Pirate's Cove

Of course the Associated Press’ hyper-Warmist Seth Borenstein and Tom Krishner (not familiar with him) see it this way. They don’t see the escalating cost of food, goods, and services, Americans having to stretch their budget and do without, retailers making smaller profit and seeing non-necessary goods just sitting on shelves. The climate cult doesn’t care

Higher gas prices hurt pockets, make small dent in emissions

As Congress and now the Supreme Court stymie the Biden administration’s efforts to curb climate change, one thing the president doesn’t want – sky high gas prices – actually is nibbling away at emissions of heat-trapping gas.

Gas prices in much of the United States shot past the $5 a gallon mark last month before a slight drop, and Americans have responded by driving a bit less, two sets of data show. June gas sales are about 5% below pre-pandemic 2019 levels and 2.6% below a year ago, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Americans in April, the last month data was available, drove 6% fewer miles than the same month in 2019, according to transportation analyst Michael Sivak, a former University of Michigan professor who is a long-time tracker of driving and car-buying habits. That 6% drop is tiny compared to the 40% plunge in driving miles in April 2020 as the pandemic kicked in.

Yet, a 6% drop in driving roughly translates to only a 1% drop in overall U.S. carbon emissions, Sivak said. The U.S. climate goal is to cut carbon emissions in half by 2030 compared to 2005 levels.

“High fuel prices are a really difficult thing because they’re a double-edged sword,” said Samantha Gross, director of the energy security and climate initiative at the centrist Brookings Institution. “So prices that are high and expected to stay that way have more of a longer term ability to cut demand and my guess is the administration wouldn’t mind seeing that, but the problem is that people hate it.”

Yes, people do hate it. You can bet that most of casual Warmists hate it too, because their Beliefs have now shifted from theory to practice, and they are forced to live the life they wanted to force on Other People.

High gas prices are “unequivocally” good for fighting climate change because people use less fossil fuel and emissions go down, but the poorest people, who don’t have other options also “suffer the most,” said climate economist Solomon Hsiang, director of the Climate Impact Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. Carbon emissions are causing harm, especially to future generations, but for decades cheap gas has meant “no one is paying for that harm,” he said.

So, the hardcore climate cultists are happy now

“When you talk about the real outcomes of the energy transition (to less carbon pollution) some of this does mean that things will get more expensive and we need to come up with better solutions on how we finance and ensure that everybody can participate in the energy transition and it’s not just for the wealthy or privileged few,” AAA’s Gladden said.

So, suck it up, peons. They’ll figure out a way eventually. Probably with the government making things more expensive then giving you some of your money back, which makes you more reliant on government

Some economists, such as Hsiang, have called for a carbon tax of 25 cents to 50 cents a gallon above market price “to address the harm from climate change” and reduce carbon pollution by cutting demand, but with proceeds partly returned to people and partly used for green energy projects. But at the same time, he said, “higher gas prices hurt poorer families more,” so the government should send them financial help but not subsidize cheap gas.

See?