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.