to protect. 

Report renewable energy risks, too

Joe Biden has drifted far to the left and made it clear that, if elected president, he would restrict or ban fracking, pipelines, federal onshore and offshore drilling, and use of oil, coal, natural gas, and thus our economy. He's selected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as his climate and energy advisor and is expected to choose an equally "progressive" woman of color as his running mate (and president-in-reality). 

Another giant of science has passed

Another giant of science, history and scholarship has left our world. Dennis T. Avery died June 21 at age 83. With the passing of this "gifted scholar and communicator, the world became a less interesting place," former Heartland Institute president and CEO Joe Bast commented.   Avery's career was indeed remarkable for its breadth and depth. Born in 1936 in Lansing, Michigan, he earned degrees in journalism and economics from Michigan State University and the University of Wisconsin, then worked for a variety of federal government agencies before retiring in 1989 as Senior Agricultural Analyst for the U.S. State Department. Among his many other awards and honors, he received the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement in 1983.  

Greens promote child slave labor and ecological destruction

The US Supreme Court recently ruled 7-2 to reverse a lower court ruling that had invalidated a permit for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which will bring West Virginia natural gas to Virginia and North Carolina, for home heating, factory power, electricity generation and manufacturing petrochemical feedstocks. Environmentalists had claimed the US Forest Service had no authority to issue the permit, because a 0.1-mile (530-foot) segment would cross 600 feet below the 2,200-mile-long Appalachian Trail, which is administered by the National Park Service. Justice Thomas's majority opinion scuttled that assertion.

The Green New Deal dress rehearsal

More than 1.4 million cases of Wuhan Coronavirus and 106,000 deaths in the United States alone have accompanied stay-home lockdowns, businesses bankruptcies, over 40 million unemployed workers, plummeting tax revenues and unprecedented debt. Ongoing rioting, vandalism, arson and looting are compounding problems for many cities and minority communities. 

Destroying the environment to save it

"We had to destroy the village in order to save it." The infamous Vietnam era quotation may or may not have been uttered by an anonymous US Army major. It may have been misquoted, revised, apocryphal or invented. But it quickly morphed into an anti-war mantra that reflected attitudes of the time.  For Virginians and others forced to travel the path of "clean, green, renewable, sustainable" energy, it will rebound in modern politics as "We had to destroy the environment in order to save it." 

Prioritizing climate over pandemics

As of May 20, the United States had more than 1.5 million confirmed cases of Wuhan Coronavirus. US deaths related or attributed to the virus topped 92,000 (though many were really due to old age and related co-morbidities). Because of COVID, much of the US economy has been shut down since late March. More than 36 million American workers have now filed for unemployment insurance, while tens of millions more have been furloughed or seen their hours and/or salaries reduced severely. 

The real climate science deniers

Manmade climate crisis promoters reject inconvenient evidence of natural climate change  Fifty years ago, I helped organize Earth Day #1 programs on my college campus, calling attention to serious pollution problems that afflicted much of the USA. Over the ensuing decades, laws, regulations, and changed attitudes, practices and technologies reduced most of that pollution, often dramatically. 

A miraculous turn of events

Never in my wildest dreams did I envision a day when I'd agree with anything filmmaker Michael Moore said – much less that he would agree with me. But mirabile dictu, his new film, Planet of the Humans, is as devastating an indictment of wind, solar and biofuel energy as anything I have ever written.

Financiers of poverty, malnutrition and death – Part 2

It's easy to farm organically in the wealthy, advanced EU and USA, where consumers can afford much more expensive organic meats, eggs, fruits and vegetables. It's much harder if you have to deal with the insects and crop diseases that plague African farmers on constant massive levels and locusts that bring true catastrophes every few decades – and then sell your meager crop yields to impoverished families.

Financiers of poverty, malnutrition and death – Part 1 

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization, anti-development banks, the Agency for International Development (USAID), NGO (non-government organization) pressure groups and other eco-imperialists are properly condemned for using their money, power, and control over trade and lending to keep millions of African, Asian and Latin American families from having access to reliable, affordable energy, pesticides and spatial insect repellants to prevent disease, and modern agricultural technologies. 

Fauci-Birx climate models?

President Trump and his Coronavirus Task Force presented some frightening numbers during their March 31 White House briefing. Based on now 2-week-old data and models, as many as 100,000 Americans at the models' low end, to 2.2 million at their high end, could die from the fast-spreading virus, they said. 

Let's quarantine some fake corona and energy news

Some 40,000 children slave away in Chinese-operated Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) mines, digging out cobalt for cell phones, laptops, Teslas and Green New Deal technologies, the London-based Guardian has reported. They're exposed constantly to toxic and radioactive mud, dust, water and air. Blood and respiratory diseases, birth defects, cancer, paralysis and death by suffocation are common. Other investigators have confirmed the horrors. But the human rights violations continue. 

Fight the virus, not carbon

The many trillions of dollars proposed to be spent under dubious "green new deals" should be spent instead (effectively and within reason) on health care, especially virus prevention, protection and cures. This is the gist of an "Open Letter to World Leaders" from the Climate Intelligence Foundation.  The Foundation, or CLINTEL, makes this clear right up front: "Your Excellencies, compared to COVID-19, climate change is a non-problem! It is based on immature computer models, and it looks into the distant future. In the current health emergency, however, your attention to the peoples’ needs is today! Please, don’t continue pushing your zero carbon emission ambition in a time that the world is dealing with a deadly global crisis. Yes, there is an emergency, but it is NOT climate."

The real reasons Africa has another locust plague

The ChiCom coronavirus and COVID-19 outbreaks, deaths and responses continue to dominate US, European and Asian news. Meanwhile, a very different infestation is devastating East African crops and leaving tens of millions at risk of starvation and death. If COVID hits these weakened populations, amid their malaria and other systemic diseases, it would bring tragedy on unimaginable scales. 

How exactly do they plan to replace fossil fuels?

Berkeley, CA, Takoma Park, MD and other cities; California, Connecticut, New York, Virginia and other states; Germany, England and other countries; the European Union – all plan to banish oil, natural gas and coal within 10, 20 or 30 years. A number of US states have joined Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiatives and proudly say We Are Still In ... the Paris climate treaty, no matter what President Trump says or does.