Republicans who ignore or dismiss climate change are therefore not only defying scientific consensus but sacrificing their real commitments and duties to preserve our union and its way of life.
Climate change is a real problem. Real problems require realistic solutions, not fantasy wish lists, and that is where the Democrats have failed miserably.
At present, the best-known Democrat proposal to tackle climate change is AOC’s Green New Deal. It’s not a viable action plan; it is a to-do list for things she and her colleagues want the government to control.
Say goodbye to cars, cows, airplanes, and buildings, and hello to $93 trillion in new spending. If you like your hamburger, you can’t keep your hamburger.
Of course, the Green New Deal was never intended to be a serious proposal. Even its own sponsors ultimately refused to vote for it. It does, however, embody the regulatory impulse that is typical of Democrat approaches to all such problems. They seek to control; we seek to liberate. Free-thinking innovators will solve this problem faster than a constrained citizenry ever could.
When they are not calling for a major sector of the economy to be regulated into extinction, the Democrats are lecturing the American middle class about having too many children or, increasingly, telling us to eat insects for the good of the planet! You first, Alexandria! The regulatory approach favored by Democrats is not only unimaginative and unrealistic, but it is also counterproductive. Throwing more regulations at the problem simply ensures that we will outsource pollution-causing jobs overseas, to countries like China and India with substantially worse environmental protections than our own. I’m just not woke enough to export my pollution rather than solving it like a real American should.
In other words, Democrats’ plans would not only destroy America’s economy, they would fail to reduce global emissions. The Green New Deal would probably increase global emissions since polluting industries would immediately outsource all their operations to other nations. If anything, we should institute a carbon tax on China, not America. Or are we really going to pretend that the greatest polluters in the world are in the West? Ten of the world’s rivers account for 90 percent of ocean plastics. Seven of them are in Asia.
Power-hungry politicians and special interests in the United States will surely benefit from the displacement of our businesses overseas, but the American economy and the environment would suffer. Which, come to think of it, is precisely the point.
The notion of fighting climate change by destroying our economy is so absurd and counterproductive that it is sometimes unclear whether these policies are written by naïve but well-meaning children or by Chinese lobbyists themselves! Who can tell?
Instead of leaning on more regulation to address climate change, my Green Real Deal draws upon a precious natural resource that exists in happy abundance: the innovative spirit of the American people.
It might come as a surprise to some, but the president has already laid the foundations of an effective approach to climate change in his serious approach to China, not only on trade but on combating intellectual property theft. For decades, special interests and the establishment in charge sat back idly while jobs, livelihoods, and entire industries were stolen by China.
Apart from the tragic devastation these decisions wrought on so many American communities, the less-known tragedy is the devastating impact these de facto pro-China policies have had on the environment. Multinational industries—some polluting—outsourced to countries with no emissions standards, and the environment paid the price. The more we outsource, the less we can observe, and that’s by design too.
Air knows no borders. Meanwhile, our one-sided trade relationship with China built up China’s economy and increased global pollution—both at the expense of America’s working people and industrial base. The garbage islands and the toxic clouds were made in China, too.
What’s worse is that China’s systematic plunder of American intellectual property weakened entrepreneurial incentives to innovate—including those innovations directly necessary to solve our climate change crisis.
America’s solar technology once led the world. Not so anymore. China stole this intellectual property, replicated our products, and undercut the American solar industry. They had decided that our know-how was essential to their state interests, so they stole it. Oh, China.
Trump’s tough approach to China’s abusive trade practices rolls back our previous policy of subsidizing Chinese pollution while screwing American workers.
Additionally, the president’s tough approach to China’s IP theft builds the healthy ecosystem of American innovation necessary for lasting clean energy solutions. It isn’t just China that has been holding us back from realistic solutions to climate change. As is so often the case, we are our own worst enemy.
We have no excuse for ignoring our electric grid. We can and must upgrade and modernize it. The American Society of Civil Engineers graded our grid D+. Today’s grid can’t even handle our existing portfolio of renewable energies, much less the expanded use our future requires. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory says today’s renewable energy technology coupled with an updated grid could result in renewable energy meeting 80 percent of America’s energy needs by 2050. If we can give oil companies tax write-offs for the costs associated with the pollution they cause, we can do more to encourage investment in the electric grid used by virtually every American.
“Net metering” technology allows property owners, shopping centers, hospitals, and schools among others to sell the energy they create back to our grid. In so doing, these new energy innovators create incentives for corporations to maximize domestic renewable energy production while allowing homeowners to lower or eliminate energy costs
