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New York to Become Global Leader on Climate?

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With great fanfare, as verified by its ALL caps headline, the New York Times announced this week: “BIG CLIMATE PLAN SETS UP NEW YORK AS GLOBAL LEADER.”

Which begs the Manhattan Contrarian to ask, how exactly is New York going to get to 70% zero-emissions electricity by 2030 and 85% zero-emissions energy of all types by 2050?

As the Contrarian notes: there is no plan.

Instead, New York is going to create something called a “climate action council” to issue all orders on how to get there:

The nuts and bolts of how to implement the plan would be left to a 22-person “climate action council” comprising top state officials, covering an array of topics like health, economic development, energy, labor and the environment, and advised by smaller working groups with expertise in everything from land use to forestry.  The council would be required to issue recommendations for how to meet the goals in two years, after which the state’s regulatory agencies would issue rules to compel industries and residents to meet the standards outlined in the bill.

Now let’s look at some quotes from supporters of this scheme to understand how completely ridiculous it is.

Governor Cuomo’s counsel Alphonso David made the mistake of opening his mouth:

Alphonso David, the counsel to Mr. Cuomo, said that while the aggressive goals might lead to measures to curb gas-powered cars or inefficient furnaces, there was no knowing how exactly the state would get there.  “There’s new technology we are discovering every single day,” said Mr. David. “We may be talking about a very different world in terms of how we think about cars, how we think about airplanes and how we think about gasoline.”

So New York is going to be a climate “global leader.” And what exactly, asks the Contrarian, does that entail?

The [Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act] requires New York to get 70 percent of its electricity from renewable sources like wind, solar and hydropower by 2030 and shift entirely to carbon-free power a decade later.

[T]he . . . Act would require the state to slash its planet-warming pollution 85 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, and offset the remaining 15 percent, possibly through measures to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. If the state manages to hit those targets, it would effectively create a so-called net-zero economy, the ultimate goal of environmentalists and others seeking to slow the pace of global warming.

Focusing on the non-electricity part of energy usage – everything from cars, to airplanes, to home heating, to agriculture, to all of industry – the Contrarian clarifies, they don’t have any clue whatsoever.

Zero Emissions Flights into Kennedy?

Do you think that this “climate action council” is really going to issue an edict that all airlines using Kennedy airport must suddenly fly zero-emissions airplanes starting tomorrow?

Wind-Powered Airplanes?

Sorry, no more air travel to or from New York until somebody invents the wind-powered airplane. It’s completely delusional.

Equally delusional is that these guys would suddenly order massive swaths of agriculture and industry to shut down, along with all their jobs.

The only real question is how fast and how badly this is all going to fail. As readers here know, I am actually rooting for them to impose some of these edicts and their associated costs on the New York voting public. Only through that process will this nonsense finally be stopped.

For much more from Francis Menton – like China publicly talking up “renewable” energy like wind and solar to fool dopes like reporters from the New York Times, as it was flooding itself and the world with new coal plants – go here.

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Debbie Young

Debbie, editor-in-chief of Richardcyoung.com, has been associate editor of Dick Young’s investment strategy reports for over three decades. When not in Key West, Debbie spends her free time researching and writing in and about Paris and Burgundy, France, cooking on her AGA Cooker, driving her Porsche Boxter S through Vermont and Maine, and practicing yoga.