The great Rush Limbaugh used to say that “the modern environmentalists worship the created, not the creator.” I was reminded of that after listening to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi once President Joe Biden signed the fiscally unconscionable $750 billion tax-and-spend Inflation Reduction Act, which gives another $369 billion to the climate change-industrial complex.
Pelosi (D-CA) claimed the wind, solar and electric subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act would placate an “angry” planet. “Mother Earth gets angry from time to time, and this legislation will help us address all of that,” the speaker said.
This is a highly revealing statement. Do Pelosi and her Democratic colleagues really believe that spending $369 billion on Tesla subsidies (with batteries made in China), windmills (made in China) and solar panels (made in China) is going to save the planet, stop the rise of the oceans and lower the global temperature?
This is the same gang in Congress that can’t stop the daily drive-by shootings in our cities, can’t secure the U.S.-Mexico border, can’t come anywhere near balancing the budget and can’t provide the resources our military needs for our national security.
Even if this additional $369 billion were to work as planned, the Wall Street Journal reports that the impact on global temperatures in the coming decades would be to lower them by 0.001%. So, instead of the global temperature being an average of 59 F, it will be 58.999 F. Thank God! We are saved from Armageddon.
But as Pelosi’s quote makes clear, this is about symbolism. It is about ruining the economy as a sacrifice to Mother Earth. Marc Morano, the journalist who runs ClimateDepot.com, asks: “Will human sacrifices be next to appease the ‘angry’ Earth gods? Actually, this bill will create human sacrifice by imposing even more suffering from energy deprivation, supply chain issues, good shortages, inflation, debt, and bad science.”
He’s right. The suffering that will occur from this assault on American energy security and reliability could be profound — and it will be the lowest-income people who will be hurt the most. Inflation will rise as energy prices soar. The shortages of energy will cause hardship for many consumers, including food shortages. Europe, which got hooked on the green energy fad, is now rationing energy. In Spain, there are new restrictions on using air conditioning to set the temperature of your store or home at less than 80 F — during a heat spell. It’s one of those sacrifices to Mother Earth.
One of the great injustices and ironies of the new law is that it purports to give billions of dollars for “environmental justice” grants to low-income communities and inner cities when it is this group of people who will feel the brunt of the anti-fossil fuel policies. The poor spend much more of their incomes on energy than the rich.
The warmest years in North America are not recent years — instead, they occurred during the 1930s amid the Dust Bowl era. This was (SET ITAL) before (END ITAL) 80% of the carbon dioxide was released into the atmosphere. Back then, thousands of U.S. residents died from extreme weather. But now we have, through modern electric power and technological innovation, major ways to reduce death rates from weather events. The way to save the Earth is through more growth, more innovation and a richer planet.
That is what Mother Earth wants. That is what America wants. Only one out of 20 people rate climate change as the No. 1 problem facing our country. The public wants lower inflation and more prosperity. This law delivers neither.
The God that many of us worship wants us to create peace, prosperity and light. The god of radical environmentalists will deliver darkness, despair and decline.
Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an economic consultant with FreedomWorks. He is the co-author of "Trumponomics: Inside the America First Plan to Revive the American Economy." To find out more about Stephen Moore and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
