The Trouble With the ‘Green New Deal’ As Democrats rally around a fresh-sounding idea, some are looking back to Obama’s $90 billion climate package—and its disastrous political blowback. These unintended consequences of renewables can’t be ignored. There are a number of practical problems for the "Green New Deal" that it fails to address. If all this wasn’t bad enough, so-called green energy sources are also are much more unreliable than fossil fuels, because the wind isn’t always blowing and the sun isn’t always shining. Let's touch upon five of them. You may opt-out by. And all this would be done in the name of trying to control the weather 80 years in the future. The Midwest, for instance, is great for wind but building the hundreds of miles of high-voltage power lines to connect distant consuming areas has proven as difficult and costly as it sounds. Another disturbing provision of the Green New Deal would require “upgrading all existing buildings in the United States and building new buildings to achieve maximal energy efficiency, water efficiency, safety, affordability, comfort, and durability, including through electrification,” costing trillions of dollars more. Turbines ruin scenic views, kill countless birds and bats, and harm marine mammals, which is why environmentalists — and even the late leftist icon Sen. Ted Kennedy — have long opposed the planned Vineyard Wind facility off the Massachusetts coast. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. What would be the cumulative effects of mandatory, wholesale decarbonisation of the power-generation sector within ten years? This spacing issue for wind and solar coincides with their underreported “sweet spot problem.” Not all locations have the same prospects for renewables, justifying why wind-deprived southeastern states haven't installed Renewable Portfolio Standards. Goddard Media LLC | Privacy Policy, Political Wire ® is a registered trademark of Goddard Media LLC, Instant Polls Find Biden Won Final Debate, Records Show Biden Had No Role In Chinese Venture, My Reaction to the Final Presidential Debate, More Proof Trump Is Not a Media Mastermind, Trump Used Foreign Footage In Ad on America’s Comeback, Democrats Plead for Biden to Spend More In Texas, Biden Ready for Attacks on His Family at Debate, Senate GOP Moves Another ‘Not Qualified’ Court Pick, Edward Snowden Granted Residency In Russia, Kushner Floating Trump-Branded Media Company, Bernie Sanders Wants to Be Labor Secretary, Trump Campaign Surveilling Philadelphia Voters, Russia Hacked Into State and Local Networks. It’s crazy. The Green New Deal championed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the newly minted Democratic superstar in Congress, has the opposite effect. The fifth Democratic primary debate showed that a cull is overdue, The election for Kentucky’s governor will be a referendum on Donald Trump, A state court blocks North Carolina’s Republican-friendly map. Support Your Local Oil and Natural Gas Company. Half of the world or more doesn’t have proper access to electricity, the foundation of a modern society. This can’t be stressed enough: it's the countries that DON’T use many fossil fuels that are the poorest and the least healthy. It would be a self-inflicted wound causing enormous harm to us all. Yet because of opposition from environmental groups, only one relatively small offshore facility is operating today off Rhode Island’s coastline. In fact, the 56,000 turbines we now have could already be slaughtering millions every year, including many protected and endangered species. All market data delayed 20 minutes. The resolution aims to accomplish its ambitious goals by eliminating virtually all fossil fuels from U.S. electricity generation within 10 years. The Green New Deal isn't just un-American, it's also completely bonkers. Will it focus on real environmental problems that do measurable harm to human and ecological wellbeing, or will it mandate policies to head off climate disasters that are based on warming predictions have been repeatedly proven wrong by real-world empirical observations? A deeply unserious proposal to tackle climate change. Cortez and Markey claim that 92 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of Republicans support the Green New Deal. The goal of the Green New Deal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to avoid the worst consequences of climate change while also trying to … in New York, U.S., on Wednesday, April 17, 2019. Photographer: Yana Paskova/Bloomberg, EY & Citi On The Importance Of Resilience And Innovation, Impact 50: Investors Seeking Profit — And Pushing For Change, I’m going to limit my focus here: not a bash fest but a reality check, Howard Schultz is right, the Green New Deal is “immoral,” but for more than he offered. Voters deserve a bit more explanation on how to get from here to there. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. So under a Green New Deal we could expect dramatically higher prices at the supermarket checkout line. Nearly 17,300 children die each day from preventable causes, enabled by a lack of energy. And it surprises many people to know that many forms of renewable energy – supposedly better for the environment – can in fact cause significant environmental problems. Wind energy production takes up 90 to 100 percent more land. I’m going to limit my focus here: not a bash fest but a reality check  We need it. The millions of turbines required by the Green New Deal could even threaten the existence of some species. The counter-revolutionaries were told to wait for the details. A few minutes of serious thought from self-described environmentalists would prompt a realization that if the Green New Deal, a program championed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, were implemented, it would create an environmental disaster. It’s truly the ultimate irony of the anti-fossil fuel push. The resolution also includes dozens of socialist policies that have little or nothing to do with the environment – including some that were not included in