The Winter Of Our Discomfort

This winter promises to be a long cold one for America, Europe and much of the rest of the free world because of, among other things, the high cost of electricity and the fossil fuels that produce most of it. Natural gas prices, for example, have more than doubled in a year because of heavy world-wide demand which exceeds availability. The Biden Administration, America’s climate warriors and their obedient mainstream media will blame the high prices and shortages on the war in Ukraine but don’t settle for that simplistic answer. The greater cause is the Biden Administration’s mindless war on fossil fuels, including clean natural gas and nuclear power which have done more to reduce emissions than all the green renewable sources combined.

People will suffer needlessly this winter in America, Europe and elsewhere because they won’t be able to afford to heat their homes, fuel their vehicles, afford rent or mortgage payments and perhaps even put enough food on the table because of raging inflation, also the direct result of the Biden Administration’s profligate spending. These people won’t be worrying much about global warming, climate change, melting icebergs or rising sea levels as they try to stay warm. They know that more people die from cold than from heat, not to mention damage from freezing water lines. They should also know that all America’s efforts to keep fossil fuel in the ground and go entirely green will have zero net effect on global climate so long as China and India and the developing nations burn coal and oil which they must to grow their economies and survive. All this sacrifice will do for mankind is to increase misery for millions, especially the poor and working classes this winter.

The United States and Canada sit on vast reserves of fossil fuels, especially natural gas which can be liquified and exported almost anywhere. That is, it could if the necessary pipelines, processing and export facilities were in place to handle the demand. Think of the suffering that would alleviate in Europe and elsewhere this winter. But these facilities are not in place in adequate numbers because of federal and state restrictions on drilling, fracking, and construction and permitting of pipelines and processing and export facilities in Democrat-run states.

Is this being done with the consent of the governed? I don’t recall being given a chance to vote on whether or not we choose to live with rolling power outages in order to engage in virtue signaling that will have net zero effect on global climate and serve only to make liberal elites feel good about themselves. People are already suffering from high fuel prices. Choices are being made by real people over whether to have enough to eat tonight or enough gas to get to work tomorrow. There is anecdotal evidence of people buying a gallon of gas just to get home from work.

Here in the late, great Golden State, the chief climate warrior in Sacramento wants to impose a 90% clean, meaning green, electricity mandate by 2035 and a 100% mandate by 2045. This would require a breakthrough in storage battery technology that doesn’t yet exist and a reliable source of precious earth and metals obtained mostly from China. The manufacturing of these batteries has a significant carbon footprint and there are serious fire safety issues. This is madness and an example of politicians pretending to know something about science when what they mostly know is how to stay in office and feed at the public trough for life.

California mandates the end of the internal combustion engine to power cars after 2035. Electric vehicles, unless subsidized, are too pricey for many families and will require much new expensive infrastructure. Look for widespread hoarding of old gas guzzlers. We’ll look just like Cuba with streets full of vintage American cars. This is progress? Will our ever-so-woke, thoroughly modern army have to convert its fighting vehicles to EVs? I can imagine it now. Stop the war while we recharge the tanks!

No wonder people are fleeing the left coast. Maybe that’s what Sacramento had in mind in the first place. Get rid of all the hated conservatives and have the entire state to themselves. It then will be one big, green paradise punctuated by peaceful rolling blackouts and your occasional forest fire.

Folks, seriously, it’s time to hold the Democrat Administrations in Washington and Sacramento accountable for the harm they’ve already done and will continue to do with their inflationary spending and needless war to destroy an oil industry that not only will be vital to our economy for decades but perhaps to our very survival.

Vol. 38, No. 39 - Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022