Tuesday, January 08, 2019

The ‘Green New Deal’ isn’t just ambitious — it’s insane

Rich Lowry 

...The Green New Deal, as explained in draft legislation to create a congressional committee to pursue it, would transition to 100 percent ­renewable sources of national power in 10 years.
Since renewables only account for 17 percent of US power now — 7.5 from hydropower, which might not pass muster under the Green New Deal — the plan would ­require shuttering more than 80 percent of current sources of American power.
...The architects of the Green New Deal apparently believe once you have lost touch with reality with one proposal you might as well pile on as many wild-eyed schemes as possible.
It would build a new energy-efficient grid, itself a massive proposition.
It would upgrade every — not just many, not even most, but every — residential and industrial building for energy efficiency. There are 136 million homes in the US.
It would eliminate emissions from industry, including farming, offering instead a vision of investment “in local-scale agriculture.”
It would eliminate emissions from transportation, which sounds like mandatory electric cars and hydrogen-powered planes.
Because the Green New Deal ­aspires to achieve all of socialism in one energy plan, it includes a federal job guarantee with a living wage and perhaps “basic income programs” and “universal health care.”
There’s nothing the Green New Deal can’t do. It would “mitigate deeply entrenched racial, regional and gender-based inequalities in income and wealth” — and, oh, yeah, “virtually eliminate poverty.”

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