Food for thought(?) from Pierre Gosselin at No Tricks Zone
Rising conservative media star Breitbart here writes that “A Donald Trump presidency would be way more beneficial to the environment than a Hillary Clinton presidency“.
Much of the Breitbart article, written by James Delingpole, focuses on Trump’s loathing of windfarms, which blight the landscape, kill birds, bats, and insects, require old school energy for when the wind is not perfect, take up vast tracks of land, need giant concrete foundations, etc. While Gosselin also goes this way, he has a few more reasons
- Number one manufacturing would relocate from dirty third world conditions (China, India) back to more modern and cleaner conditions in the USA. Making and buying locally are almost always better for the environment.
- Number 2, prosperity also means more money for environmental clean ups.
- Number 3: Money would finally pour into massively upgrading the USA’s crumbling and inefficient transportation system, which is plagued by traffic jams, inefficient networks and road conditions that lead to wasteful energy consumption.
- Number 4, prosperous nations by far tend to have lower population growth.
He also mentions the “huge social consequences of exorbitantly costly and unstable energy for the poor.” Are they correct? Hillary really doesn’t talk much about the environment, mostly about ‘climate change’, and she seems rather halfhearted about caring, except for the part about increasing government control, spending, taxes.
Trump’s website has no specific policy on the environment. There are a few things about doing away with the Clean Power Plan, the Waters Of the USA plan, not putting coal out of business, etc, buried in his economic policy. Basically killing lots of regulation that costs jobs.
So, who would be better? Consider that Hillary loves taking lots of money from countries with horrible environmental standards, and those whose main product is oil.
What do you think?
I don’t think most leftists believe nor understand that conservatives by their very nature (to conserve) are very conservation and preservation friendly. What we are not is hot-headed Chicken Little’s blind to the economic costs in both human and capital.
I my career I’ve built three shopping centers over twenty-five years and the last one I sold out about 80% through the project because I just could no longer tolerate the bureaucrats from the local, state and federal agencies requiring redundant compliance to the same regulations interpreted differently by different bureaucrats. And frankly, I really believe most of the regulations were created to ingratiate someone’s brother-in-law because they were so nonsensical as to border on ridiculous. I actually had to replace a 375′ stretch of sidewalk and curb three times because of different requirements by different agencies over the same regulation and I finally ended up with the same layout as the original sidewalk. The only thing different was I had spent an extra 150k and lost ten days work.
Anyway, the point is if reasonable ideas are put out there with people understanding that everything costs money and money going to this idea is not going to another, perhaps better, idea. The thing that leftists miss are those darn unseen consequences when money is diverted to a project that very well may have been better spent on another.
When leftists start raging about “evil corporations” they start loosing people. And when they lay the burden of climate at the feet of humanity they loose everyone because we are not going to die or go broke to address a theory that may or may not be correct to one degree or another projected a hundred or more years into the future.
Similarly, when the climate freaks start howling for barrels of cash from the cleaner, more efficient, recycling, conserving capitalist nations on one hand and then rally against the damn capitalists on the other they can count us out. It is capitalism that raises people up and fights to correct pollution, not communists in their filth and trash.
I’ve watched many times as some leftist goons rail against conservatives like we like dirty water, air and just love polluted land fills yet they refute every kind of energy including natural gas and nuclear which can clean up the environment while providing real energy for real people.
Hey Teach did you see the big news about Scotland ?
Because of high winds that country on one day was able to get 106% of its electric power from wind
Scotland currently gets more than half its power from renewables even though it has the highest EU oil reserves
Good for Scotland, John. And what happens when the wind dies down? Nobody is saying not to use every available form of energy except the warmist alarmists. Humans need energy and since it’s so important to sustain life we need cheap and abundant energy. We don’t get that closing coal plants, forbidding fracking and ignoring nuclear power. We get it by using a blend of all available sources and let the market demand sort it out.
It also helps to realize that Scotland has a population of about 5.5 million, or about the same as Minnesota and is around the size of North Carolina at 31,000 sq. mi.. They really don’t consume a huge amount of energy, John. Now if you could get California, not the entire United States just California, to produce 106% of its energy needs for just one day with wind turbines you may actually have something.
Perhaps this will help, John:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ihHvT1r7UI4/Ue3YVr7FDhI/AAAAAAAAZ5E/jeSavXdENAk/s640/1+ninetymilesyz35zW1r7jy7zo1_500.jpg
Hoagie,
I built one commercial building and had to fight the city and state the whole time. It became clear that you could stop all that if you had the city engineers conduct a “study” that cost about $10,000. In other words, a bribe. I think that conservatives and liberals share many goals, but conservatives have dealt with the government and know how corrupt and inefficient it is. I know in the world of medicine, since Obamacare, we have equalized health care among people, now no one has adequate coverage. That is the issue with grand government plans.
One thing about Scotland and the rest of Europe, they don’t require that much energy. They have great mass transit systems, the houses are closer together thus not requiring a car to get around or to do shopping, the weather is moderate and air conditioning not a necessity. So, John, as usual is comparing apples to oranges.
ahhhh the houses are closer together so they use less electrical energy ?wtf??? Closer together than where Nebraska or NYC ????
And exactly where in my post did I make a comparison to ANY other place
I simply made a statement that said that on one particular day Scotland made more electrical power than it used and all from wind
If you chose to make any comparisons well that is on you not me
I know exactly what you’re talking about, david7134. Usually I managed to supply the required “studies” but the project in question was in Decatur Georgia back in the 90’s and as a damn Yankee carpetbagger I wasn’t privy to the proper channels. The beauty of it was I procured a famous large retail giant as an anchor store, hit it off with a VP and ended up selling the entire project to them for a clean 4 million profit. I then skadoodled out of Georgia never to return.
I think that English lit major, James Delingpole, makes some unjustified assumptions regarding two topics about which he knows little – economics and climate science. Trump has promised greater prosperity and bringing jobs back but there is absolutely no reason to think he knows what he’s talking about. He has no plans.
Why would Tea Party Republicans suddenly commit $100s of billions to rebuilding infrastructure?
There is absolutely no reason to expect Trump/Republican policies (tax cuts, deregulation and tariffs) to suddenly or gradually stimulate the economy. $1 trillion+ in infrastructure spending WOULD stimulate the economy. Weakening the dollar would move manufacturing jobs back to the US.
Why hasn’t the GOP Ckngress done anything about our shitty infrastructure?????
That’s an excellent question John, and I wish I knew the answer. I know that most states collect certain taxes supposedly dedicated to infrastructure. I also know the feds also collect the same. What I can’t figure out is where all this money goes.
Let me use Philly as an example since I live there. The city collects tens of millions every year in parking fines, payment for street vending licenses, money from parking meters, money from road tolls and bridge tolls and I have never seen an actual accounting of these funds. Knowing how corrupt the democrat régime in Philly is (and if it were a Republican régime ensconced for 64 years it would be just as corrupt) I would not doubt that there is a bank account in Grand Cayman that goes “click” each time a quarter is dropped in a parking meter or a ticket is tucked under a windshield in the city.
The hundreds of millions collected each year in taxes, tolls and fines magically disappears and in order to get infrastructure work done we suddenly need “new” taxes. We need responsible spending and we need to ferret out the old “waste, fraud and abuse” which has become a cliché. Aren’t you guys sick of paying for the same thing over and over? I know I am.
makes some unjustified assumptions regarding two topics about which he knows little – economics and climate science
And you do?