Hysteria and greed make for expensive energy policies that won’t save the planet

Last week, President Joe Biden claimed that climate change “is literally, not figuratively, a clear and present danger.” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres stated we have just eight years to save the planet or the world will commit “collective suicide.”

The world is suffering from a “climate emergency” and “climate catastrophe.” Every heat wave, storm, flood, drought and blizzard no longer is weather but instead irrefutable evidence of our looming demise.

Those overcome by hysteria cannot think or act rationally. Yet politicians and policymakers, including Biden, are intent on igniting more flames, like serial arsonists.

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So why pursue policies that will immiserate millions and have virtually no impact on the climate? Because, loaded as they are with subsidies for green energy, they offer virtually unlimited opportunities for self-enrichment to those who peddle them.

Though it’s one of the costliest generating resources known, Biden issued an executive order to promote offshore-wind development in the Gulf of Mexico and along the southeast coast. But offshore-wind developers are almost entirely European companies, which will collect not only production tax credits but also Team Biden’s new 30% investment tax credit. (Billions more in subsidies for electric vehicles and charging infrastructure are also on offer, on top of existing subsidies.)

Officials have even enacted legislation to stifle local opposition to huge wind and solar projects in rural counties, benefiting developers at their citizens’ expense. New York’s 2020 Accelerated Renewable Energy Growth and Community Benefit Act, for example, effectively guts the state’s home-rule provisions. Wind and solar developers have filed lawsuits against small rural communities, many of which lack the resources to fight back.