How the Left Came to Reject Cheap Energy for the Poor (From 2013)
Progressives once championed state-led projects to advance human and economic development like FDR’s (left) Tennessee Valley Authority. Today, despite enjoying the fruits of a modernity created in many ways through such public efforts, they urge a return to low-energy lifestyles and promote decentralized, market-driven proposals.
Because leftist ideology has, at its unspoken foundation, a view of other human beings as competition for finite resources. Once you understand this, you understand everything.
Yep, they keep trotting out this environmentalist 18th century Malthusian view of the humanity, so you need to starve them out of existence via high unemployment and low wages so they can’t afford electricity.
Recreating the economics of ‘India’ in the Tennessee Valley.
So the Obama-Nation’s rallying cry is now “Backward!”
Remember, Adam Corolla’s admonition; they’re “Fighting For You!” in government…
They are so ‘damn’ short sighted, they see the ‘light at the end of the tunnel; only to discover its another gravy train’!
🙂
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
–they urge a return to low-energy lifestyles and promote decentralized, market-driven proposals.–
Yeah, right. Democrats in our legislatures pass mandates that force our power companies to build and use inefficient and unreliable wind systems that we then get to pay extra for. Bureaucrats in the EPA under a leftist nutcase President make new rules designed to wipe out our coal industry and cripple our energy grid. Only a retard/Democrat could call this “decentralized” or “market-driven”.
The commie way is for the poor to subsidize the rich. The poor pay double? for milk, eggs, chickens, and turkeys to subsidize millionaire farmers. What’s that all about?
Yep, the social benefit of cheap energy and cheap food cannot be overstated. These, like water and shelter, are essential if you want to increase the standard of living and quality of life. It also helps the economy if people have more disposable income to save, spend and invest because necessities are inexpensive. If you fairly calculated the social cost of modern agriculture and electricity against the social benefit, I have no doubt the benefit would greatly exceed the cost.
On the question of whether energy projects should be owned and operated by central governments, I’m not as convinced. TVA was a success story but there are also lots of failures of nationalized industries. The failure of nationalized farms alone is a tragic tale of incompetence leading to malnutrition and starvation. Perhaps there is a place for governments kick-starting modernization but I’d be careful of even advocating that.
As for progressives seeing others are competing for finite resources, yes, there definitely are strongly held Malthusian and Luddite beliefs. I’m not quite as cynical, though. I think many of them mean well but they underestimate the creativity and ingenuity of humans. Not only do humans adapt to changing climate but they innovate and discover ways to both increase productivity and reduce environmental impacts. Progressives are convinced that the Apocalypse is always just around the next corner despite every failed prediction of doom. Like other faith-based beliefs, facts and data is ineffective in making them see the reason and reality.
look up the off grid hydro power plants.. using the old mill dams that most towns that had a grist mill could be converted in to low yield hydro power plants
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4B2gODY3Mk
Nothing new under the sun.
Look at the “environmentalists”.
Just a new face and label for Slavemasters and Eugenics.
Actions are real, words are noise.
Every action from the “planetsavers” is working to keep brown people poor and enslaved.
Destroying poor brown peoples communities and futures is the WWF forte.
IMF, World Bank.. no money, at any price, for cheap reliable electricity in any undeveloped country.
Lots of money , for a fee, for pixie dust and unicorn flatulence.
The Kleptocracy is held stable by the big lie.
As long as those being robbed buy that lie.
CAGW, sustainable energy BS these are pushing the limits of the lie.
Of course given the exponential growth of our parasitic overlords, the limits have to be pushed.
Theft only works when there is someone there to steal from.
A good read until I got to the end where they said that burning coal causes global warming, fracking can pollute the water and the developed world should move to renewables, and to electric cars — as quickly as we can. I was surprised how they could be so perceptive about the past and recognize the environmentalists for what they are but not understand the global warming scam.
Kate rightly says, “Because leftist ideology has, at its unspoken foundation, a view of other human beings as competition for finite resources. Once you understand this, you understand everything.”
The left also has the same warped opinion in the area of money and finances. They have bought and believed the lie that there is only one pie of money and that the “rich” take a disproportion of that said pie leaving less and less for the poor.
The reality is that capitalism and free enterprise enlarges the pie so that more and more people can expand the portion of that enlarging pie that they help to enlarge by good old fashion hard work.
The article claims that modern progressives want market-based solutions to (presupposed CAGW) problems. What is not said is “free market capitalism” but something akin to economic fascism under the thumb of regulations, mandates, and loot disguised as rent-seeker bait all to pursue the piety of “low carbon” energy. The old left was into big centralized projects aimed at furthering the industrial revolution. The new left is into the anti-industrial revolution and will say anything to disguise its aims.
As Kate would say … We need a Famine !
All of this contemporary eco-crap is born of a childlike romanticizing of yesteryear. Romanticized from the viewpoint of a comfortable, technologically protected and supported leftist philosopher. You hear their overly romantic view of a “simpler life” expressed in multiple ways. Like when they say …”the indigenous peoples of North America lived in h-a-r-m-o-n-y with the land”. Of course they conveniently omit; starvation, constant wars with competing tribes fighting for prime hunting grounds, death from exposure, death from disease, ridiculously short life spans, complete lack of medical knowledge (save for a couple balming herbs), misogyny like they could never comprehend, etc. etc. Or like when they say … “inoculation is more dangerous than disease” … exposing a pathetic ignorance for the scope and devastation of Smallpox, Polio, and even measles !! And my absolute FAVORITE … “man can learn to live in harmony with animals, if we just tell them how much we love and care for them” … example #1: Timothy Treadwell. And I BLAME Disney for THAT malignant thought process. The view from these leftists comfy lifestyles is utterly ignorant. Yet they continue to receive Nobel Peace Prizes, and massive Federal funding through college grants to keep churning out this claptrap.
