Yesterday (Thursday April 22) was Earth Day.  To mark the occasion, President Biden hosted something called a virtual Leaders’ Climate Summit.

The leaders of major carbon emitting nations joined virtually and pledged to decarbonize the global economy.  Biden even said he’d launch an international climate finance plan to underwrite it.

The virtual summit was a bullet point in Biden’s January 27, 2021, climate crisis executive order.  The stated intent of the order is:

“…to tackle the climate crisis at home and abroad while creating good-paying union jobs and equitable clean energy future, building modern and sustainable infrastructure, restoring scientific integrity and evidence-based policymaking across the federal government, and re-establishing the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.”  

The virtual summit, as far as we could tell, was a grand exercise in flattery and flagellation.  It was also a smoke and mirrors cover for something entirely different.

Here at the Economic Prism we find the term ‘climate crisis’ to be disingenuous.  Weather is weather.  Sometimes there are fires and floods and hurricanes and blizzards and heatwaves.  There always has been.  Always will.

The fact that weather is now somehow a climate crisis is big government seizing an opportunity to remold the world nearer to the heart’s desire.

You see, the supposed climate crisis has nothing to do with saving the whales.  Like all good central plans, it has everything to do with wealth redistribution.  A key feature involves cancelling certain industries while propping up others, like solar and wind power generators.  It also involves capturing and redirecting massive amounts of capital.

What to make of it…

Arsonists

Cheap, abundant, clean energy is a commendable goal.  We’re all for it.  And if it creates new jobs and industries, all the better.

But like all of mankind’s top achievements, private inventers – through ingenuity, experimentation, and repetition – stand the best chance at really attaining it.  Curious individuals will triumph through relentless trial, observation, testing, refinement, and ultimate discovery.  We have it on good authority of new breakthroughs occurring in this realm each and every day.

Team Biden-Harris, and their army of planners, won’t get us anywhere close to cheap, abundant, clean energy.  That’s not their goal either.  Their goal is massive wealth redistribution.  And to help bring this to fruition they’re putting arsonists in charge of fighting fires.

For example, last month the Federal Reserve, the central bank to the U.S. government, created a Financial Stability Climate Committee and a Supervision Climate Committee.  According to Fed Governor Lael Brainard:

“Climate change and the transition to a sustainable economy also pose risks to the stability of the broader financial system.  So a second core pillar of our framework seeks to address the macrofinancial risks of climate change.”

Treasury Secretary, and former Fed Chair, Janet Yellen, is also hip to the climate crisis.  This week the Treasury Department announced its plans to fight climate change through fiscal policy.

The Treasury is even creating something called a “Climate Hub” to save us from the weather.  John E. Morton, an Obama administration retread, and climate finance buff, will be the new hub’s leader.

It’s an important new position at the Treasury Department, if you ask Yellen.  Because Yellen considers climate change an existential threat.  She even offered the following insights:

“The steep consequences of our actions demand that the Treasury Department make climate change a top priority.  Finance and financial incentives will play a crucial role in addressing the climate crisis at home and abroad and in providing capital for opportunities to transform the economy.”

You can see where this is going, right?

Biden’s Global Climate Summit Kicks Off Full-Tilt Wealth Redistribution

The central planners are setting the stage for epic, government directed renewable energy boondoggles.  A full-tilt raid on the public purse that will make everyone rich – except you.  Printing press money will be distributed to mega solar and wind generation programs as a matter of monetary and fiscal policy.

What’s lost in all this is central bankers, more than anyone else, are responsible for polluting the earth and filling it with carbon emissions.  As a group, the finger prints of central bankers can be found all over the degradation of the environment and emissions of greenhouse gases.  Yet now, it’s as if these arsonists are being put in charge of fighting fires.

The connection between central bankers and carbon emissions may seem a bit abstract at first.  But it’s really not.  Central bankers, including the Federal Reserve, provide credit.  Moreover, through their policies of unrelenting credit expansion they provide excess credit.

The flipside of credit, remember, is debt.  And debt comes with borrowing money.  And borrowing money pulls production and consumption from the future into the present.

