Jon Reisman

The climate alarmist caucus has been pushing the Biden administration to declare a climate emergency, thereby giving them sweeping powers to banish fossil fuels, save the planet, and control the lives of the unenlightened peasants who insist on having babies, growing and cooking food, heating their homes, and traveling many more miles than they should be allowed to. Think of it as COVID on steroids, only this time, the Chinese Communist Party did not release a genetically engineered bioweapon from a Wuhan lab after getting generous funding to do gain-of-function research from Anthony Fauci. This time, the collusion with China is based on China manufacturing solar panels, windmills, and rare earth battery materials (using Muslim slave labor when possible) while opening a new coal-fired electrical plant in China every week.

The Biden climate policy (also the Mills policy) is to force a transition from fossil fuels to solar and wind. That is why gas and electricity have gotten so expensive under Biden, and it will only get worse if the climate alarmists prevail. American reliance on expensive and intermittent solar and wind power will drive up electricity prices even further, as it has in Germany, Holland, and across the EU. Pursuing the “net zero” climate policy championed by Biden, Mills, and the left will give us unreliable $.40/kWh electricity and $5 a gallon gas and heating oil (or more). Even if they have to hold a fire sale on all those Electric Vehicles no one wants, keeping them charged will involve a huge amount of time, treasure, transmission lines, nuclear power, and general anxiety. Moreover, it will not save the planet because even the flawed models the alarmists rely on make it clear that the envisioned emission reductions will not avert any measurable global warming, even if the Chinese were not pumping more CO2 into the air with every coal plant. 

Even the “settled science” nonsense is getting another look for three reasons- the ice core and related evidence suggest that in the past temperature increases preceded increases in CO2 levels, not the causation/correlation linkage that Senator King and the alarmists have been touting. And, despite the political science PSYOP effort to link extreme weather to climate change, extreme weather events are not increasing but rather the opposite or not at all.  Finally, the so-called “settled science” has developed a number of climate models that have poor predictive validity, consistently overestimating actual increases in temperature and extreme weather. Rational actors should not base policy on deeply flawed models. Biden, the Democrats, and the alarmists may still declare a climate emergency in an effort to shove their agenda down the peasant’s throats (while falsely and/or delusionally claiming it is necessary to save the planet). 

It is time for climate realists to declare a climate policy emergency before even more damage is done to our economy and our freedoms. Gov. Mills is requesting almost half a billion dollars from Biden to sacrifice Sears Island and much of Maines’ fishing industry to the offshore wind gods. Moreover, despite their fetish with extreme weather, the climate alarmists seem fine with whatever damage regular run-of-the-mill marine wind, waves, tides, and salt will do to offshore wind infrastructure. To mix metaphors a bit, offshore wind is a money and dreams sinkhole and a maintenance and security nightmare.

Onshore wind is not any better, and GOP 2nd CD hopeful Austin Theriault needs to explain why he sold out rural Maine for wind power transmission lines from Aroostook to Kennebec Counties. 

Finally, here in Washington County, the Sunrise County Economic Council, ostensibly a non-profit charity focused on economic development and job creation, has gone full climate alarmist, bringing in grant money to hire climate alarmists to study how they can better control and bamboozle Downeasters and not get blamed for higher energy costs, economic stagnation, and climate policy fascism.  I am sure they will do a great job.

Jon Reisman is an economist and policy analyst who retired from the University of Maine at Machias after 38 years. He resides on Cathance Lake in Cooper, where he is a Selectman and a Statler and Waldorf intern. Mr. Reisman’s views are his own, and he welcomes comments as letters to the editor here or to him directly via email at [email protected].