Climate Change, Banning Tractors, and Boosting our Economy

If we wanted to boost our economy, we would ban the tractor.  Consider all of the new jobs we would create in the agricultural industry, if we only banned the tractor, and made farming a purely manual practice again.  We could also ban all forms of automation in manufacturing, and go back to screwing in bolts by hand.  With all the jobs we would create, our economy would be on fire.

Somehow, I’m pretty sure most of the people reading this think I’m insane for suggesting such a thing.  Yes – banning the tractor would lead to an explosion of jobs in agriculture, as we would quite literally undo the Industrial Revolution, but it would also make food prohibitively expensive, and destroy the lives of countless people.  Billions of people in third world countries would starve.  That sounds a lot less pleasant than does focusing solely on the jobs created.

But then read this article:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-cohen/green-jobs-will-help-us-b_b_164774.html

Isn’t that article using the same logic?  The article says that the economy of the future will be one of green energy, in which it will take many more people to deliver the energy we need to live our lives, and that we will all be much better off because of all the people who will be employed creating energy that we now get without all that manual labor.  In other words, they are going to make our economy grow by making energy prohibitively expensive.  How is that not the same logic as is banning the tractor?

Making food less expensive did not destroy our economy.  It helped it.  Making cars less expensive did not destroy our economy.  It helped it.  Making steel less expensive did not destroy our economy.  It helped it.  Making computers less expensive did not destroy our economy.  It helped it.

Has making healthcare more expensive helped our economy?  Has making college more expensive helped our economy?  The government has gotten intricately involved in both healthcare and education, and the results are in – they have done great damage to our economy, to the tune of a college education costing more, in some cases, than a house – which also means that a college graduate may need to pay off what amounts to a mortgage, in the form of student loans, before they can afford a mortgage to buy a house.  How does that help our economy?  Healthcare spending, as a percent of GDP, has grown four times since the government got involved in healthcare.  Does spending 20% of your income on healthcare, rather than 5%, help you?

Please tell me how spending radically more on energy is going to help you.  I’m all ears if you can show me how spending more for less helps anyone.

Our economy grows through three things: population growth, invention, and productivity growth.  To the degree that productivity growth is created by invention, you can even argue that those are the same thing, leaving but two things that grow the economy.  Moreover, population growth does not grow the economy on a per capita (aka per person) basis, leaving invention / productivity growth as the only engine toward better lives.  Making electricity cost more is the opposite of that, and it cannot possibly drive the economy forward.  It can only drive the economy back.

Those who tell you that green energy will boost our economy are arguing for us to ban the tractor.

But then the smart people on the left know all of this, which is why they tell us that green energy will ‘build a sustainable economy,’ rather than saying that it will ‘grow the economy’.  What, pray tell, is a ‘sustainable economy’?  I’m going to let you in on a little secret: A ‘sustainable economy’ is one that does not grow.

The left is not promising to make your life better.  They are promising to make you worse off, in the hope that if you are worse off, someone else will be better off.  The left is promising to make our economy a zero-sum game.

Don’t believe me?  Here is a video of a woman asking Justin Trudeau to fix the Canadian system, which currently makes energy cost so much that many Canadians can’t afford to both heat their homes, and to feed their families.  Listen to that video, and don’t just listen to the question Justin Trudeau is asked.  Listen also to Justin Trudeau’s answer.  She tells him that her family is in dire straits, having to choose every day between starving and freezing, and his answer is to tell her that this is the new normal.  He tells her that her carbon tax is making the world a better place, and that she just has to get used to it.  You’re going to starve?  That’s OK – it’s the new normal!

Justin Trudeau also tells her that we are solving climate change, which makes starving worthwhile.  If you want the truth on climate change, and Canada, read our article on Canadian Climate Tyranny. That article provides some very inconvenient truths, and exposes the climate scare as a lie.

The quest for ‘green energy’ instead of cheap energy is a lie.  It is akin to banning the tractor.  Don’t fall for it.

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