OPINION:
Give the climate hustlers points for creativity. The Sierra Club’s Abbie Veitch and former Wall Street Journal meteorologist Eric Holthaus recently claimed in the online publication Currently that the deadly conflict between Hamas and Israel is connected to, of all things, “climate justice.”
In the minds of progressives, a blood feud between Islamic extremists and the West that has boiled for more than a millennium — and with Israel specifically for 75 years — has something to do with a purported 2-degree Celsius rise in global temperature. Setting aside the dubious assumptions required to arrive at that figure, it’s obvious the people shouting “death to Israel” in the streets would still be doing so even if it were snowing in the Gaza Strip.
Which does happen. Last year, a winter storm spread 7.9 inches of snow across Jerusalem and parts of the West Bank. But the point of attributing everything that happens to climate is to drive an agenda that is anything but progressive — at least not progressive in the sense that the policies do anything to help working-class families.
For instance, the New York State Senate in June voted 39-23 to allow utilities to cut off natural gas service to homes to “facilitate achievement of the [Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act] climate justice and emission reduction mandates.” The left’s assault on gas stoves has evolved into a jihad on affordable heaters, clothes dryers, and other appliances that rely on natural gas.
The climate hustlers want to force homeowners to spend tens of thousands of dollars swapping their economical gas-powered appliances for electric units — as if forcing families to write big checks to appliance makers, installers and the electric company would budge the global thermometer.
One glaring reason this mandate won’t have any climatic payoff is that natural gas-fired power plants account for three-fifths of New York’s electric power, according to the Energy Information Administration. That natural gas is going to be used one way or another.
Unreliable sources of energy like windmills and solar panels won’t change that, as each accounts for a mere 3% of New York’s power generation — despite more than $29 billion poured into projects in the Empire State. Fortunately for residents struggling to make ends meet, the Legislature adjourned before the Assembly had a chance to push the bill over the finish line.
But the Biden administration is inspired to finish what New York started. Earlier this month, the comment period closed on a new Department of Energy furnace efficiency rule designed to outlaw the most common type of gas furnace in favor of pricey condensing technology that the department itself acknowledges will cause $524 million per year in increased equipment costs for consumers.
By doubling the cost of natural gas furnaces, the administration is forcing conversion to electric alternatives. The only beneficiaries of this marketplace intervention will be the peddlers of renewable energy and crony capitalists able to fill the artificial demand Uncle Sam created.
All of this is being done in the name of climate justice when, in reality, it’s connected to the climate cash grab.
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