..In addition to woke posturing on race and gender issues, climate change stands as the key driver of this kind of politics. In many regions, notably the
Midwest, Democrats face a conflict between siding with the environmental lobby or with workers in fossil fuels, large-scale manufacturing, and construction. That tension is less evident in California, where a draconian tax and regulatory environment has reduced
construction, particularly in the big coastal metros, and where manufacturing
has stagnated, while policymakers have targeted the heavily unionized
oil industry for extinction.
Draconian climate-change policies allow progressive elites to advertise their good intentions without curtailing their economic opportunities. The state’s renewable-energy policies enrich his
Newsom’s tech backers even when their efforts—such as the Google-backed Ivanpah solar farm—fail to deliver affordable, reliable energy, and bring
severe impacts on sensitive habitats, notably in the state’s
deserts. Even the most impressive of the tech masterminds,
Elon Musk, can trace a significant part of
his fortune—now estimated at over $100 billion, the world’s fifth-largest—to generous subsidy policies for solar panels and electric cars. Policies that raise energy and housing prices, of course, tend to be politically unpopular—so Newsom, like his predecessors, imposes these regulations administratively, or through
executive orders, thus freeing the governor to avoid legislative and political tangles and freeing him of any obligation to explain these positions to the public.
Climate issues have also offered Newsom an ideal way to justify failed progressive policies.
Newsom and his ally, presumptive Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris, blamed the wildfires on climate change and
all-purpose bogeyman Donald Trump. The media echoed the charges: the
New York Times suggests that California is “ground zero for climate disasters,” while the
Los Angeles Times claims that California now fights not just fires and droughts but also “climate despair.”
In reality, as the usually left-leaning
Pro Publica has revealed, the
fires were made far worse by
green policies including
constant lawsuits against local efforts to clean up old growth, particularly
dead trees, and stopping even
sustainable logging. The state
Legislative Analyst’s Office also found that overall, the fires were less driven by global warming and more by policies that allowed for the accumulation of fuel, as well as growing development in certain exurban areas—partly motivated by a desire to escape the extremely high housing prices along the coast.
The fires are certainly not great for the environment or for reaching the
state’s super-ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) goals: according to
the U.S. Geological Survey, the 2018 fires emitted roughly as much GHG as an entire year of electrical generation. California, though a hotbed of climate extremism, reduced its greenhouse gases between 2007 and 2016 at a rate that ranked just
40th per capita among the states. Even if California wiped out all emissions, it would have an almost-infinitesimal impact on global climate—and in fact, a negative one, if industry relocates to
China, where much electricity is still powered by coal...
They already warned public to not let this flame extinguish because of COVID. Should government extend COVID subsidies to them? On other thought, they can always join BLM movement as a side job.
