By John McClaughry
Annette Smith of Vermonters for a Clean Environment has been closely following the meetings of the Climate Council, which is drafting a sweeping plan to save us from climate change.
A couple of weeks ago she reported: “Twice I have asked the question about what happens if every state in New England adopts a 100% renewable energy standard, and how that results in shutting down the gas plants (which are at this moment providing 70% of the region’s electricity). I told them I want to see a road map of how that happens. The members’ response is akin to deer in the headlights.”
“Kerrick Johnson of VELCO said they are looking at more Hydro Quebec power. There will be a lot of pushback from people about buying more H-Q electricity, at least in Vermont.”
“The Vermont Climate Council is on the path, which is obviously pre-ordained, to commit to full electrification of everything — cars, grid upgrades, home charging upgrades, chargers everywhere, heat pumps, clean heat. In the Council’s Cross Sector Mitigation subcommittee I’m dogging their talking about a ‘clean fuel’ standard for cars, plus a rah rah pitch for the [eleven-state] Transportation Climate Initiative which the Council will be recommending Vermont joining. The price tag for all this appears to me to be astronomical.”
That’s just a sampler from these climate crazed activists who expect “rivers of money” — their description — to bring it all about. Hang on to your wallet.
Once more ideology over common sense and practicality.
How is raising fundamental issues about the effectiveness of a multi- billion dollar program that will be extremely disruptive while producing no measurable results in mitigating climate change somehow ideological?
Asking what we will get in return for the massive expenditures tied to the climate change program represents the very essence of what common sense and practicality demand.
Vermont will not see any change in the climate or any economic boom from the fight against climate change……There will be no electric cars, solar panels, wind turbines or anything else of consequence built here. They may be built in China or elsewhere, but not in Vermont.
There will however, be a drain on Vermont families financial resources as they are shifted to the renewable energy industry and related interests who will be selling solar panels, heat pumps and every other remedy to allegedly effect climate. The economic benefits will go to those who have been living under the golden dome for years lobbying naive legislators about the need for climate change initiatives that will line their pocketbooks.
Common sense and practicality demand that questions be asked…….Remaining silent is a surrender to special interests and ideology.
Peter,
You misunderstand me. I was referring to the ideology of those pushing unrealistic climate change legislation in Vermont. Guess I should have made my comments clearer. We agree on this one.
Even if the Climate Council develops a plan that totally eliminates Vermont’s carbon emissions, it will have that’s no impact on climate change.
If all the New England states do the same, it will have no impact on climate change.
If the entire United States does the same……No impact on climate change…….We have been told this by President Biden’s Climate Czar John Kerry.
What rational entity would invest its own multi-billions of dollars knowing that it would get no return and lose most if not all of their principle to simply to send a message?
It’s not China or India, two countries comprising more than two billion human beings…….They’re building new coal fired power plants every day, while the Vermont Climate Council is virtue signaling all paid for with Vermonter’s hard earned money.
This is for you, John McClaughry, for all you’ve done! It really explains all Progressive Liberal fantasies, with two quotes. The first if from famous playwright, David Mamet, who for decades kept a second home in Vermont. He was the usual uber Liberal – and they not many years ago…a light came to him and he saw they were all full of B.S.! Great one, by Mamet:
…”In order for democrats, liberals, progressives et al to continue their illogical belief systems they have to pretend not to know a lot of things… By pretending ‘not to know’ there is no guilt, no actual connection to conscience. Denial of truth allows easier trespass.”
And then this quote explains HOW the progressives and liberals “operate”. It is all about “power” and that is gained via “fear” from teh masses…and only the Liberals can save you. It has ALL been done before, in history…Machiavelli’s historical observation that “whoever controls the people’s fears – becomes master of their souls…..
“The formula for achieving such mastery has not changed in millennia: stoke any fear, turn the fear to hate of whomever and whatever you accuse of standing in the way of safety, and make yourself the agent of that hate.
