“In his 36-year Senate career, Biden was an enlightened voice on nearly every issue, despite well-known mistakes…. Sure, he isn’t perfect. Which of us is?” (Letter below from 170 environmental activists)

Joe Biden is pro-fracking on private land. Joe Biden is against the Green New Deal. Joe Biden is not for “transitioning away from fossil fuels.”

Is Big Green on board with all this? Evidently so! And it is a stunning victory for the oil, gas, and coal industries.

And even worse, Big Green–DC Green–wants its power so much that it is rejecting its purest backers, the Green Party, “the birthplace of the Green New Deal.”

Over 170 Environmental Leaders Urge Supporters Not to Vote for Green Party says it all:

More than 170 of the world’s most esteemed environmental activists signed on to an open letter on Monday urging their supporters to vote for Joe Biden rather than vote for the Green Party or sit out the election, The Daily Beast reports.…

“In Green Party terms, acceptable energies are wind, solar, ocean, small-scale hydro, and geothermal power. Nuclear is out as much as oil, natural gas, and coal. So is ‘dirty clean energy,’ defined as ‘biomass incineration (trees, crops, construction debris and certain types of waste), landfill gas and many types of biofuels.'”

Yesterday’s post examined the Green Party’s climate platform for the 2020 election. The Green Party’s Emergency Green New Deal joins Biden’s Green New Deal and the OAC/Sanders Green New Deal, each is designed to eliminate fossil fuels and go to a new (really old) energy future.

In Green Party terms, acceptable energies are wind, solar, ocean, small-scale hydro, and geothermal power. Nuclear is out as much as oil, natural gas, and coal. So is “dirty clean energy,” defined as “biomass incineration (trees, crops, construction debris and certain types of waste), landfill gas and many types of biofuels.”…

“Enact a Fee & Dividend system on fossil fuels to enable the free market to include the environmental costs of their extraction and use…. The carbon fee [tax] will initially be small, a dime per kilogram of carbon [1000x = $100 per metric ton], to avoid creating a shock to the economy. The fee will be increased by 10% each year….”

“[The US will] pay for adaptation to climate change in countries with less responsibility for climate change. Provide a carbon neutral development path for those countries that can no longer be permitted to develop in the same way we did—by burning cheap fossil fuels.”

The Green Party does not seem so radical anymore. Back in 2016, their climate/energy plank could be derided as soured pie-in-the-sky. But since the Green New Deal (GND) of 2019, it is pie in the face.…

“We find that the arguments marshaled to support the hypothesis that a transition to a soft energy economy is inevitable are riddled with economic errors and are thus less than compelling. Moreover, we can’t help but note that past predictions by soft energy advocates about the future of the energy economy have proven wildly incorrect.”

– Jerry Taylor and Peter VanDoren (1999)

Twenty-one years ago, Jerry Taylor and Peter VanDoren of the Cato Institute published a journal article, “The Soft Case for Soft Energy,” in a special issue of the Journal of International Affairs, Fueling the 21st Century: The New Political Economy of Energy (Fall 1999). This article remains sound and prescient, with political energies continuing to be government-dependent versus their superior rivals.

This 11,000-word, 101-footnote essay is the longest and most comprehensive of Jerry Taylor’s career–and the most notable journal article he has published.…