Controversy over climate change has gone from hopelessly polarized to altogether weird.
Introduction of the Green New Deal in February seems to have loosened the stopper in bottled-up nuttiness.
The GND, of course, is the vague proposal by US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) to address climate change by creating a welfare economy based on all-renewable energy.
It’s physically unfeasible, economically loony, and politically hopeless. Yet it receives solemn support from several Democrats seeking their party’s presidential nomination.
Not to be outdone—and said to harbor presidential aspirations of his own—New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Apr. 22 took aim at modern buildings.
“We are going to introduce legislation to ban the glass and steel skyscrapers that have contributed so much to global warming,” he said. “They have no place in our city or on our Earth anymore.”
In Queens, he actually said that.
De Blasio’s crusade nicely complements Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign against fossil energy. A city to which no one could fly, after she closed air travel, probably wouldn’t need new buildings.
Only adults unable to see lunacy in these proposals can welcome scoldings about climate policy from teenagers. Apparently, they are numerous.
A 16-year-old Swedish activist has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize and invited to address assemblies no less venerable than the United Nations and British Parliament for fomenting panic about global warming.
At Westminster, pig-tailed Greta Thunberg received standing applause for berating her elders’ support for hydraulic fracturing, North Sea oil and gas development, and airport expansion.
“This ongoing irresponsible behavior will no doubt be remembered in history as one of the greatest failures of humankind,” she said.
The youngster became a celebrity by inspiring other students to skip classes in environmental protest. She’s articulate, determined, and certain that climate change represents “an existential crisis.”
But—come on—she’s a kid, with a kid’s simplistic views.
Oh, well. Treating a kid as the embodiment of climatological wisdom is no nuttier than banning buildings and nationalizing energy.
(From the subscription area of www.ogj.com, posted Apr. 26, 2019. To comment, join the Commentary channel at www.ogj.com/oilandgascommunity.)
Bob Tippee | Editor
Bob Tippee has been chief editor of Oil & Gas Journal since January 1999 and a member of the Journal staff since October 1977. Before joining the magazine, he worked as a reporter at the Tulsa World and served for four years as an officer in the US Air Force. A native of St. Louis, he holds a degree in journalism from the University of Tulsa.