Thus, if you take a chart of global CO2 emissions over the last 80 years and compare it with a chart of U.S. Debt and Rest of the World Debt, the trajectories bear an uncanny resemblance.  Correlation does not imply causation, and we haven’t done a regression analysis to confirm it…

But we have a hunch that without the explosion of central bank created credit over the last 100 years, and the relentless production and consumption binge it has fostered, greenhouse gas emissions would be far less.

Printing press money and unlimited debt, courtesy of central bankers, has resulted in trillions in wasteful spending…not to mention financing of endless wars.  These actions, no doubt, step down with a weighty carbon footprint.

Indeed, there’s something remarkably insincere about the Federal Reserve and the Treasury lining up behind the supposed climate crisis.  They’re the grossest polluters of all!

And Team Biden-Harris, under the guise of climate crisis, have established a coordinated attack with the Fed and Treasury to redistribute wealth and muck with the lives of millions unconditionally.

We will fight climate change if it brings more money to the elite. Don’t ask us to cut back on military activity or on billionaires flying around the world in private jets. Don’t mention China’s coal-powered generators either.

How Biden’s climate plan could limit you to eat just one burger a MONTH, cost $3.5K a year per person in taxes, force you to spend $55K on an electric car and ‘crush’ American jobs

• Joe Biden announced the goal to cut emissions by 2030, compared with 2005 levels, at the start of a two-day climate summit on Thursday 
• He vowed the plan, which would set the US on a path of a zero emissions economy by no later than 2050, would create jobs and boost economies
• But he is yet to release any firm details on exactly how such a plan will affect the daily lives of ordinary Americans 
• It could prompt sweeping changes that could affect how Americans eat, drive and heat their homes 
• While Biden hasn’t released details, experts and recent studies have laid out what would need to change by 2030 to reach the goal 

Daily Mail,

23 April, 2021

 

President Joe Biden‘s ambitious plan to slash greenhouse emissions by 50 to 52 percent over the next decade could prompt sweeping changes that could affect how Americans eat, drive and heat their homes. 

Biden announced the goal to cut emissions by 2030, compared with 2005 levels, at the start of a two-day climate summit on Thursday. 

He vowed the plan, which would set the US on a path of a zero emissions economy by no later than 2050, would create jobs and boost economies.

But he is yet to release any firm details on exactly how such a plan will affect the daily lives of ordinary Americans. 

The plan immediately sparked criticism from Republicans and industry experts who argue it isn’t sustainable in the long run, will put jobs at risk and cause tax hikes for Americans.   

While Biden hasn’t released details on what life could look like for Americans, experts and recent studies have laid out what would need to change by 2030 to reach the goal. 

Here’s how it could affect every day Americans:

Cutting red meat consumption by 90% and animal products by 50%

Americans may have to cut their red meat consumption by a whopping 90 percent and cut their consumption of other animal based foods in half. 

Gradually making those changes by 2030 could see diet-related greenhouse gas emissions reduced by 50 percent, according to a study by Michigan University’s Center for Sustainable Systems.

To do that, it would require Americans to only consume about four pounds of red meat per year, or 0.18 ounces per day.   

It equates to consuming roughly one average sized burger per month. 

Making the switch to an electric car

More than half of new cars bought in the United States would need to be electric within the next decade, studies show.

The University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy estimated that cleaning up transportation would count towards about a quarter of Biden’s goal. 

It would mean more than 65 percent of new cars and SUV sales and 10 percent of new truck sales would need to be electric.  

Currently, electric cars make up about 2 percent of new passenger vehicle sales. 

The average cost of a new electric vehicle is about $55,000.  

Refitting the home with electric heat pumps

Nearly 25 percent of homes would need to be heated by electricity, rather than natural gas or oil, to help reach Biden’s emissions goal by 2030. 

The average cost to install an electric heat pump, which an all-in-one heating and cooling unit, is about $5,613, according to figures home HomeAdvisor. 

