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If you really want to lower “global emissions”…
by Steve MacDonald
Emissions are the new little black dress. Okay, not new, but in the Orwellian Climate Games, ‘emissions’ is the hot new blonde. Forty years ago, it was CO2 and warming. Forty years later, it still is, but the names have changed to confuse the disinterested. “Emissions” is like “Stuff” assuming responsibility for whatever bad thing they will claim we need to reduce.
And you are emitting. You are ruining the planet. Your diet, lifestyle, mobility, spending, everything (coincidentally) that a centrally planned command-and-control government would want to manage … needs pruning. You cannot be relied on to do it. They must regulate your ‘emissions’ lower or else. Or else what? Nothing, as it turns out, not that what I’m about to share would mean less if there were something.
And that’s the beauty of it. Emissions or not, none of it matters.
India vs Vermont
I like to pick on Vermont because it is just a step to my left (on a map and ideologically, but it is otherwise similar to my own state of New Hampshire).
Vermont went left a long while back and hard left more recently. Democrats are quickly destroying what was left, and while New Hampshire has grown and prospered, Vermont has struggled. The state is drowning under waves of progressive virtue signalling, which includes the insane climate clowns chanting chapter and verse in pursuit of arbitrary emissions reductions ‘cuz Climate Change.
Again, for this scenario to make sense, you can believe in that fantasy as much as you like, but if so, you need to accept the truth I share, engage in meaningful action, and stop punishing your neighbors.
The cost to Vermont and Vermonters of these plans within plans is enormous. Their “leaders” have adopted California air quality regs, but even on a good day, the total emissions they might reduce (if we ignore all the real emissions offshored out of Vermont to build and run the not-very-green renewables they claim to crave) are tiny.
On a global scale, Vermont’s contribution to anything, especially ‘emissions,’ is a raindrop in the ocean.
To mitigate these Vermonters will be made to pay a kingly sum for a pauper’s reward—all cost and net-zero gain. That goes for New Hampshire, Maine, all of the New England States, and, while we’re at it, North America and Europe. India is now burning more coal than all of them combined.
Since India doesn’t have the same air quality regulations as the US or Europe, and neither does China, which is burning even more coal, the futility of the economic punishments of overzealous emissions police in a tiny state like Vermont should overwhelm you.
Vermont could burn tires for fuel and still not compete with India on “emissions.”
But wait, there’s more.
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While Democrats in Vermont (and those pining away in your state and mine to do the same) crush us with energy inflation, new taxes, burdensome regulations on wood stoves, lawnmowers, generators, and gas stoves, and a future that cannot promise more than intermittent power, India is doubling down.
Post pandemic, the country’s power demand scaled new records on the back of the fastest rate of economic growth among major economies and increased instances of heatwaves.
India saw its biggest power shortfall in 14 years in June, and had to race to avoid night time outages by deferring planned plant maintenance, and invoking an emergency clause to mandate companies to run plants based on imported coal and power.
India is spending another 33 billion to build more coal plants, and that is just the beginning of more. The goal is to lift their people out of poverty and into the improved comfort and security of the second and first world.
To paraphrase Konstantin Kisin, they will not stay poor.
Only China has more and burns more, and neither of them is about to stop and consider what blue-state lefties in the West think except when selling them solar arrays and wind turbines made with open-pit mined rare earth metals manufactured with coal-powered energy.
Ironically, a state like Vermont could do exponentially more to lower global emissions if it abandoned the California standards, banned EVs, wind, and solar, and expanded hydro and natural gas. By eschewing those “green” things, they reduce the real emissions created to make them, likely a far greater reduction than any they could manage locally.
Vermont might also enjoy more reliable energy, lower costs, better growth, more business, and tourism, and it could lower taxes and actually generate more revenue.
Do I need to say that none of that will happen if you keep electing Democrats? You will also need to convince far too many Republicans. It is true, but the global reality is that the pain and expense of these policies won’t even scratch the surface of the problem they insist they are meant to address.
Emissionaries
No one sends the Peace Corps to Westchester or Sara Clara County because these are some of the wealthiest places in America. They go where the need is and so too should those obsessed with emissions. They can call themselves Emissionaries, traveling the globe (in wooden tall ships, presumably) imposing their bizarre neo-western climate values on the nations presenting an existential threat to the entire planet.
Any other action, in any other place, for any amount of time or other people’s money, especially in states like Vermont, makes the politically imposed decline not just meaningless but grounds for lawsuits alleging fraud and domestic abuse.
