The Green New Deal: Chasing Waterfalls*

Okay, I get it. The progressive playbook demands that we stop using hydrocarbons in order to save the planet. I don’t agree with it but I do understand it. Apparently the concern relates to both the refining and consumption of oil and gas since both produce a carbon based exhaust which is a “carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e).” CO2e being the measure of carbon based equivalents to CO2 and include carbon monoxide and methane which are deemed to be the gases that contribute to global warming. I get that also but I remain skeptical about the level and longevity of such contributions.

But to be absolutely sure about this, according to the progressive playbook, it is the refining and consumption of oil and gas, not the production of oil and gas that it is one of the underlying causes of global warming. (Well that and animal flatulence.) And that is precisely the view of President Joe Biden, Vice-president Kamalata Harris. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, and a host of intellectual lightweights in Congress and a goodly slice of the mainistream media.

To follow that logic would suggest that if we reduce the amount of oil and gas consumed in America we will contribute to the worldwide reduction in greenhouse gases. I say that with the full realization that the amount of such reduction in America would do little to reduce the overall generation of greenhouse gases because countries like China, India, and Russia are increasing their consumption of oil and gas at a greater rate than we would reduce it – and worse yet, these same countries, along with a host of others, are increasing their consumption of coal in the form of coal burning generation of electricity at even a faster rate. CBS reports:

Americans’ use of coal is set to increase this year — the first time in seven years that annual use of the energy source has risen.

But then again it really doesn’t matter because Mr. Biden and the collection of one-star intellects surrounding him are not really reducing the amount of oil and gas consumed in America – they are instead focused solely on the reduction on the production of oil and gas – a process that generates very little in the way of greenhouse gases.

They have done this by using the power of the federal government to deny licenses or permits for the use of federal lands (including offshore locations) to produce oil and gas and to transport oil and gas within the United States. And while they are disrupting domestic production, they are seeking to backfill the loss of the production with foreign oil and gas. The net effect will be no net reduction in the contribution to greenhouse gases in America but an extreme reduction in the oil and gas producers’ business – a loss of domestic contribution to the overall American economy.

Let me repeat that. Shutting down the production and transport of domestic oil and gas, and replacing it with a similar amount of foreign oil and gas will have no significant impact on the reduction, domestically or globally, of green house gases. It will only have the effect of damaging a significant element of our national economy and raising the price of oil and gas consumption to American consumers – resulting in aggravating inflation**. That is not a projection or speculation, that is exactly what has happened.

I apologize for working through this so slowly but I want even those who were forced to endure a teachers union led education in the Portland Public Schools to understand this.

But it gets worse.

CBS News reported on March 6, 2022, as follows:

Washington —Senior American officials are in Venezuela this weekend to meet with the government of Nicolás Maduro, whose authoritarian rule of the oil-producing country has meant no formal diplomatic relations between the two countries since 2019.

The visit is yet another example of a geopolitical shift underway across the globe in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as the U.S. and European countries seek energy sources other than Russia, one of the world’s largest oil exporters.

Multiple U.S. officials confirmed the trip is happening to CBS News. The White House and State Department declined formal comment.

Other reports have John Kerry recommending additional sanctions relief on Iran in order to persuade the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to sell oil to the United States and to exempt transactions between Russia and Iran from the list of sanctions against Russia for its invasion of the Ukraine.

This staggers the imagination. How is it that Mr. Biden could even consider re-engaging with three of the most corrupt and brutal regimes in the world – Russia, Iran and Venezuela?

Unarguably, Mr. Biden has failed at every task, foreign and domestic, since the inception of his administration. It is an unending series of blunders caused by actions taken by Mr. Biden and his steadfast refusal to correct the results of his errors. In each instance it is precisely the acts or the negligence of Mr. Biden that is the proximate (not contributing, but proximate) cause of the current state of affairs globally and domestically.

And the most disturbing element of all of this is that a stroke of the pen would reverse virtually all of the damage that Mr. Biden and his administration has caused. An order reinstating the construction and operation of pipelines and re-opening federal and coastal lands for drilling and production would, in short order, reinstate energy independence and make a significant impact on what is now runaway inflation. And achieving energy independence would allow us to strengthen sanctions against three of the world’s worst regimes – Russia, Iran and Venezuela.

But Mr. Biden and his progressive/socialists are blindly chasing waterfalls – the Green New Deal.

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* Chasing waterfalls in a euphemism for the self-destructive behavior of people who pursue quixotic dreams without regard to the consequences – thus the admonition: “don’t go chasing waterfalls.”

**The Consumer Price Index (the measure of inflation) rose to 7.9 percent in February making it the highest since April of 1980 – midway through the administration of President Jimmy Carter – an unenviable comparison.