Ron HartView other columns by Ron Hart
Democrats, the self-proclaimed "party for the middle class," raise the middle-class cost of living by raising energy prices with their regulatory meddling. Regulations cost consumers $1.8 trillion per year, which means higher bills for utilities, gas and transportation for the average person.
Another example of the cost of environmental hysteria was revealed this week. Southern Co. was forced to build a "clean coal" plant by Obama and his hordes of regulatory henchmen - probably based on a few theories EPA bureaucrats had absorbed in their "You and the Environment 101" class at NYU. In 2010 the plant's estimated cost was $3 billion. Because of government demands, the price tag for the Mississippi plant now stands at $7.1 billion. Oh - and it's not workable. A comparable natural gas plant would have cost $700 mil, one-tenth the cost.
It gets better. Like other theories that government dolts came up with (as in the Solyndra debacle, which cost taxpayers at least $500 million), the cost of this harebrained Southern Co. scheme will be passed on to Southern customers - to the tune of $4.2 billion. You see, since the government regulates utility companies, it allows utilities to pass on to their customers the costs of their stupid ideas: one of the many hidden costs of out-of-control regulation.
The left shames people into blindly accepting climate change and calls anyone like me who questions it a "denier" or a "flat earther." Never mind that the science was "settled" that the earth was flat for centuries.
I'm not certain about global warming, but I look good in shorts so I won't fret it. Liberals believe it is wise to spend trillions, costing tens of thousands of energy workers their jobs, just so a caribou in Alaska does not have to look at a pipeline.
In reality, we right-of-center libertarians and Republicans love the environment and want to protect it more than those crowded into gentrified Brooklyn condos. We hunt, fish, play golf, camp, etc., much more than the left. Yet another false narrative coming out of this climate change movement is that they care so much more. Not true. We are just not idiots about the solution and don't chase every stupidly expensive idea the left kicks around.
The founder of the religion of global warming is Al Gore, a delusional man who also said "he invented the internet." Those who preach the religion of global warming, like professors and political government cronies, have something to gain by advancing the narrative. Even a UN official admitted that climate change is not about doing anything about it but about global wealth distribution. Whistleblowers continue to tell us agencies are cooking climate data.
A recent U.N. study said solar activity played a greater role in global warming than was originally thought. Wow - the sun? It's always the last place you think to look, ain't it?
The poster child for global warming, the polar bear clinging to a melting ice floe, is a crock. According to recent reports, the polar bear population is growing and is in the best shape it has been for 40 years.
What was the last government-propagated fear that actually came true? These are the same folks who made us learn the metric system years ago. They shut down nuclear plant building in the '70s; it's now the cleanest energy (oops!). Whatever happened to acid rain and holes in the ozone layer?
Speaking of layers, how can the ice caps be breaking up and the Clintons still be together?
To believe all the climate change propaganda, you have to subscribe to the following: Earth is warming for the first time, mankind is causing it and politicians are so smart that if we give them more money they can change the temperature of the earth.
Earth's temperature averages 59 degrees and has increased maybe a fraction of one degree. But politicians know better than our planet what its temperature should be. They are just that smart. So let's go with Gov. Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown's hunch on this one. He even said he'd sue Trump on climate change. The court case has already been named: Brown v. Orange.
Contact Ron Hart, a syndicated op-ed humorist and TV/radio commentator, at Ron@RonaldHart.com, Twitter @RonaldHart or visit RonaldHart.com.