Ocasio-Cortez’s initial draft proposal released last year. But insisting on decarbonisation within a decade—with renewable capacity still limited—would push up electricity costs rapidly. It is saved here. Note: Ocasio-Cortez’s office has taken down their page describing the Green New Deal. Operations in the latter countries involve extensive child labor, create environmental disasters, and even lead to premature death. The radical plan would do this in part by mandating “sustainable” farming and land-use practices, giving tremendous power to the federal government to manage U.S. farms and ranches – immensely increasing the costs of producing the food we eat. Yet it seems rather more likely that the politics of the Green New Deal will backfire for Democrats. I have over 400 professional publications in a variety of energy-related media, notably Pipeline & Gas Journal, Carbon Capture Journal, Journal of Energy Security, Power, World Oil, Public Utilities Fortnightly, and the Journal of Energy and Development. The Green New Deal nonbinding congressional resolution unveiled by Democratic lawmakers Thursday calls for economically destructive and environmentally toxic extremist policies that would be an utter disaster for our country and the American people. Public pension funds must not divest from reality. Indiana’s Fowler Ridge Wind Farm covers 68 square miles, an area larger than Washington, D.C. This isn’t just socialism, which has been proven to fail repeatedly throughout the world over the past 100 years. Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the, Why The Green New Deal Would Destroy The Environment, As I argue in a new Heartland Institute policy study, completely blanketing 57,000 square miles of land, require some 2 billion half-ton Tesla car battery packs. Ocasio-Cortez unveils new details about upcoming 'Green New Deal', Socialism Is Evil: The Moral Case Against Marx's Radical Dream. Renewable energy sources like wind and solar power are two to five times more expensive than existing conventional energy sources like natural gas. Thus, trying to sink investment in domestic supply will only serve the rest of the nation like it has California (reliance on OPEC oil) and New England (reliance on Russian gas). All rights reserved. In a single sub-paragraph, the American people are promised “high-quality health care; affordable, safe and adequate housing; economic security; and clean water, clean air, healthy and affordable food, and access to nature.” There is no further elaboration. And guess what – when it costs farmers more to grow food, its costs you and me more to buy food. The risible historic analogies Markey and Ocasio-Cortez rely on, the building of the interstate highway system or moon landing, are nothing but trifling projects compared to a plan that overhauls modernity by voluntarily destroying massive amounts of wealth and technology. in International Relations from Penn State University, with a minor in Statistical Analysis. There’s a growing buzz around a “Green New Deal,” spearheaded by newly-elected Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. MIT Technology Review puts it bluntly: batteries are “far too expensive to play a major role.” And remember that wind and solar are strictly sources of electricity, meaning that they only compete in ~40% of our total energy demand market. Modern wind and solar farms require huge swaths of land. Indeed, coal to make steel for windmills, oil to transport solar panels, and gas generating the electricity to manufacture all of them are intrinsic energy system components. All this would hit American families and businesses hard in the wallet – not just with increased taxes to fund the Green New Deal but with dramatically higher prices of much of what we buy. The bottom line is that the Green New Deal would transform gigantic sectors of the U.S. economy – energy, health care, college education, and potentially more – into huge socialist, government-run or managed programs that would be controlled by an army of bureaucrats in Washington. Or will it ignore all this? It quite literally promises the world. For example, solar energy requires 40 to 50 percent more land than natural gas facilities. Mutual funds are full of oil and gas companies because they are good investments: “Public pension funds must not divest from reality.”, Oil and gas are not stranded but required assets. Sign up to our free daily newsletter, The Economist today, Published since September 1843 to take part in “a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress.”. Yet each component of this paradise would require massive upheavals. Explore Let's touch upon five of them. But ask them again when government agents come to take out their water heater. Onshore wind turbines are no better. Not only would these policies kill jobs, hurt families and insert the government in everyone’s home and business – they would provide few, if any, environmental benefits and would do nothing to avert climate change. Never mind that planting enough trees to make a globally significant dent in atmospheric carbon would require reforesting all 50 states, or that family farms are more resource-intensive than industrial operations. 10 'Reality Check' Problems That Must Be Addressed By Opponents Of Coal, Oil And Natural Gas. Since “density is green,” this lowers their “green credentials,” while making compact modern natural gas plants, for instance, more environmentally sound. The Green New Deal is likely the most unserious plan that has ever been presented by any elected official to the American people. Under President Trump, manufacturing is making a comeback in the U.S. after decades of decline. Not to mention the jobs and huge tax revenues provided for states. Harvard study: “Wide-scale US wind power could cause significant warming.”. It may even get in the way of that goal. or redistributed. My research specialization includes North American and international trends in liquid fuels, natural gas, coal, renewables, electricity and GHG emissions – and their connection to human development.