As soon as Al Gore, or Leo D-crapio SELL all of their assets, and go live in a Yurt in the wilderness (not just make a FAKE movie about it) will I consider their opinions worthwhile. Of course, all that experience would do is to completely CHANGE their romance with the “simpler life”. They would RAPIDLY come to the conclusion that modernization, power, and technology are pretty eFFFFFFin GREAT !!!
The Tennessee Valley Authority project measurably improved the lives of millions of people.
No such project would ever be contemplated today.
Now a country like Canada, with an abundance of resources, will see its most indigent citizenry (low-income families and the elderly) freeze to death for want of cheap energy.
For shame.
Exactly. They are talking about using a combination of fascist/communist market-based solutions.
As LC Bennett says, this whole movement is a blend of Malthusian and Luddite philosophy. Don’t forgfet, the same bunch also advocates getting rid of 6 billion people.
Burning coal causes toxic pollution; the mercury pollution in N.America comes from Asia. Fracking can pollute the water if it’s done to old wells with deteriorated casing. Details are significant, generalizations are generally false.
Yeah, coal causes pollution, but that is minimal in modern, clean burning coal plants in N. America. That isn’t what they were talking about.
Quote – “climate change is a reason to accelerate rather than slow energy transitions” – Unquote.
That’s the reason they were giving. They’re in error on that point.
Is there a lot of fracking happening in old wells with deteriorating casing? Not from what I’ve heard. All the crying about fracking contamination that I’ve heard is about new wells. All the complaints I’ve heard about, when investigated turn out to be unfounded. Don’t put words in their mouths, they were talking about fracking in general, just like the enviro activists.
I agree.
“Burning coal causes toxic pollution”
Which compared to the last volcanic eruption is insignificant.
“the mercury pollution in N.America comes from Asia”
And we have no control over it.
“Fracking can pollute the water if it’s done to old wells with deteriorated casing.”
Maybe it can. Name a proven instance where it has done so.
“Details are significant, generalizations are generally false.”
Details are significant; your comment is short on details, and long on generalization.
Leftists view all economic and social activity as a closed system which cannot expand.
They therefore aim to create forced rationing so that any expansion they allow is credited to them. It’s very much like beating you up and then posing as the Hero when they pause in their beating schedule, ignoring the fact that no beatings at all is the natural status quo.
Government only has power with our cooperation and sufferance. The natural status quo is that we are free and do not need to be governed at all.
Government is theft. Government is coercion.
The day will come when people will no longer cooperate with being robbed and extorted for frivolous political reasons.
That day will come all the faster when people realize that they have been robbed and extorted for whimsical reasons which have no basis in furthering either their greater welfare or preserving the liberty which they were born with.
Unfortunately, the use of Brazilian president Dilma is a poor example. I am speaking from personal experience, for I am married to a Brazilian and spend much time in Brazil. In 2013, with the country’s economy being propelled upward as a result of of the high price of oil and China’s appetite for raw materials, Dilma’s ideas looked promising. However, the ideas were built on a foundation of corruption and inefficiency. The TVA worked by generating electricity efficiently and cheaply. Only when that requirement was met, could rural electrification begin on a sustainable scale. Dilma merely forced the price of electricity down, below the cost of production of the inefficient utilities. Even at that, electricity in Brazil was among the world’s most expensive. Now rates are rising again, as the utilities’ losses mount. At the same time, there are periodic electric and water shortages, for there has been no investment in infrastructure. This week, Dilma’s predecessor was arrested on corruption charges, and there are renewed calls for Dilma’s impeachment.
Progressivism, whether advocating for lower or higher energy rates, is nearly always authoritarian and corrupt. Even the much vaunted TVA is not an ideal example, for it was private industry who has done the lion’s share of improving the lives of the poor. There would have been no electric utilities at all without private industry and the genius of people like Edison and Tesla. Standard Oil reduced the price of oil to a mere fraction of its previous price, and made kerosene affordable. Later, Henry Ford reduced the price of automobiles and made them affordable, and Standard oil had the infrastructure in place to deliver affordable gasoline to power them. Roosevelt demonized the contributions of private industry, and while he was a great cheerleader with his “fireside chats”, he left few tangible improvements, the TVA being one of them. Amity Schale’s book “The Forgotten Man” is a great history of this time. The moral of the story is: “Beware of Progressives bearing gifts.”
Doom sayer and eco-wacko Paul Ehrlich once said GIVING THE WORLD CHEAP ABUDNDANT ENERGY IS GIVING A IDIOT CHILD A MACHINE GUN Yeah this is the same idiot who was making all those rediculous predictions in his book THE POPULATION BOMB and he still is blabbering that same eco-twaddle even today
“the mercury pollution in N.America comes from Asia”
And we have no control over it.
Our ‘advanced’ society is causing it with an insatiable lust for cheap disposable products from Asia that quickly fill our dumps.
“Burning coal causes toxic pollution”
Which compared to the last volcanic eruption is insignificant.
People who have learned how to use internet search tools like Google know that is incorrect.