You are punishing people for less than nothing, or is that the goal?
And I get it. In our increasingly godless world, more people than ever are looking for something to believe in. A cause, a purpose, or some passionate pursuit that they feel will add value to their short time in our world. Thinking that someone else is destroying the planet is a good fit for them. They could play god themselves and pretend to fix it. If that’s you, and you are harassing Vermonter’s (Or Granite Stater’s and so on) you’re doing it wrong. We aren’t the ones whose emissions need to be reduced. We were actually doing that fine on our own. Advances in fracking had filled our energy resources with cleaner natural gas (whose export Joe Biden tried to ban – just like fracking – which would require foreign nations to BURN MORE COAL!).
When they come, climate-narrative-hat in hand, to take money and comfort from you, ask them how many emissions they have reduced in China or India.
The answer is none, which is how much deference you should give to them or their plans for you.
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Categories: Commentary, Energy, Environment
Yes, many are on to all this and are well aware VT can never change the world. I imagine it’s all about power and control.
But a question pertaining to a point which wasnt addressed – Have the climate activists ever made any headway for their cause in terms of their throwing various foodstuffs at Master’s paintings? I’ll admit I never could comprehend the connection, but have tried to nonetheless give the handcuffed college-aged crazies the benefit of the doubt. It can’t be easy being that mentally unsound. I mean, what has oatmeal or Monet ever really done to them?
Send this post to the governor as well. China and India will continue to burn coal and not curb their emissions. I’m sure they are laughing at us.
But Steve. Could limiting ’emissions’ be a false dichotomy in the first place? Can you differentiate between emitting ‘stuff’ and emitting CO2? It’s one thing to scrub coal plants and other fossil fuel plants for sulfur and nitrogen dioxides, mercury, ozone, and carbon monoxide. But what’s the story with CO2?
There are now too many independent scientists and researchers openly countering the CO2 boogeyman narrative to ignore. Sure, do what we must to limit real air pollutants. But CO2 isn’t a pollutant. And the argument that CO2, a trace compound, is a significant ‘greenhouse’ gas is being debunked more and more.
Curiously, everything the climate mongers recommend to mitigate climate change is based on limiting CO2. What about limiting water vapor?
Meanwhile, paradoxically, the recommended mitigation process of promoting windmills, solar panels, EVs with lithium-ion batteries, heat pumps in cold climates, enhancing the grid, and so forth, do little to cut relative CO2 emissions. But this mitigation process does greatly increase the awful other ‘stuff’ spewed into the atmosphere. This practice makes absolutely no sense, practically or economically.
If we’re really talking about a climate Armageddon 100 years out, why not save money today with traditional energy sources. Yes, use fossil fuels to bridge the gap (and scrub the exhaust) and, certainly, use more inexpensive Canadian hydro, and don’t forget existing nuclear power technology. With the savings, embark on a ‘Manhattan’ like project to perfect compact fusion technology?
But windmills? … fields full of solar panels? … and mining huge amounts of lithium in the Congo or off the sea floor? What can they be thinking? – other than that ‘there’s a sucker born every minute’.
I’ll say this, because I’m old enough to remember. If Rip Van Winkle fell asleep anywhere in the US (and especially in Northern and Central New England) in 1964, only to wake up today, in 2024, he would be amazed at how much cleaner our air, our water, our homes, and our environment are as far as *real* pollutants go. Viewed through that lens, we have made amazing, AMAZING progress in reducing pollution. Mr Van Winkle would find it unbelievable that we’ve made so much progress in such a short time.
As Mr Eshelman points out, CO2 is not a pollutant, but a highly necessary component of our atmosphere. You may be surprised to know that our air contains only 0.4% CO2. That number has been much, much higher in the past, double even, as proven by core ice samples taken from a multitude of locations around the planet. It is widely believed that if a level of ~0.25% CO2 is ever reached, 95% of life on Earth would perish.
As President Trump has said, it’s the Green New Scam – just another way to separate you from more of your hard-earned money. Remember, just because an exceedingly small percentage of libtards screeches their brains out, they are far from the majority.
The trick to this whole thing is getting the true facts to the masses, because the MSM surely isn’t going to do it. We have to snap normies out of their chemtrail, covid jab-induced brain fog.
Easier said than done, I’m afraid. Fortunately I, and I believe many of us here, have a little Don Quixote in us. And to them I say…
Never give up. Never give in. Never back down. Never back off.
