The New Jersey Star-Ledger ripped Carly Fiorina’s views on energy. Fiorina's 'facts'
on fossil fuels
running on empty, said the Star Ledger, a big climate catastrophist. As the Star-Ledger editorialized, Carly Fiorina is considered the "thoughtful" candidate. . .” But:
That doesn't make her qualified to deal with a potential catastrophe such as climate change, however, as she is as clueless and dangerous as anyone else in the GOP field.
This came up last week during an interview with Katie Couric. . .
The Star-Ledger went on to list all of the “facts” Fiorina supposedly got wrong. But one criticism stood out:
She also said reducing carbon emissions in the US is pointless, because "one nation acting alone can make no difference at all." There's global leadership for you.
Fiorina raises an important point. “Acting alone” makes sense regarding pollution that provably harms Americans. But, even if you take climate catastrophism seriously, is Obama’s “leadership” the right thing for an American administration to do?
But should this “global leadership” be America’s responsibility?
“Global leadership”: These are dangerous words. “Global leadership on climate change” smacks of the kind of mentality that previously sought “national greatness” at the expense of the sacrifice of American lives and wealth in a vain quest for “a world safe for democracy” or a “forward strategy for freedom.” On this mentality, Americans are mere subjects bound to subordination to an omnipotent federal bureaucracy led by a leader who craves a legacy—in today’s case, an energy mastermind who would sacrifice Americans’ energy security and liberty in a quest to manage the world’s climate.
And for what? A climate “catastrophe” for which there is no evidence? Notice that the climate catastrophists always qualify their assertions of climate doom with futuristic words, like “potential catastrophe.” The catastrophe is in the future, and always has been, as evidenced by decades of failed predictions of climate catastrophe during an era of expanding fossil fuel use leading to continuous improvements in human life. Yet, the climate catastrophists continue to proclaim impending climate disaster. Like witch doctors claiming some superior access to knowledge not available to mere mortals, they just know that catastrophe is just around the corner, no matter their seemingly endless record of catastrophe prediction failures—and expect us all to just take their latest prognostications on faith, and submit meekly to their dictatorial energy policies.
Obama's so-called “Clean Power Plan” makes it clear that we have entered the realm of a regulatory dictatorship. We now have government regulatory bureaucrats wielding the power to bankrupt an entire industry, initially the coal industry, in the name of “global leadership” on climate management. It’s true that coal’s problems stem largely from market forces. But the government shouldn’t have the power, based on reducing carbon dioxide emission, to have a hand in crushing that industry. What’s next? Natural gas? There’s already a NIMBY/environmentalist War on Natgas Pipelines.
The government should be fostering a free market in energy, without “renewable” energy subsidies or subsidies of any kind, and without arbitrary regulations to thwart fossil fuels, and let American consumers decide which energy is best for them. For this, we need to recognize that the benefits and vital necessity of reliable, economical energy like that provided by fossil fuels far, far exceed any actual dangers posed by climate change. The government should stick to objective legal efforts, based on rational cost-benefit analysis, to reign in real pollution, such as the kind that causes smog, rather than attack the emission of harmless, beneficial CO2 in a quest for some perfect climate where natural, ever-present dangers like storms, droughts, and cold and heat waves have somehow been eradicated. The best leadership America can offer is to keep the American market open to all energy sources, as both an economic and moral imperative.
Fiorina may be guilty of some “misstatements,” but she’s right on the big picture. Leaders who lose sight of the people whom they serve for the sake of national greatness are among the most dangerous types of leaders. We don’t need prestige-crazed presidents pursuing some utopian climate scheme, with Americans as the sacrificial lambs. We must recognize Obama’s ideological puppet masters, the climate change catastrophists, for what they are—modern-day witch doctors: And we should reject the climate witch doctors’ mystical, chicken little attempts to convince us of catastrophe-always-around-the-next-corner as a rationalization for government-imposed energy poverty.
Related Reading:
The Energy Liberation Plan—Alex Epstein
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