Covid-19 has killed a lot of people. But the efforts of politicians and medical experts to save us from Covid also killed a lot of people, at least indirectly. Could something similar happen with politicians’ and environmentalists’ efforts to save us from what they claim will be the devastating impact of climate change?
The recent Wall Street Journal headline “Natural-Gas Phaseouts Are Facing Resistance” raises that possibility.
According to the article, “Massachusetts is emerging as a key battleground in the U.S. fight over whether to phase out natural gas for home cooking and heating, with fears of unknown costs and unfamiliar technologies fueling much of the opposition to going all-electric.”
Bay Staters are justifiably concerned that they might get stuck in a severe winter with little or no heat because elected officials and environmentalists want to force and accelerate the transition to all-electric homes.
The average lows in January run between 10°F and 24°F, with several sub-zero days. As the Weather Atlas says, “Strong winds and bitter cold make the winters dreary as the roads become routinely impassable amid poor visibility, ice, and snow in Massachusetts in January.”
Um, cloudy skies don’t charge solar panels. But at least wind turbines could fill in the gap, right?
Maybe. The Biden administration approved the first major U.S. wind farm last May—Vineyard Wind, off the shore of Massachusetts. But a previous Massachusetts wind farm, Cape Wind, languished for years. One reason is that the late Senator Edward Kennedy, a big clean-energy advocate, didn’t want wind turbines blocking his scenery.
The Cape Wind project finally collapsed when local communities dependent on those wind turbines discovered they would be paying a whole lot more for electricity.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo—who knows a little something about Covid-19 deaths, just ask New York nursing home administrators—is taking a similar approach.
He has “canceled” the “Indian Point nuclear plant, which has historically provided a quarter of electricity for New York City and Westchester County,” according to the WSJ. And “he’s blocked pipelines to deliver more natural gas to power plants.”
Cuomo also wants to electrify his state with offshore wind power. But the governor recently cancelled two wind farm development zones because of concerns raised about maritime traffic and marine life feeding areas.
Unfortunately, there are more examples of elected officials displaying their woker-than-thou virtue signaling. Several cities, including San Francisco, Seattle, Denver and Berkeley, have taken steps to limit or ban natural gas.
Which is so bizarre since the U.S. transition from coal to natural gas for electricity generation is the primary driver behind declining U.S. carbon emissions.
No matter. The left has determined that you will transition to clean-energy powered electricity even if it kills you—and it just might.
August 3, 2021