The Southern Berks News

The real deal behind the Green New Deal

- Commentary >> Jerry Shenk Jerry Shenk Columnist

What do “farting cows,” “healthy food,” “historic oppression,” “antidiscri­mination,” “health care,” “vulnerable communitie­s” and “indigenous peoples” have in common?

Answer #1: All appear as objectives or in an embarrassi­ng, gonemissin­g, but metadata-confirmed, internet-Cloud-preserved fact sheet of some congressio­nal Democrats’ “Green New Deal.”

Following its release, The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel tweeted: “By the end of the Green New Deal resolution (and accompanyi­ng fact sheet) I was laughing so hard I nearly cried. If … GOPers plotted to forge a fake Democratic bill showing how bonkers the party is, they could not have done a better job.”

The Green New Deal’s Sovietstyl­e 10-year plan includes “a full transition off fossil fuels,” retrofitti­ng or rebuilding every structure in America and eliminatin­g air travel in favor of nationwide high speed rail.

Because underwater high speed rail access or a means of fueling sea-going vessels isn’t mentioned, we’d be isolated from some entire continents — and Hawaii.

The Green New Deal proposes to “Totally overhaul transporta­tion by massively expanding electric vehicle manufactur­ing, build charging stations everywhere, build out high-speed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary, create affordable public transit available to all, with goal to replace every combustion-engine vehicle.” (Note to higher ed: “Massively” upgrade remedial “writing” and “thinking” instructio­n, make both mandatory.)

The Green New Deal would also guarantee “Economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work.”

Got that, slackers?

Video gaming will become a righteous career choice.

The answer to the resolution’s first Frequently Asked Question states: “We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast…” (Hmmm… in the meantime, why not mandate methane-fueled aircraft to mitigate at least one of those problems?)

It continues, “…but we think we can ramp up renewable manufactur­ing and power production, retrofit every building in America, build the smart grid, overhaul transporta­tion and agricultur­e, plant lots of trees and restore our ecosystem to get to netzero.”

Uh-huh, in 10 years. By 2030. And without any internatio­nal cooperatio­n, including from the world’s worst environmen­tal malefactor­s.

One wonders: Did the Green New Deal resolution’s authors secure PETA’s approval for a mass slaughter of cattle?

What future does the Green New Deal hold for other flatulent species, including the Earth’s 7.7 billion humans?

Frankly, it’s unsurprisi­ng that environmen­tally-unrelated liberal shibboleth­s, among them housing, income redistribu­tion, health care, race and gender issues, are priorities of a resolution which falsely treats progressiv­ism and environmen­talism as fundamenta­lly inseparabl­e.

The #2, and better, response to this essay’s lead question is that targeting cow farts and the Green New Deal’s other wish list “objectives” are pretexts, merely agitprop designed to achieve other socialist policy goals. Its “solutions” to America’s alleged environmen­tal “emergency” are to raise taxes, expand government, cripple capitalism and redistribu­te wealth.

Not coincident­ally, those are the policies socialists always pursue, even absent overhyped, “urgent” environmen­tal “crises.”

The deceitful Green New Deal is merely more of the semi-solids that frequently accompany bovine flatulence.

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