4 minute read
Save the planet, invest in fossil fuels
Earth Day is today! Hooray? ‘Saving humanity from the climate crisis,” says EarthDay.org, requires us to “push away from the dirty fossil fuel economy.” Sounds logical. But my latest video explains why doing that is cruel to poor people.
“Three billion people in the world still use less electricity than a typical refrigerator,” explains Alex Epstein, author of “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.” If they’re going to have “their first well-paying jobs ... their first consistent supply of clean water ... a modern life ... that’s going to depend on fossil fuels.”
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But the greens say we have a better replacement: wind and solar power.
So I push back at Mr. Epstein: “Solar is getting cheaper all the time. It’s already cheaper than fossil fuels.”
Syrian civil war became an urgent priority. Britain and the U.S. are historically close military partners. Such alliance began in World War I, and became close, vital and lasting during World War II. Intelligence operations were important in both wars and were the initial source of cooperation in World War II, which evolved into our continuing special relationship. Current developments in Europe provide sound reasons to re-emphasize this cooperation.
Both Britain and Ireland are closely tied to the U.S. in the most human dimension of international relations, immigration. President Biden and former President Clinton have done a fine job of reinforcing these relationships.
Arthur I. Cyr is author of “After the Cold War - American Foreign Policy, Europe and Asia” (NYU Press and Palgrave/Macmillan). He is also the director of the Clausen Center at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisc., and a Clausen Distinguished Professor. He welcomes questions and comments at acyr@carthage.edu.
“When we look at solar and wind around the world,” he answers, “it always correlates to rising prices and declining reliability. Why? Because solar and wind are intermittent. At any time, they can go near zero.”
That means wind turbines and solar farms don’t replace fossil fuel plants. You have to build them in addition to fossil fuel plants.
“We spent trillions of dollars in subsidies and mandates putting solar panels and wind turbines everywhere,” Mr. Epstein points out, “Yet we’re still having shortages of fossil fuels.”
Germany invested heavily in solar and wind power. Elites around the world praised German politicians for creating record renewable power. But that didn’t work so well when the winds slowed and clouds appeared.
Germans now pay much more for electricity, triple what Americans pay. Germany has even turned to coal for energy. Coal! Coal is the filthiest fuel. Yet Germany now imports coal from Russia and America.
OK, say the activists, even if renewables have problems, soon we’ll have better batteries fil-A en masse due to the devout Christian beliefs and strongly held views on marriage of the company’s founder and managers, many on the Right refused to countenance reciprocating with such “nasty” tactics, preferring instead to seize an illusory moral high ground. But concerted economic boycotts, it turns out, work: They are effectual punishments of one’s cultural enemies using the undoubtedly legitimate means of market pressure. The Right, it turns out, can mass-organize just like the Left can. Perhaps AnheuserBusch will see the folly of its ham-fisted attempt to foist the transgender agenda down the throats of its disapproving — “fratty,” to use the Bud Light vice president of marketing’s now-infamous description — customer base. Or perhaps it won’t. Regardless, the dramatic and successful pushback, which continues almost two weeks later, underscores that the only way out is through.
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Amidst this ineluctable backdrop, it is incumbent upon the American Right to recognize, as this column admonished last week in response to the New York County, New York district attorney’s unprecedented and utterly meritless criminal indictment of former President Donald Trump, that the only way out is through. Some recent examples help clarify what that entails.
Consider first the dramatic pushback to Anheuser-Busch’s gobsmacking decision to present a special-edition can of Bud Light, America’s best-selling beer, to biological male Dylan Mulvaney to commemorate the nowtransgender Mulvaney’s “365 Days of Girlhood.”
Anheuser-Busch’s market capitalization has plummeted after the boneheaded decision, to the tune of billions of dollars. Kid Rock filmed a video of himself shooting Bud Light cans with a rifle and cursing off Bud Light and Anheuser-Busch, and country star John Rich announced he was pulling all Bud Light from his bar in downtown Nashville. Fox Business aptly summarized the carnage with a headline earlier this week: “Bud Light suffers bloodbath as longtime and loyal consumers revolt against transgender campaign.”
The full damage will likely take weeks, perhaps months, to assess, and there have been off-record grumblings from Bud Light executives who felt “blindsided” by the stunt.
A decade ago, around the time liberals were boycotting Chick-
Consider also the recent drama in Tennessee, where the Republican-dominated state House of Representatives recently voted to expel two Democrats for their role in fomenting what the hyperpartisan corporate press, if the parties were reversed, people would not hesitate to describe as an “insurrection.” Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson are both clearly seen on video ginning up a frothing pro-gun control mob that descended upon the legislative chamber to demand more Second Amendment restrictions after a transgender lunatic decided to shoot up a local Christian school. In the video, Reps. Jones and Pearson can be clearly seen shouting into a bullhorn, flying protest signs and leading vapid chants for protesters in the gallery see HAMMER on C4
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