Taxpayers could fork out trillions of dollars

Industry leaders say Biden’s climate plan, while there are no cost specifics yet, could end up costing American taxpayers trillions of dollars. 

David Williams, president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, told DailyMail.com that Biden’s plan is just a ‘multi-trillion dollar corporate welfare giveaway’.

‘Strict climate mandates/targets will disproportionately hurt lower and middle income citizens who will be forced to pay higher electricity bills,’ he said.  

Bjorn Lomborg, a visiting fellow at Stanford University, told the OC Register that the plan will likely cost taxpayers about $3,500 per year.  

‘This cost will increase significantly,’ he said.

‘While more than two-thirds of the US population finds that climate is a crisis or major problem, less than half are willing to spend even $24 a year to fight it, according to a 2019 survey by The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation.’ 

Jobs: Biden says he’ll create millions but Republicans argue it will crush them 

Biden says he can create millions of good-paying jobs in his plan but many Republicans say it will actually damage the economy. 

Matt Coday, who is president of the Oil & Gas Workers Association, was among the critics. 

‘Biden is using buzzwords to justify his ‘transition away’ from American jobs while foreign countries like China, Iran, Russia, Mexico, Venezuela, and Iraq keep working and take over America’s global market share,’ he told DailyMail.com.

‘President Biden’s misguided policies will crush small businesses, hurt American workers, and harm all Americans. 

‘If we ‘transition away’ from American jobs while foreign countries keep producing, did we ‘save the planet’ or just kill American jobs?’

‘The science is undeniable’: Biden and Kamala Harris promise to slash US carbon emissions in HALF by 2030 in virtual climate summit with Putin, Xi Jinping and 38 other world leaders

Biden’s new commitment, timed to the summit, would cut America’s fossil fuel emissions as much as 52 percent by 2030. 

It comes after four years of international withdrawal from the issue under President Donald Trump, who mocked the science of climate change and pulled the US out of the landmark 2015 Paris climate accord. 

‘The signs are unmistakable. The science is undeniable. The cost of inaction is mounting,’ Biden said.

‘This is a moral imperative, an economic imperative.

‘Time is short, but I believe we can do this. And I believe that we will do. Thank you for being part of the summit.’ 

Biden’s administration this week is sketching out a vision of a prosperous, clean-energy United States where factories churn out cutting-edge batteries and electric cars for export, line workers re-lay an efficient national electrical grid and crews cap abandoned oil and gas rigs and coal mines.

The Biden administration’s pledge would require by far the most ambitious US climate effort ever, nearly doubling the reductions that the Obama administration had committed to in the Paris climate accord. 

But Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell dismissed the administration’s plans as costly and ineffective.

‘This is quite the one-two punch,’ McConnell said in a Senate speech Thursday. ‘Toothless requests of our foreign adversaries… and maximum pain for American citizens.’

The US emissions cuts are expected to come from power plants, automobiles, and other sectors across the economy. 

Sector-specific goals will be laid out later this year.  

How Washington intends to reach its climate goals will be crucial to cementing US credibility on global warming, amid international concerns that America’s commitment to a clean energy economy can shift drastically from one administration to the next.

Biden’s recently introduced $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan contains numerous measures that could deliver some of the emissions cuts needed this decade, including a clean energy standard to achieve net zero emissions in the power sector by 2035 and moves to electrify the vehicle fleet.

The measures, however, need to be passed by Congress before becoming reality.

Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan has many items that would help reduce emissions, including a clean energy standard to achieve net zero emissions in the power sector by 2035 and money to electrify the vehicle fleet.

Biden, in his remarks, argued taking action now would ‘set the world up for success, protect livelihoods around the world and keep global warming at a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius. We must get on the path now, in order to do that.’ 

‘If we do will breathe easier, literally, and figuratively,’ he said. ‘We’ll create good jobs here at home for millions of Americans and lay a strong foundation with growth in the future.’

Biden has included a string of climate initiatives in his infrastructure plan including $85 billion to modernize public transport, $174 billion on building more electric cars, $100 billion to upgrade the electrical grid and a $10 billion ‘Civilian Climate Cops.’