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Craig Rucker
Craig Rucker is a co-founder of CFACT and currently serves as its president.
The Green movement has a long history of rubbing people the wrong way. In some cases, it was perhaps for the public good, like starting campaigns to stop littering and save whales. In other cases, it was just plain patronizing, like telling parents to ditch disposable diapers and keep their thermostats set to 65 degrees in winter.
These days, however, the eco-crowd has taken everything to a whole new level of busybody.
The “climate crisis” is the purported justification cited as to why we all need to change our behaviors – and there can be no deviation. Citizens are expected to acquiesce to their whims simply because they shout “the world will end in five years”, as Greta Thunberg did in 2018. In many respects, Green extremists feel the public should submit to the same way they bowed to two-year Covid masking and lockdown diktats.
But their list of demands has gotten overbearing. So much so, in fact, that one must believe they will soon overplay their hand and face considerable public backlash. Indeed, they already have in many instances, but it’s worth taking a look at just a few of their recent irksome moves that have made news.
Ditch gas stoves, water heaters, and furnaces – In some cases, like gas stoves, Greens want them banned outright. In other cases, like water heaters and furnaces, they want the appliances regulated under new federal rules for nearly impossible 95 per cent efficiency. Many electric replacements will require expensive rewiring of homes and neighborhoods, and heat pumps that don’t work well in frigid weather.
Ban wood-burning pizza ovens – Politicians in the Big Apple want to force popular restaurants and pizzerias to install outrageously expensive “pollution” controls systems to reduce their “excessive carbon footprint” and reduce air pollution. Environmentalists don’t seem to care that this is enormously unpopular with average New Yorkers. They seem intent on pushing their agenda on the common Joe, even if data suggests each oven would have to bake pizzas 24/7 for nearly 850 years to equal the annual carbon dioxide emissions from the private jets that Biden Climate Emissary John Kerry uses to avoid commercial airlines.
Eliminate short-range domestic flights — France is already doing what climate activists in other countries have long demanded, namely to bar people from taking domestic flights if they can make the same trip by train in under two-and-a-half hours. Similar restrictions may be coming soon to an airport near you!
Put the kibosh on fireworks – The city of Los Angeles canceled this year’s Fourth of July fireworks along the Pacific coast to reduce smoke, greenhouse gas emissions, and plastic debris that might pollute ocean waters. For environmentalists, there’s apparently no time to celebrate when their computer models forecast the end is nigh.
Put a freeze on using ice cubes — Scientific American magazine says cocktails should be made with less ice. Current recipes are “unsustainable”, it asserts, because making 200-300 pounds of ice per bar each day requires too much water and energy, and flying or shipping limes and liquors from around the world wastes carbon-spewing fuel.
Scrap your vehicles — All new cars and trucks, they insist, should be electric by 2030 or 2035. But despite subsidies, resistance to electric vehicles has shown itself to be stubborn. Maybe that’s because EVs cost far more than conventional vehicles and can only travel relatively short distances on hours-long charges. But all that is irrelevant to the extremists. No, we must all make the changes they demand for the sake of our future, even if it means EV batteries are produced using child and slave labor and can catch fire if damaged or overheated.
Climate autocrats are clearly attacking our lifestyles. But why shouldn’t they be emboldened to do so? They’ve also been attacking and insulting our intelligence for years and have never been rebuffed.
They’ve sold many to believe we face an unprecedented climate crisis – on a planet that’s survived repeated ice ages, decades-long droughts, and extreme-weather catastrophes for billions of years.
They’ve hoodwinked many to believe unilateral US actions will stabilize Earth’s temperature and weather while giving a pass to China, India, and other emerging economic powerhouses that continue burning more oil, coal, and natural gas every year at record levels.
And they’ve gotten many to accept that our nation should lock up its bounteous fossil fuels, and make our energy, economy, and military almost totally dependent on metals and minerals from China.
Yes, to be sure, the current situation is a bit aggravating. But perhaps there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. If the Greens actually do succeed in implementing their intrusive agenda, maybe then, and only then, will the public finally rise up and begin to question their baseless claims and harebrained schemes. Well, at least one can hope.
This article originally appeared at Issues and Insights.
