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The Environmentalists’ Quiet War on the Poor
One would expect that with today’s gasoline prices, the recent discoveries of massive oil reserves in the Bakken Shale region of North Dakota, USA, would be met with soaring optimism about America’s struggle for energy independence. Geologists have discovered oil reserves that may amount to more than one hundred billion barrels of oil; it is probably the largest discovery of oil in the history of the United States. Consider that Saudi Arabia, which has the largest oil reserves in the world, has only 264 billion in proven reserves.
In years gone by, such a discovery would have been major sustained news for months in the United States. Industries would be ignited, fortunes made. Large groups of the population would migrate to the opportunities produced by such a find. But oddly, the news of such discoveries has already faded from view in the US. There are not going to be any ticker tape parades.
But why?
One need only to say one short word to know why: ANWR. Americans have learned that whatever resources the country might have, the American politician is no match for the environmentalist radical in America. Geologists report that ANWR has 10 Billion barrels of useable oil reserves, which matches about ½ of the oil reserves that exist outside of ANWR in the whole US. But never mind. The environmentalists control the ANWR question in the US, just as they control the questions of the expansion of nuclear power, the expansion of refinery capacity, and every other issue associated with American energy policy.
And so we read the news of oil in North Dakota, and we yawn. No doubt the environmentalists will control that question as well, and like ANWR, the Ecorighteous will beat their chests about the fossil fuels and renewable energy, solar power and wind generators. We sigh in resignation: what may turn out to be the greatest oil discovery in the history of the world will disappear right before our eyes.
But for all the moralistic aggression of the environmentalist, they have yet to address the primary moral impact of their agenda. The dirty little secret of the environmentalist movement is that it is fundamentally elitist: the greatest impact of green policies will be on the world’s poor. At every turn the environmentalist movement is inflationary. And when prices of basic goods – like heat, and food – climb, the greatest impact on human life is on the poor.
At what point are we going to call the environmentalist to account for the harms they foist on the poor?
Nuclear power. For example, consider the impact of the environmentalist energy policy on the cost of electricity. The environmentalist insists that we must use the full power of government to regulate the end of the use of cheap fossil fuels, and to prevent any growth in the use of nuclear energy. We all must switch to inefficient and expensive technologies: solar power, wind turbines, flex fuels, and so on.
Of course, restrictions on supply of nuclear power means the supply of electricity is artificially constricted and prices unnecessarily high. In France, where nuclear power expansion is encouraged, it provides fully 2.5X the amount of electricity of per capita electric consumption than that provided in the US.
What is the impact of environmentalist policies against nuclear power on the poor? 20% of US electrical power is provided by nuclear power. If the supply of that nuclear power in the US was 2.5X the amount currently available, the already low price of electricity in the US might very well drop by one-half or more. With the average American family spending $200 per month on electricity, an increase in the US use of nuclear power to the levels of France could very well reduce monthly costs of life for each American family by $100 per month. Talk about economic stimulus.
Gasoline prices. Likewise, consider the impact of environmentalism on the price of gasoline. In California, for example, environmentalists have pressed politicians to adopt the most highly-regulated composition of gasoline in the country, all in the name of the environmentalist agenda. What result?
California’s gasoline prices are 10-15% higher than the rest of the country. Why? It costs more to produce the highly regulated gasoline in California, and there is less flexibility to obtaining supply. In Nebraska today, the ordinary person fills up their tank for $3.45 a gallon. Next time you do that consider that a poor mom trying to get across Los Angeles every day to clean a motel to put food on her table, is paying $4.25 a gallon for her gas that day. And on her way home, by the way, she will pay about 20% more for each bite of food she buys for those kids, because the truckers that haul the food to market pay that 20% premium on fuel costs as well.
Plain and simple: press the environmentalist agenda, and poor kids eat less.
The list goes on and on. To meet their moral standards, the Greens demand that we pay $5 for green-blessed light bulbs, rather than the 50 cents we used to pay. Rich and poor alike must buy organic foods at trendy stores, and drink nothing but over-priced “fair trade” coffee. The morally righteous will pay more money for smaller cars.
In the end, the environmentalist movement implies a class war. Environmentalism at once resists job development and simultaneously encourages increase in the prices of basic human needs: food, heat, transportation. And the poorest among us are hit the hardest. Environmentalists claim to protect the most vulnerable species in nature. When are they going to account for their own attacks on the most vulnerable among us?
THE HOUND
Jeff
April 21st, 2008 at 10:03 pm
The Hound is on the money once again. Welcome back.