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by Steve MacDonald
Last week, I took Vermont Democrats to the rhetorical woodshed over a new law to charge fossil fuel companies for the cost of climate change. It was a fun ride but long-winded, so I published it on Substack.
It makes several excellent points about how stupid this greedy exercise is, but one in passing deserves more attention (emphasis added).
Millions of years ago, much of what is the modern US was underwater, absent our modern Western lifestyles. There was a lot of flooding, which makes the nonsense from the Accelerated sea level folks look silly.
We also had extreme temperatures and severe planet-changing weather events, all without fossil fuel companies to bilk or anyone voluntarily emitting the byproduct of their combustion (including the not yet existing government of the state of Vermont).
No one made anyone choose fossil fuels for anything, as George Sharpe observed on Sunday in the Albuquerque Journal about Vermont’s law and it’s joining other states to sue oil companies (in search of a budget bailout climate payday—IMO).
“…none of the plaintiffs acknowledge the benefits of fossil fuels — the underappreciated workhorse that brought us out of the dark ages. Carbon energy, which underpins our entire life as we know it, hasn’t ruined the environment but has helped preserve it.
The nastiest living conditions with the lowest life expectancy on the planet are where people have little, if any, access to energy.
Second, since Vermont and most of the other plaintiffs produce no oil or gas, exactly which companies are to blame for their emissions?
Vermont’s emissions did not occur because Exxon produces oil and gas in Texas or elsewhere, those emissions came because their citizens continue to consume the fuels that are crucial to running their lives.
Given the global nature of the accusation, the greedy will state unequivocally that it is the accumulation of emissions everywhere, but that doesn’t work for them either. If you believe climate dogma and reducing emissions are the path to salvation, you’re doing it in the wrong place. Africa, India, and China emit substantial amounts of whatever concerns you. China alone has outpaced everyone.
Fining oil companies doesn’t change that, even if Vermont’s law survives the numerous expected lawsuits. It’ll just be another payday misspent by greedy, incompetent leftists. They get a notation on that progressive resume of people who, like Greta, are whining in the West when they should be in Chongqing, Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, and Guangzhou. Greta won’t because, despite all that so-called bravery – and this includes every climate cultist in Vermont – is a front. A Facade. Just like the climate agenda.
The goal is to make us more like China; otherwise, they’d be there protesting and probably in a labor camp with Uyghurs making keffiyeh for protesting US college kids.
Other Fools Errands
Claims that they (big oil, gas, coal) knew about the damage and hid it are ridiculous, if not just because the only thing hidden is that CO2 is not doing anything the greedy climatists claim. There is more than enough leaked insider correspondence to create enough doubt to make any claim in court to the contrary fail. And when did Leftists decide they’d figured it out and stopped using fossil fuels? For most, never. Why not find them? Wait – you are; clean heat standard.
But they can’t afford Vermont taxes now, and they are always going up. Every tax and spend legislature needs a sugar daddy, and today’s targets are big oil and gas.
Whether social and political pushback will produce enough years of more reasonable leadership to reverse the damage (and properly investigate the fraud) remains to be seen. Still, every storm is announced with a breeze, so we can hope.
As for Vermont, its citizens will need to come together and agree that whatever the deal may be, their current crop of “leaders” does not have their best interests at heart and are trying to paper over their incompetence by bilking some climate devil to hide this with “easy money” that is only going to cost them more in the end.
And it will all be for nothing.
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.
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Categories: Commentary, Energy, Environment
Of course, this is under the premise that carbon dioxide (CO2) is bad, more CO2 is worse, and somehow uniquely human generated CO2 drives Earth’s warming.
The hypothesis that CO2 dictates and controls Earth’s temperature must be scientifically valid to be true. The actual historical data and proxies show numerous times when CO2 and temperatures changed in opposite directions. Thus, the hypothesis is false.
1600+ well informed souls (clintel.org scientists for the most part), including several Nobel laureates have said –
“Climate policy must respect scientific and economic realities. There is no climate emergency. Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm. We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050. Go for adaptation instead of mitigation; adaptation works whatever the causes are.”
“CO2 is plant food, the basis of all life on Earth. CO2 is not a pollutant. It is essential to all life on Earth. More CO2 is favorable for nature, greening our planet. Additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass. It is also profitable for agriculture, increasing the yields of crops worldwide.”
Just a couple of weeks ago, locally, the Living Earth Action Group presented John Feldman’s 2023 documentary film ‘Regenerating Life’; explaining how the most important greenhouse gas is water and water vapor, not carbon dioxide, and that it is the water cycle that regulates 95% of the temperature of the planet.
And then there are ‘the Milankovitch cycles that are the driving force behind ice ages, climate shifts and habitability of planets.’
Of course, our legislative grifters will never discuss any of these points. I’ve asked my State representatives to do so on several occasions. To date: Crickets.
But what our legislators are saying, through their actions, is ‘so what?’ So, you caught us. We’ve been gaming you for years now. And there’s not a darn thing you can do about it.
Unfortunately, these legislators are, at least, spot on with this last assessment.
Good work, BigE!! You get a gold star.
Not long ago ACT 250 permits specifically outlawed electric heating. So, yes, the geniuses at ANR have a big hand in the push to fossil fuels.
All that will come of this is higher energy bills for Vermonters while filling the pockets of the “Green Energy” cabal.
Mr Eshelman is absolutely correct about everything in his reply. I’d like to thank him for saving me lots of typing.
Instead, I’d like to point out that if we have something drummed into us long enough, 95% of us will end up not questioning the premise. It becomes “accepted fact”. Such is the case with the term “fossil fuels”, the obvious inference being that fossil fuels come from large deposits of decayed organic matter, specifically, dinosaurs and plants. At least that is what I was taught, Probably you too.
Think! Have you ever composted leaves or kitchen waste? Have you noticed how small the pile of compost is compared to the amount of material you started with? So given that, think about how much organic matter, would be involved in creating just one average sized oil field. Dinosaurs? Sure, but how many were there, really? Answer: Not enough! Plants? Plentiful, yes, but again, think of the process of making compost.
Okay, so where do “fossil fuels” come from? Have you ever considered that oil might be a mineral? A mineral that is constantly produced by the heat and high pressure of the earth’s core? A mineral that never runs out? To make a poor analogy, what if oil is the planet’s “blood”? What happens if you donate blood? Your body makes more, right? Same with the earth and oil.
But, if we were to say “mineral fuels”, it wouldn’t have the same impact, the same fear factor, as “fossil fuels”, now would it? What if we said of politicians, “Oh, so and so has a plan”? Sounds good, no? But what if we change that to “Oh, so and so has a scheme?”. What does that conjure up in your mind? Yet it’s the same “idea”, just a different implication, all because of one word.
Words matter, folks. It’s an ancient teaching and one still used to control us by the elite bloodlines today.
Before fossil fuels came to Vermont, nearly 30% of Vermont was open pasture and meadow to feed at least 10,000 horses here plus a million or more horses in cities like Boston, Hartford, and New York. And thousands of cords of firewood was converted into charcoal for blacksmithing and iron making. There was no old growth forest in Vermont before coal and oil replaced wood for cooking and heating.
C’mon Bruce, you know it was all that horse poop and wood smoke that has caused the global climate change we have now. The climate is up 1000th of 1%.
Actually, by the end of the 19th century, fully 80% of Vermont was tree free. In the last 100 years or so, the ratio has reversed. 80% of Vermont is now forested.
I wonder what the next 100 years will be like.
https://vtdigger.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/logging-610×439.jpeg
Hard tellin’, not knowin’.