Mark Whittington explains in the Washington Examiner why free markets have made the dubious Green New Deal unnecessary.
What if climate change could be fixed without destroying the fossil fuel industry, and without putting the coal miners and natural gas frackers on the street? It turns out we can address carbon dioxide emissions without taking away their livelihoods or spending trillions of dollars.
The most unsettling aspect of the various versions of the Green New Deal, whether it is the one proposed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or the one proposed by Bernie Sanders, is not their immense multitrillion-dollar cost. The most awesomely frightening feature of the ideas to do battle with climate change advanced by the Democratic presidential candidates is their utter lack of seriousness as solutions.
Each plan begins with destroying the fossil fuel industry, continues with a complete transition to renewable resources such as solar and wind, and ends with prohibiting anything else that might emit greenhouse gasses, from the internal combustion engine to belching cows.
The Democrats’ climate change plans seem to demand the destruction of civilization in order to save it. Moreover, the Green New Deal would never pass Congress, and candidates advocating it are at serious risk of losing in 2020 as a consequence.
Fortunately, an existing solution can already curtail greenhouse gas emissions without destroying the world’s primary reliable means of generating electricity.
