For the 10-year anniversary of An Inconvenient Truth, those of us who aren’t sold on massive use of taxpayer money for clean-energy projects are yet again labeled in denial about the science of climate change. Latest case in point: a rather fawning interview of Al Gore by WIRED magazine lacking questions about the impact of climate change legislation and subsidies on consumers (particularly lower-income folks), GDP growth and the current scientific state of today’s renewable energy sources. According to WIRED, subsidy skeptics are borderline neanderthals enough to make an enlightened climate activist’s “brain explode.”
In truth, many of us who don’t support behemoth public energy gambles are clear-eyed in understanding the impact these policies have on the poor and middle class–people who see energy costs as a higher proportion of their expenses than richer families. Thus, when countries attempt to shift to renewables too quickly, these shifts hurt the poor the most, as was the case in Germany, where trillions of dollars in experimental mandates and subsidies for clean energy, and a fearful shift away from nuclear energy, resulted in an increase in greenhouse gas emissions along with a major hit to consumers. As The Wall Street Journal reported:
“Germany’s current path of increasingly high-cost energy will make the country less competitive in the world economy, penalize Germany in terms of jobs and industrial investment, and impose a significant cost on the overall economy and household income,” warned Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of research firm IHS. … Average [German] electricity prices for companies have jumped 60% over the past five years because of costs passed along as part of government subsidies of renewable energy producers. Prices are now more than double those in the U.S.”
Germany wasted $2 TRILLION in govt money on “clean energy” with no effect. If u want to help middle class don’t hike energy costs #DemDebate
— Carrie Sheffield (@carriesheffield) October 14, 2015
Arationofreason
July 2, 2016 at 7:03 am
Keep telling it like it is Carrie.
jameshrust
July 2, 2016 at 5:29 pm
Great story. I wish the politicians in this country would see what is happening in Germany’s electric bills. Germany is frequently held up as the poster boy of success in the promoting of solar and wind energy.
James H. Rust, professor of nuclear engineering