In his $2 trillion climate change proposal this month, Joe Biden promised, whether he knows it or not, to entirely decarbonize America if elected president. As the candidate touted false promises of a green paradise, however, he failed to describe what his nonsense agenda would require Americans to sacrifice.
Before detailing what decarbonizing the United States would really mean for Americans, let’s get a couple of points straight. First, every single part of life depends on fossil fuels. From wind turbines and solar panels, to electric cars and bicycles, to organic foods, the job you have, or where you live, nothing happens without fossil fuels. Furthermore, there is no substitute for fossil fuels, nor is any magic substitute technology on the horizon.
Second, decarbonizing America is not about averting climate change or improving the weather. Regardless of climate science views, simple math shows there is nothing Americans, neither as individuals nor as a nation, can do to materially or meaningfully alter atmospheric greenhouse gas levels over the next century. Climate activists know this because they, too, can do the simple math.
A green push is a political agenda. It’s not about controlling the climate. It’s about controlling you. You can see this for yourself in the prescriptive lifestyle climate activists demand: Don’t eat meat. You don’t need a car. Avoid air conditioning. Wash in cold water. Dry your clothes on a clothesline. As Al Gore asked at the end of his 2007 movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” “Are you ready to change the way you live?”
While you’re changing the way you live, China, India, and soon Africa will be emitting greenhouse gases like there’s no tomorrow to raise their national standards of living. So while this is happening, how will the life of the average American change under Biden’s plan?
The automobile has given people freedom to go anywhere, anytime. If you run out of gas, you currently can quickly fill your tank and keep going wherever — to work, to the store, to see family and friends, or to go on a vacation — for an affordable price at your convenience.
Yet the Biden climate agenda wants you out of your affordable and convenient gas car and, at best, into a more expensive, smaller, much less convenient electric car. Where will you be able to go? The climate agenda calls for limiting car traffic in cities. It also calls for less road-building and more roadless areas.
Furthermore, a Biden administration would move to ban fracking, the oil production technology that has liberated Americans and our gas prices from the shackles of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, cartel. In no time, American drivers would be facing European-style gas prices and sweating every time Iran, Russia, or Saudi Arabia moved to threaten the global oil supply.
The Biden climate agenda would urge you, instead of driving, to live in a dense urban area and rely on public transportation. That might be very inconvenient when, like now, a viral epidemic hits.
Home will also be less of a refuge. The Biden climate agenda has a big problem with suburbs — as in, their very existence. It might be your new dream home, but the extremists who will run the Biden administration will consider it to be “sprawl.”
They intend to enact policies that make living in the suburbs unpalatable and either force people to move back into the aforementioned dense urban areas, or enable more city-dwellers to move to the suburbs. That would, of course, make suburbs just extensions of dense urban areas.
Don’t think about going on vacation. You can spend your two weeks off or your retirement on a stay-cation at home, visiting the world virtually through your computer. There’s only one way for airlines and cruise ships to cut emissions, and that’s to do less flying and cruising.
The New York Times recently ran an opinion column commanding readers to “Stop Using Toilet Paper.” It advocated for using something reusable or upgrading your toilet so it shoots streams of targeted water. It seems nothing environmental extremists do can be too intrusive. Of course, these activists already consider using water (especially in toilets) wasteful, so it’s not clear what one is supposed to do.
During the 2019 CNN climate town hall, then-Democratic presidential candidate and possible Biden vice presidential pick Kamala Harris talked about what kind of trash bag (not plastic) you should use in your kitchen. This is just a small sample of what Biden’s green team has in store for us. None of this will improve the environment; it will only decrease your standard of living.