Actually, Robin, you’ve overstated the percentage of CO2 in the air by tenfold. Our air contains only 0.04% CO2 (400+ parts per million). And, at even the most demeaning of estimates, humans on planet earth are responsible for only 1/5th of the increases in CO2 (in tons or otherwise). So. let’s see now. Vermont has 640,000 people. Planet earth has 8,500,000,000 people. And our self-righteous Vermont legislators and VPIRG lobbyists want to do what?
“Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm; but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.”
― T.S. Eliot
Of course, Mr Eshelman is correct. I thank him for the correction. Blame it on my lack of detailed proofreading. I have several keys on my keyboard which often “stick”, one of which (of course), is my zero number key.
When I testified on the RES to House Environment and Energy in the last session, I presented graphs of India and China’s coal consumption (courtesy Robert Bryce) and the emissions data by state. The presentation is here https://legislature.vermont.gov/Documents/2024/WorkGroups/House%20Environment/Energy/Renewable%20Energy%20Standard/W~Annette%20Smith~Changing%20Vermont's%20Renewable%20Energy%20Standard%20-%20Slides~1-17-2024.pdf
The narrative that goes with it is here. https://legislature.vermont.gov/Documents/2024/WorkGroups/House%20Environment/Energy/Renewable%20Energy%20Standard/W~Annette%20Smith~Written%20Testimony~1-17-2024.pdf
I don’t know why they invite me to testify, nothing I say ever seems to make a difference, I must check a box for them so they can say they heard from Vermonters for a Clean Environment. I present factual information but facts don’t matter.
Vermont’s land area is 0.005% (five one thousandth of one percent) of the earth’s surface.
Remember the Thomas Dolby song “She blinded me by science”? or the tagline “Better living through chemistry?” As generations ingest copious amounts of pharmacuticals, drink down gallons of aluminum by-products, ingest tons of chemical laden drinks and food, and the US government signed away our covenent with God in favor of John Rockefeller medicine and JP Morgan banking cartel, NASA created better movies than Hollywood, and western governments enriched themselves rather than be ethical stewards for all that is good. They carpet bomb and destroy more lives than we’ll ever know the real numbers of year after bloody year. By all means, keep drinking the kool-aid made with chemical laden tap water or polluted spring water,, it’s safe and effective as our brains and blood calcify and solidify. PT Barnum was correct, there’s a sucker born every minute and the elite, eugenist globalists capitalize bigly on that fact alone for more than a century.
To shed some light on the present situation in Montpelier with regard to this article.
The following from Dr. Robert W. Malone, MD. Substack column is a Twitter entry dated 12:51 PM, 4/30/21 in a reply to @RealMattCouch.
“Matt, I have been a therapist for over 30 years. Nearly 90% of my patient load are liberals. This is true of any therapist, psychologist or psychiatrist. Liberal politics and ideology are but a symptom of systematic mental illness.”
Fact check: Basically true.
A Psychology Today study showed that.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/head-games/201912/psychotherapy-in-the-trump-era?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Overall Results
A whopping 87% of therapists reported that they have spoken with their patients about politics. In terms of political party, 63% of therapists believed most of their patients were Democrat, 11% believed most were Republican, 6% Independent, 8% another affiliation, and 12% believed that most of their patients had no political preference.
The investigators also found that therapists who believed that most of their patients shared their political views were more likely to talk about politics in therapy.
Furthermore, 87% of therapists speak to their patients about politics.
But it gets worse. It turns out that the vast majority of psychologists are also liberal.
The ratio of liberals to conservatives in the broader field of psychology is 14-to-1, and only 6% of therapists describe themselves as conservative “overall,”.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1745691612448792?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
So, 94% of therapists are liberal, and 87% of therapists speak to their patients about politics. All I can say is keep off of the therapist’s couch if you wish to save your sanity and most definitely keep your kids far away!
vermont is a leader in pure stupid actions/// how much more will you take///// pay your increased property taxes and save the planet/// the whole world depends on your support/////
Could you provide your substack link? There are many Steve MacDonalds in the search, and none seem to fit.
Steve MacDonald
Steve is a long-time New Hampshire resident, blogger, and a member of the Board of directors of The 603 Alliance. He is the Managing Editor and co-owner of GraniteGrok.com, a former board member of the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire, and a past contributor to the Franklin Center for Public Policy.
https://granitegrok.com/author/steve-macdonald