Welcome to the Green New Deal, California
9th September 2022
If California, our most populous state, were its own nation, it would rank as the world’s fifth largest economy and boast the highest average household income (outside a handful of “countries” like Monaco or Luxemburg).
And, yet, the governor is begging its citizens to stop using their appliances, turn off their lights and keep their thermostats at a stifling 78, lest they suffer more rolling blackouts, like some junior mandarin in a Third World country.
Of course, I kid when I say that California is already experiencing the effects of the Green New Deal. A state that still derives more than 66% of its energy from non-renewable sources, has tens of trillions of dollars to go before it meets President Joe Biden’s promise of a 65% reduction in emissions by 2030. The flooding of an already rickety grid with undependable renewables offers only a small taste of the “transition” to “clean energy.”
Because you can scaremonger about climate change all day long and ratchet it up to insane levels, but no one escapes the laws of physics or economics. California has been forced to extend the life of its last nuclear power plant at Diablo Canyon and gas-fired power plants to save the state from being plunged into darkness rather than the occasional blackout.
As it turns out, most people are only theoretically fans of deindustrialization.