Source: The Wall Street Journal (behind paywall).
Stumble Joe made a foolish promise yesterday when he proposed reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by half of their 2005 levels in the next nine years.
What would the U.S. have to do to achieve Mr. Biden’s new emissions pledge? Start with some perspective. The Obama regulatory fusillade got the U.S. only about halfway to his Paris pledge—and most of the reductions during his Presidency were from natural gas displacing coal in power due to market forces.
Amid last year’s Covid-19 lockdowns, greenhouse gas emissions fell to about 21% below 2005 levels. In other words, even with the economy shut down and a large share of the population stuck at home, the U.S. was less than halfway to Mr. Biden’s goal.
Some green groups have done their own back-of-the envelope analysis of what it would take to achieve Mr. Biden’s 10-year plan. Take a recent Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) report that argues for a “strong whole-of-government approach.” This includes eliminating new gas-powered cars by 2035, presumably by ramping up corporate average fuel economy (Cafe) standards. Mr. Biden has also proposed sweetening federal tax credits for buying electric cars—currently $7,500—but soon consumers will have no choice but to buy them when their gas vehicles expire.
The Biden goal will require the electric grid to be totally rebuilt in 10 years. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, the U.S. will also have to double its share of carbon-free power to 80% from 40% today—half of which is now provided by nuclear—to have any hope of achieving Mr. Biden’s pledge.
All coal plants would have to shut down, and natural gas plants would be phased into obsolescence. Wind and solar energy would have to increase six to seven fold. The Obama Clean Power Plan, which the Supreme Court blocked in 2016, looks modest by comparison. It sought to reduce CO2 power emissions by 32%. Most homes would also have to be electrified. So if you like your gas stove, you won’t be able to keep it. Farmers would also have to adopt “climate-smart agriculture and forestry,” EDF says.
This small sampling of practicalities doesn’t even begin to describe the grandiosity of this foolishness. The unintended consequences alone will be huge. And for what? Eighty-five percent of the world’s C02 emissions will continue unabated. The burden Stumble Joe would place on us will solve nothing.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
Wow. A president making grandiose statements, promising fantastical results he can’t possibly deliver? I am shocked. SHOCKED, I say!
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What sort of person would refer to the President of the United States as “Stumble Joe” because he was seen to trip once? Does such a person expect that anything that he might have to say will be taken seriously after such nonsense? Inqiring minds want to know.
You and others have pointed out that the goal set by the President is difficult. Here is some words from history that are relevant . . .
“We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.” – JFK Sept. 12, 1962.
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The problem with Biden’s goal isn’t that it is difficult, it is that it is useless and destructive.
Even his Climate Czar Kerry admits that the US could shut down completely and make no measurable difference if China and India don’t follow suit, and they have already said they will not.
So the Grand Plan is nothing more than pointless virtue signaling that will destroy hundreds of thousands of high paying jobs. I suspect that this is Biden’s payoff to China for not producing the evidence to put him and his son in prison, sending all that manufacturing business the Orange Man stole from them. .
We can only hope the plan crashes and burns in Congress and the courts before too much harm is done.
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“I suspect that this is Biden’s payoff to China for not producing the evidence to put him and his son in prison, sending all that manufacturing business the Orange Man stole from them.”
You post something as ugly, dishonest and ridiculous as this and expect anyone to take you seriously? On anything? Well don’t. Such nonsense combined with your penchant for making things up leaves you with zero actual credibility with anyone with more than half a brain.
By the way, you are once again distorting beyond recognition what Kerry actually said. I will not waste the effort to correct it AGAIN since I have done so before without changing your willingness to distort it yet AGAIN.
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Do you, yourself, expect to be taken seriously by attacking inconsequential asides?
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Personally, I do not consider ignorant and ugly slanders directed at our national leaders – slanders based on NOTHING – to be inconsequential. They reflect very badly on those people without the basic decency to limit themselves to telling the truth.
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In other words, you were just looking for an excuse to launch a personal attack on Dr. Tabor.
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I don’t give a shit who spreads malicious lies. They will hear exactly what I think about them. Responding to such puerile nonsense is not looking for an excuse to attack some one. It is responding to puerile nonsense.
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By referring to the current President in the manner you do with every single post proves you have no level of credibility any more. Even I would normally begin by using the proper honorific followed by the last name of 45. You have yet to address the current President with anything but name calling bullshit. If you want to refer to him by some inane nickname CONSTANTLY, then you will never regain credibility to comment on anything he is attempting to do.
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