As a teenager in the 1960’s I remember watching news broadcast on TV with film footage describing environmental pollution and claiming it would lead to the destruction of our planet. This public concern resulted in the creation of the Environmental Policy Act, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Air, Clean Water, and the Endangered Species acts. In the 1970’s the US experienced an energy/oil shortage crisis. President Jimmy Carter urged the American people to take no unnecessary trips, use carpools, and set your thermostat to save fuel.
Now with another democrat president in the White House the claim is that planet earth has only a few years, a decade at most, before it is destroyed by climate change, otherwise known as global warming. The climate czar Mr. John Kerry, appointed by President Biden, has announced that the world has nine years left before the environmental damage to planet earth is irreversible.
What does irreversible damage mean? Does it mean all life on earth will cease to exist? Will the air be unbreathable? Will people change from wearing virus protection mask to wearing oxygen mask? Will clean water not be available? Will all farm crops and live stock perish? Now that democrats know nation-wide lock downs can be utilized to serve their purpose, what’s to stop them from locking down the country to implement the “Green New Deal?”
What will be the consequences should all petroleum fueled methods of transportation be eliminated and replaced with electric vehicles? Think about this: When a person buys a gallon of gasoline, he is paying an average of 52.64 cents per gallon in federal, state and local taxes. Remove that source of revenue and what will happen? President Biden’s secretary of transportation, Mr. Pete Buttigieg has already suggested an additional tax. He wants to tax individuals on the number of miles they drive! The idea is to force people to purchase electric cars. Will the milage tax then go away?
Congresswoman Alexander Ocasio-Cortez has suggested and I quote, “We set a goal to get to net-zero emissions in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of gas expelling cows and airplanes that fast (italics are my words).”
I like a warm house. I am not going to lower my thermostat when it is cold outside. I don’t have a horse to ride, so I drive my car to go somewhere. Having a horse would contribute to the problem. Ahh! So, we could eliminate all live stock. But, would other countries around the world do that? Probably not.
Consider this: 22,000 years ago, the entire North American continent was covered in a thick sheet of ice. Approximately 11,700 years ago, that ice had all melted away. During that time not a single person drove a car, not a single factory manufactured a product, not a single airplane flew across the sky, and not a single cow expelled gas, but the earth warmed up, the ice melted away and the grass grew.
I know that people pollute. I see litter along the road every time I travel. It’s not pretty. When mankind started the industrial revolution, air and water were polluted in a big way. That same mankind took steps to reduce, and in some cases eliminate that pollution and its hazards.
I want clean air to breath. I want clean water to drink. Private industry has produced many luxuries of life and some have resulted in environmental issues and health problems. I do not dispute that. POLLUTION needs to be regulated, but the United States does not control what other countries do. Even the Paris Climate Agreement has no enforcement mandate. At best it has what is termed as, “a hybrid of legally binding and nonbinding provisions.” This agreement is not a treaty for it is yet to be voted on by the US senate. Some people say the United States should be the world leader in reducing pollution. I think it is, but don’t tell me to shoot my cow or tax me on the miles I drive.
