Environmentalists Call U.S. Workers ‘Collateral Damage’

Daily Signal ^ | 6/29/2014 | Stephen Moore

[markomalley]

One of the leading leftwing environmentalists last week described the hundreds of thousands of Americans who may lose their jobs due to the Obama administration’s new anti-carbon regulations as “collateral damage” in the fight against global warming.

The offensive comments were issued by William S. Becker, the head of the Climate Action Project, a well-funded environmental group.

In his piece in the Huffington Post praising the new Environmental Protection Agency regulations to stop climate change, he lamented that “there is nothing explicit in the [Obama] plan to mitigate or adapt to the economic disruption the clean energy transition will cause for coal and oil-country families.”

He said that the pain and suffering to the estimated 200,000 families put out of work is an “evolutionary step in technology and the economy” and a move toward “economic progress.”

Mr. Becker wants more government programs to help the “disrupted” families, as though yet another government job training program will solve the problem that these workers’ lives have been turned upside down. Perhaps this is what the left means by “environmental justice.”

The “let them eat cake” attitude may strike readers as unbelievably offensive and cavalier. Imagine the outcry if a Republican referred to middle class job losers as acceptable “collateral damage.” The story would be on the front page of every newspaper in the country and if Mr. Becker were the head of an industry group he would almost surely be facing intense pressure to resign.

But Mr. Becker is at least giving an honest assessment of the negative impact of the radical anti-carbon lobby’s crusade on middle class families.

The job losses in the coal mining, oil and drilling, construction and trucking industries are acceptable to the left climate change zealots, especially if it means the U.S. will take a mostly symbolic step to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

One study by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce finds that the new EPA regulations will destroy 200,000 mostly blue collar energy jobs, reduce the U.S. GDP by about $50 billion a year and cost families thousands of dollars over the next decade in higher energy costs.

The workers who will be harmed live in places like Wheeling, West Virginia and Bakersfield, California and hundreds of energy industry towns in between.

Will voters in these areas tolerate these disruptions to their lives? Will they accept that they are”colletaral damage” to the radical green movement? We will see.

[tbw2]

Bjorn Lomberg, a cofounder of Green Peace and author of the “Skeptical Environmentalist”, has an excellent TED talk from around 2006. He talks about the massive cost of “climate change” solutions at 150-200 billion dollars. For that much money, it is estimated that we could solve micro-nutrient deficits, de-worming, malaria and half a dozen other highly pressing problems - even bring clean water and sanitation to hundreds of millions.
He said that trying to mitigate climate change at that cost wasn’t worth it, by delaying the effects by six years. But solving all those problems would have a dramatic impact within a few years. And because micronutrient deficiencies and disease burdens drain the economies and potential of third world nations, their economies would grow much faster.
To quote him, a richer country could better adapt to climate change. But wasting money on solutions that hardly make a difference are no help at all.
And that’s why he’s reviled by environmentalists today.

Given $50 billion to spend, which would you solve first, AIDS or global warming? Danish political scientist Bjorn Lomborg comes up with surprising answers.
http://www.ted.com/talks/bjorn_lomborg_sets_global_priorities

[depressed in 06]

Bolshies consider anyone in the private sector with a job the enemy.

[miss marmelstein]

Very interesting! Do we have a fake “war hero” here? Fake Indians, Fake Dead Broke people...it never ends.