Freedom

Opinion by Stephen Moore

The great Rush Limbaugh used to say that “the modern environmentalists worship the created, not the creator.” I was reminded of that after listening to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi once President Joe Biden signed the fiscally unconscionable $750 billion tax-and-spend Inflation Reduction Act, which gives another $300 billion to the climate change-industrial complex.

Pelosi (D-CA) claimed the wind, solar, and electric subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act would placate an “angry” planet. “Mother Earth gets angry from time to time, and this legislation will help us address all of that,” the speaker said.

This is a highly revealing statement. Do Pelosi and her Democratic colleagues really believe that spending $300 billion on Tesla subsidies (with batteries made in China), windmills (made in China), and solar panels (made in China) is going to save the planet, stop the rise of the oceans, and lower the global temperature?

This is the same gang in Congress that can’t stop the daily drive-by shootings in our cities, can’t secure the U.S.-Mexico border, can’t come anywhere near balancing the budget, and can’t provide the resources our military needs for our national security.

Even if this additional $300 billion were to work as planned, the Wall Street Journal reports that the impact on global temperatures in the coming decades would be to lower them by 0.001%. So, instead of the global temperature being an average of 59 degrees Fahrenheit, it will be 58.999 degrees. Thank God! We are saved from Armageddon.

But as Pelosi’s quote makes clear, this is about symbolism. It is about ruining the economy as a sacrifice to Mother Earth. Marc Morano, the journalist who runs the Climate Depot website, asks: “Will human sacrifices be next to appease the ‘angry’ Earth gods? Actually, this bill will create human sacrifice by imposing even more suffering from energy deprivation, supply chain issues, food shortages, inflation, debt, and bad science.”

He’s right. The suffering that will occur from this assault on American energy security and reliability could be profound — and it will be the lowest-income people who will be hurt the most. Inflation will rise as energy prices soar. The shortages of energy will cause hardship for many consumers, including food shortages. Europe, which got hooked on the green energy fad, is now rationing energy. In Spain, there are new restrictions on using air conditioning to set the temperature of your store or home at less than 80 degrees — during a heat spell. It’s one of those sacrifices to Mother Earth.

One of the great injustices and ironies of the new law is that it purports to give billions of dollars for “environmental justice” grants to low-income communities and inner cities when it is this group of people who will feel the brunt of the anti-fossil fuel policies. The poor spend three to five times more of their incomes on energy than the rich.

The warmest years in North America are not recent years — instead, they occurred during the 1930s amid the Dust Bowl era. This was before 80% of the carbon dioxide was released into the atmosphere. Back then, tens of thousands of U.S. residents died from extreme weather. But now we have, through modern electric power and technological innovation, major ways to reduce death rates from weather events. The way to save the Earth is through more growth, more innovation, and a richer planet.

That is what Mother Earth wants. That is what America wants. Only 1 out of 20 people rate climate change as the No. 1 problem facing our country. The public wants lower inflation and more prosperity. This law delivers neither.

The God that most of us worship wants us to create peace, prosperity, and light. The god of radical environmentalists will deliver darkness, despair, and decline.