Saturday, April 6, 2019

The NJ Star-Ledger is Right on Nuclear Power


A pushback against the Green New Deal occasionally comes from the Left. That’s what we got from Tom Moran for the New Jersey Star-Ledger. In a surprisingly candid and forceful challenge to AOC and her allies, Moran, calling the GND “a primal scream, not a political strategy,” writes in Where the Green New Deal goes wrong:

In the name of fighting climate change, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants to give every American a good job, health insurance, paid vacations, and affordable housing.

And if you think that’s a smart strategy, ask yourself this: Why are Republicans overjoyed? Why is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell so eager to post the resolution for a vote?

The reason is that Republicans know this resolution will scare the hell out of centrist voters who may be worried about climate change, but don’t want that entire menu of add-ons.

Granted, Moran’s opposition is pragmatic, not because he believes it’s wrong for government to “give” all those goodies. And it’s not that the Star-Ledger has abandoned its “climate crisis” bonafides. Moran writes:

Do we need a Green New Deal? Absolutely.

The United Nations recently examined 6,000 studies on climate and concluded that we must cut carbon emissions in half within 15 years if we hope to stave off calamity.

He’s referring to the U.N.’s 2018 IPCC Special Report on Global Warming, which I examined in New U.N. Study Shows Climate Catastrophists Getting More Open About their Totalitarian Designs. But Moran makes a crucial point:

But even on climate policy, this resolution falls short. The most important policy change, most experts agree, is to increase the costs of burning carbon, either through a tax on emissions or a cap-and-trade system. That would make solar and wind power more competitive, and fuel green investments in everything from electric cars to thermal windows.

So it is disappointing, even bizarre, that the Green New Deal punts on this point, making no mention of a carbon tax. It is also silent on nuclear power, America’s single largest source of carbon-free electricity.

A carbon tax would be far less intrusive to our lives than the controls AOC demands, although I don’t support it. But the highlighted portion is what got my attention. I left these comments:

The S-L is right to highlight the gigantic hole in the “Green New Deal”--“It is also silent on nuclear power, America’s single largest source of carbon-free electricity”. Nuclear power is the only carbon-free energy source capable of entirely replacing fossil fuels in electricity generation without “a complete realignment of the U.S. economy.”

That’s exactly why the GND ignores it.

I’m not buying the climate catastrophism scenario. There is a huge body of independent objective research to refute the government climate establishment. The U.N. report is a political document calling for government-imposed “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” to fight climate change and “eradicate poverty,” a totalitarian socialist agenda if there ever was one. The S-L is also right on another point: The GND echoes the U.N., smuggling in a socialist agenda wrapped in climate panic, which AOC, the self-described “radical for socialism,” has openly said is the real goal of her GND. "We can use the transition to 100 percent renewable energy as the vehicle to establish economic, racial and social justice in America," she declared.

Tremendous advances in nuclear technology has occurred in recent years. If carbon-free energy is the goal, nuclear is the most practical and humane alternative to fossil fuels. We don’t need a “10-year national mobilization [to] transform the U.S. economy to combat climate change.” The GND is a totalitarian document that should be recognized and outright rejected as the threat to freedom and prosperity that it is.

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