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True motivation behind introducing the Green New Deal is to overhaul the entire economy

Questioning The Green New Deal



Questioning The Green New DealHow would the Green New Deal handle a COVID outbreak? The Green New Deal, proposed early in 2019 by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey, would transition the US economy entirely away from fossil fuels within ten years while simultaneously providing a federal jobs and health care guarantee. It would also, according to proponents advance 'social, economic, racial, regional, and gender-based justice and equality and cooperative public ownership.' All told, the proposal will cost up to $93 trillion in new government spending over ten years, according to a recent report by the conservative American Action Forum. 1
In its first year, the Green New Deal would cost more than $70,000 per household in five states for higher costs for energy, housing, transportation and shipping, 2 Paul Driessen asks, “If the entire USA goes Green New Deal—how would they handle a future COVID outbreak? How would they manufacture cars, airplanes, and wind turbines, toilet paper, pharmaceuticals or much of anything else with intermittent energy? It hasn't happened in Europe and it won't work here.” He adds, “Moreover, it's not just replacing today's coal and gas power plant megawatts. It's doubling today's electricity generation, because Green New Dealers want to replace all fossil fuel use: gasoline and diesel cars, trucks and buses, home and water heating, factory power, hospital emergency power, and more.” 3 How is the vaunted transition to wind and solar actually working in Europe and Britain? In 2017, German families and businesses were pummeled by 172,000 localized blackouts. Last year, some 350,000 German families had their electricity cut off because they couldn't pay their power bills. In Britain, millions of elderly people have to choose between heating and eating decent food; many spend their days in libraries to keep warm; and more than 3,000 die every year because they cannot heat their homes properly, making them more likely to succumb to respiratory, heart, flu or other diseases. 3 The goal of Energiewende is to make Germany independent of fossil fuels. But it hasn't worked out. The 29,000 wind turbines and 1.6 million PV systems provide only 3.1% of Germany's energy needs and have cost well over 100 billion Euros so far and likely another 450 billion Euros over the next two decades. And much more than that when you add in the extra cost of maintaining fossil generation systems to back up the lack of wind and sunshine from microseconds to weeks. Germany's electricity rates have skyrocketed to the highest levels in the EU because of the Energiewende debacle. The country has not just been burning coal; it has been burning lignite, one of the dirtiest fuels on the planet. In fact, in 2016, seven of the ten worst polluting facilities in Europe were German lignite plants. 4 Across Europe, 11 million jobs are at risk because of an EU green deal that many say is suicidal. Meanwhile, China and India are still building coal and gas power plants. China is adding new coal power plants equivalent to the entire European Union capacity. 5 All of this goes to making products for the USA and Europe, creating jobs, building airports, and sending billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere Under standard assumptions the US is projected to produce about 11% of total emissions through 2100, while China alone will emit 33% and India 13%. So, even if the US slams the brakes on emissions, this by itself won't spare everyone 'the most devastating consequences of climate change', unless all of the other major emitters do likewise. 6

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What the Green New Deal is really about

Green New Deal fanatics are proposing something that is literally impossible and even if it were achievable would be destructive of life as we know it. A number of cities and states in the US; Germany, England and other countries in the European Union—all plan to banish oil and natural gas within 10, 20 or 30 years. Natural gas power plants generate 3,812 megawatt hours of electricity(MWh) per gas field and utility worker. That super high efficiency and resultant low-cost electricity sustain millions of jobs in manufacturing and countless other industries. In stark contrast, wind turbines produce a measly 836 MWh for every employee, while solar panels generated an abysmal 98 MWh per worker. Put another way, it takes 79 solar workers to produce the same amount of electricity as two natural gas workers. 7 Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti admitted recently that the true motivation behind introducing the Green New Deal is to overhaul the 'entire economy.' “Do you guys think of it as a climate thing? Because we really think of it as how do you change the entire economy thing,” he said. 1 Looks like this answers the question what the Green New Deal is really about.

References

  1. Jack Crowe, AOC's chief of staff admits the green new deal is not about climate change,” nationalreview.com, July 12, 2019
  2. Valerie Richardson, “AOC's green new deal would cost 70K plus per household in first year: study,” washingtontimes.com, July 30, 2019
  3. Paul Driessen, “How exactly do they plan to replace fossil fuels?”, wattsupwiththat.com, March 16, 2020
  4. “Germany's renewable energy program, Energiewende, is a big expensive failure,” energyskeptic.com, July 20, 2019
  5. Chriss Street, “China adding new coal power plants equivalent to entire European Union capacity,” The Epoch Times, December 29, 2019
  6. Robert P. Murphy, “Dirty secrets about the clean future act,” independent.org, February 24, 2020
  7. Paul Driessen, “Green new deal fanatics have no concept of what they propose,” naturalgasnow.org, March 16, 2020


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Jack Dini -- Bio and Archives

Jack Dini is author of Challenging Environmental Mythology.  He has also written for American Council on Science and Health, Environment & Climate News, and Hawaii Reporter.


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