Biden to Americans: Kiss your gas goodbye!

By Paul Shepard June 12, 2022

I was surfing the internet last week and came across a targeted advertisement (as one does), excitedly promising that the city of Baltimore would reimburse me with a tax rebate if I should have solar panels installed on my roof. My parents put solar panels on their house a few years ago and have more recently added a “geothermal pump” to save on energy bills by sucking heat from the cold external air in the wintertime, as if by magic. In the summer, the same pump sucks cool air from the blazing heat outdoors and cools the house.

This is one way to do it: Make it less expensive for Americans to “go green.”

Stewardship over our planet’s fragile climate is the hallmark of a responsible civilization. If you don’t believe me, just ask the Martians.

HOWEVER: Kneejerk excitement about what leftist circles with their inside baseball might term “bourgeois environmentalism,” the kind of policy prescriptions espoused by Joe Biden and others of the “Blue Tribe” in our political system, is not going to rescue this planet.

Remembering the wind turbines that froze in Texas, resulting in more than 100 deaths and millions of dollars in damage – I am personally more inclined to blame the calculations of (in this case) murderous capital, rather than Father Frost.

Solar and wind power are intermittent and periods of high demand are not always matched by output, according to critics.

I recall one televised speech wherein former President Trump idiotically held forth on the relationship between sunshine and the efficacy of solar power. I’m no scientist, but neither is Trump.

Someone smarter than our former President once explained to me that solar and wind energy are stored in a grid, and that having sufficient energy in store, drawn by households on demand and at a just price, is possible.

Who’s Stallin’?

On June 6th, Biden declared an “energy emergency” which included a two-year exemption for tariffs on solar panels from four Southeast Asian countries. Three out of every four solar modules installed in the US are imported from Southeast Asia, he noted, before blaming the tariffs on “stalling” major energy projects.

I think this begs the question – a question that may someday be answered, if at all, by a true government of action that fights for working people.

An honest boss would say: “This project is delayed by some staffer, beholden to some lobbyist, who has for whatever reason, drafted legislation for some clueless apparatchik in Congress that impedes the importation of solar energy equipment. Sorry!” This is the best he can do under the present system.

Now that Biden has lifted said tariffs, we can expect “progressive” smiles in Washington.

Perhaps the Blue Tribe professional, gazing out from his Uber, will see people in hard hats building something and wonder if it has anything to do with his vote, before his eyes drift back to his phone.

I say we leave it to the limousine liberals and champagne socialists to fret about green energy projects “delayed” by tariffs.

The conscious American worker doesn’t owe the Capitol Hill wonk or green-energy lobbyist an ounce of gratitude.

In fact, it’s the parasites of the political and managerial class (Democrat and Republican alike) who owe an APOLOGY to working people and their suffering families.

I hope that American workers earn a fair wage for installing the panels, which we can expect (in the absence of tariffs) to come unhindered from across the wide Pacific, now that merchandise (such as this magical equipment) isn’t uselessly clogging the ports as in the era of COVID-19 and its supply-chain bottlenecks. I dare suspect that American workers might be better compensated than the toiling slaves of the sweatshops of China’s near abroad, had Americans been the ones to build the panels in the first place.

I will add that transporting the solar panels to America is ALSO expensive in terms of its carbon footprint. Furthermore, there is a tried-and-true argument against bottled waters, as the US would be far better served by palatable tap water than that which is transported from the Alps or wherever. The environmental impact of ordinary American families is nothing next to the impact of Blue Tribe liars jetting off to Climate Summits in Europe.

And so while I may well look into installing solar panels on the roof of my home, the granular concern for the carbon footprint of the individual, or the household, or the small business strikes me as a little bit pointless, compared to bottled water, “Climate Summits,” and imported solar panels.

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