“The formula works when its dynamic embeds itself in the masses’ behavior—even when the master himself is the one to be feared. That is because stampeding humans readily give up their souls and become no more mindful of their own interest than steers. Hence, whoever manages to madden crowds while directing their hysteria onto his enemies stands to reap power.”
THINK…. you LIBERALAS – and look back. You fall hook, line and sinker for any & every “fear” and only Liberalism & Democrats will save you? Food scares & population scares or 1960’s & 70’s (Rachel Carlson). Acid Rain. Nuclear power.Oil. Natural Gas. Butter. Fat. BST, GMO’s. Organic food only. First global warming, and when not there, change to “Climate Change”. Republicans. Trump. Fertilizer. Meat. Remember the Ozone Hole? What happened there? Russia Colllusion? Pee Tapes? Plastiic straws? The list goes on and on…. lemmings get duped so, so easily 🙂
Vermont is certfiably insane. Ask any Leftist what they think of Nuclear power and COAL. Wanna guess? Guess what fuel source is single handidly getting Nuke plants shut down, and zero new ones built?…and Coal plants shutting down also? Guess? Natural Gas. I actually have ONE intelligent Socialist-Progressive-Liberal-VT- Democrat friend who “get’s it”. He was a major anti nuke activist going back decades. He now champions Natural Gas because it is clean, cheap, and the least polluting source of energy. Cheap & plentiful Natural Gas is putting dirty coal plants out of business…and also speeding the rapid demise and shut down of many Nuculear plants….like the one in VT. BUT LIBERALS ARE DEAF & DUMB. They hate natural gas! They argue pipelines are deadly? There are enough pipelines in the USA to circle the earth not once, but twice…and have seen decades & decades of safe use. They claim it hurts water well tables? A lie (for the most part)….a total lie. Even if it is fracked gas…. the water table for use in humans runs usually a couple hundred feet down….and at worst 500-600 feet down. Most Natural Gas wells are drilled (and many fracked)….down to 7,000, even 8,000 feet….and the deep well is cased…and the Gas zone targeted is at least 6,000 feet away from any far shallower water table..Besides, I have witnessed my own eyes… in western PA.. seeing oil & smelly gas seeping up from the ground – BY ITSELF….all naturally….and doing it for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Why aren’t the Progressive Libs suing PA for that groundwater pollution?? If the Vermont Progressive Liberals could PROTEST & sue and Boycott… God & Mother Nature – they would. Matter of fact, it would not surprise me if the Conservation Law Foundation…..???
Do you know who is one the largest groundwater & Lake polluters in VT? Tte State itself Add up every single mile of paved road and higheway in VT….oil, sand, salt, chemicals, garbage….all runoff eventually to rivers and many flow into….Lake Champlain. Every paved road in VT is a major, major polluter of Lakes and groundwater, anywhere nearby. Vermont has 7,200 miles of road pavement and 8,500 miles of dirt roads that flush all over the place. SHHH!~ Don’t tell a Liberal 🙂
“The price tag for all this appears to me to be astronomical” and will have little effect on the way the climate changes. We don’t have a safe, reliable, cost competitive technology for storing enough portable energy – or generating it in a manner acceptable to the AGW fanatics. There will come a time for electric cars, technology for generating electricity will evolve – pushing it wastes money. And charging stations bought with taxpayer money? Facilities selling a commodity called gasoline seem to have relied upon entrepreneurs who made money because they saw a demand and they marketed the product. We have an over two hundred year projected reserve of petroleum. In a couple centuries we’ve gone from horse drawn wooden vehicles on dirt roads to nuclear powered ships and a helicopter on Mars. I have confidence we’ll continue to meet and solve our problems in less time than that without a government mandate. History says so. The climate will change and we have no way of stopping it. Survival is in adaptation, not futile sacrifices which the priests of the political realm have made since prehistory. And it’s always the peons who bear the brunt of the sacrifice.
Thank you very much for again shining the light on the idiocy of the Progs agenda. What they continue to be oblivious to is that in order to tax a state much have people to suck the blood out of. How many young people are going to move to the state of Vermont to work if they even do cursory research on the livability of the state. The question will answer itself.