‘Green Leap Forward’ - Granite Grok

‘Green Leap Forward’

Floating Wind farm

In the book Mao’s Great Famine, author Frank Dikötter describes in vivid detail the period between 1958 and 1962 where an estimated 45 million Chinese people were worked, starved, or beaten to death in a mad rush to overtake the Western world as measured by agricultural and industrial outputs.


Related: Michael Moore  Admits “Solar and Wind are Not Going to Save Us”


The strategy which led to this famine, known as the ‘Great Leap Forward’, was driven by the infamous communist revolutionary ‘Chairman’ Mao Zedong. We can find faint echoes of ‘Mao Zedong Thought’ (Maoism) from the Biden Regime as they roll out the ‘Green New Deal’ policies.

To see a preview of American ‘Maoism’ at work, you should watch this press briefing with ‘Special President Envoy for Climate’ John Kerry and ‘National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy where they pronounce Biden’s executive actions for ‘environmental justice’.

While these actions will not lead to imminent famine, we can notice similarities with the ‘command economy’ of Mao’s China during the ‘Great Leap Forward.’ In particular, there is one historical feature to pay attention to, that of the ‘backyard furnaces.’

Backyard Furnaces

The ego of Mao and the unrealistic confidence he placed in the Soviet-style ‘command economy’ allowed him to view the Chinese people like putty in his hands. He believed that China could conform to any shape he so desired.

He commanded China to overtake its rivals in steel production by 1962, aiming to produce over 100 million tonnes (Dikötter, 2010, p. 58). Mao sidelined anyone who had any expertise or knowledge that could rival his belief or disagreed with him. Bourgeois specialists were excoriated as conservative rightists, while the earthbound wisdom of simple peasants was hailed instead (Dikötter, 2010, p. 56).

Mao was to pile his revolutionary ambition on the backs of the peasantry, who did not have the means to effectively resist. Mao believed the key to success was small furnaces operated by villagers in every backyard of the people’s communes (Dikötter, 2010, p. 58).

In the end, the ‘backyard furnaces’ did not lead to a ‘Great Leap Forward’, they led to tragedy. Not surprisingly, up to 1/3 of the iron produced by the backyard furnaces was unusable (Dikötter, 2010, p. 61). Reality made no difference to Mao. China had neither the knowledge nor the resources at the time to ‘leap’ ahead of the West in terms of steel production. All that mattered was that he commanded it.

Command Energy

In a similar manner, Biden’s executive order commands the doubling of ‘offshore wind’ power by 2030. It makes no difference to the Biden Regime that in states like New Hampshire as of October 2020, 40% of homes depend on oil for heat and that 85% of our energy is produced from natural gas and nuclear.

It makes no difference that the majority of Texas’s GDP is comprised of 262.2 billion dollars from oil & gas. Many will suffer from this experiment with a ‘command’ approach to energy. The immediate halt on public land leases for oil and gas will have a detrimental effect on household bills in a time when budgets are tight and unemployment is high.

When John Kerry announces that ‘all nations must raise ambition together, or we will all fail together,’ what he means is that you will carry the Regime’s ambition for ‘environmental justice’ much in the same way that the Chinese peasantry carried Mao’s ambition for a ‘Leap Forward.’

It certainly doesn’t mean that John Kerry is going to give up his house on Martha’s Vineyard or his private jet to lower ‘emissions’, but there is much you may give up along the way, including your money and your livelihood.

Mao impatiently pushed for a ‘Great Leap Forward’. The Biden Regime recklessly pushes for a ‘Green Leap Forward’. This is shown by their cancellation of the Keystone Pipeline XL project by executive fiat.

The pipeline workers, estimated to be 11,000 of them, are being sent back home to build their own backyard furnaces with the false promise of ‘green’ replacement jobs. Regime sycophant Pete Buttigieg attempted to provide some comfort to those out of a job saying ‘The answer is that we are very eager to see those workers continue to be employed in good-paying union jobs, even if they might be different ones’.

But what of these ‘different’ jobs promised by Mayor Pete?

Environmental Justice?

When John Kerry announced the plan for ‘environmental justice’, he stated that Solar Technician was the ‘fastest’ growing job in our Country ‘pre-covid’. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, this is almost true. However, what he left out, is that it is the fastest-growing occupation from only 12,000 jobs in 2019. You can find the same to be true of another area of ‘green’ industry, Wind.

In 2019, there were only 7,000 Wind Turbine Technician jobs. Comparing these combined 19,000 jobs to the 490,020 jobs for Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters in 2019, which career path would you choose? Real union workers are now out of work. Americans are being promised jobs that do not exist.

Are you surprised?

The false employment promises of John Kerry provide a clue that ‘environmental justice’ may not be all that is going on here. All of that American oil & gas that Trump’s America First policies unleashed – that led to energy independence while lowering emissions – seems to be the real justification for these executive actions.

America’s energy independence must be destroyed, even when replacement ‘green’ technology is nowhere near ready to deploy because it is an accomplishment of the political opposition.

Fear of increased conservative activism drives the executive orders, as well as fear of political retaliation from the millions of Americans who are now brainwashed to believe the world will end in 11 years and demand ‘climate action’.

The Biden Regime has a deep contempt for the oil and gas industry, which donates overwhelmingly to conservative causes and provides careers for ‘stand up’ workers that traditionally do not vote Democrat. Their expertise cannot simply be invalidated; the market has validated it time and time again, so it must be crushed by command.

Command Injustice

The Biden Regime presents these ‘Green New Deal’ executive actions as a dire race against the clock to confront the ‘enemy’ of ‘climate change’. How many years do we have left? According to AOC, exactly 11 years. Questions of ‘climate change’ and ‘green’ energy aside, what kind of ‘justice’ can be obtained using the ineffective tools of a ‘command economy’?

What of the resulting injustices created by this incompetent style of governance that has been proven time and time again to lead to both environmental and human disaster?

Don’t look to John Kerry for answers, he is relaxing on Martha’s Vineyard, commanding our energy. In case you are wondering, he has no plans to build a ‘backyard furnace’, and wind turbines will certainly not obstruct his oceanfront view.

Sources
DikötterF (2010). Mao’s Great Famine. Bloomsbury Paperbacks

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