The Sierra Club published a 37-page report this week attacking presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump for his “regressive” views on global warming. The Daily Caller News Foundation decided to examine the five most regressive policies environmentalists have promoted.
Policies promoted by The Sierra Club and environmentalist organizations are often at odds with other traditionally progressive ideas and frequently end up doing the most harm to the poor since raising prices and environmental regulations impact low-income individuals far more than the wealthy.
Vehement Opposition To Immigration
Many green groups believe all environmental problems are directly caused by there being too many humans and many have long opposed immigration on environmental grounds.
“Population growth puts pressure on the environment, accelerates deforestation and increases our dependence on fossil fuels,” Progressive for Immigration Reform claimed in its 2014 Earth Day message. “Today, 80 percent of our population growth is spurred by immigration. While conservation is important, efforts to reduce our environmental impact must include stabilizing immigration.”
The Sierra Club previously had a similar message, and even claimed that “… all of our environmental successes may be short-lived if they do not include efforts to address population growth.” The environmental group’s official policy until 1996 was that both birth rates and immigration levels needed to sharply decline to stabilize the U.S. population.
The Sierra Club has splintered and lost members over immigration before finally announcing in 2013 that it supports a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens. Now, the organization’s only position on population reduction is its promotion of “voluntary family planning and reproductive health services.”
Population Control
Mainstream green groups have also claimed the freedom to have kids should be restricted to save the planet.
“Childbearing [should be] a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license … All potential parents [should be] required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing” David Brower, the first executive director of The Sierra Club, stated in an interview in 1990.
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, who advised both Pope Francis and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, claimed the Earth can support a maximum number of 1 billion people. As of 2016, there are more than 7.3 billion humans on Earth.
The dire predictions of greens have consistently failed to materialize. The number of people living in poverty has significantly declined and the amount of food per person has steadily increased, despite population growth. The quality of life of the average person has also immeasurably improved.
Raising The Price Of Everything To Devastate The Poor
A green solution to global warming is spending lots of money on wind and solar power while banning conventional energy sources that emit carbon dioxide (CO2). This could cause the price of electricity to spike, harming poor people.
The price of everything that uses electricity spikes when power costs increase. Poorer people tend to spend a higher proportion of their incomes on basic needs, like groceries, power bills, clothing, housing and gasoline than wealthier people. A 2009 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found green policies would make the tax burden of the poorest households three times greater than the richest households.
A slew of impending and costly global warming policies will ultimately harm the world’s poor, according to a growing number of academics.
Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assumes in its various scenarios that the people of 2100 will be between three and 20 times wealthier than people of today, despite assuming the worst possible impacts of global warming. Reducing emissions today for the benefit of people in 2100 is transferring money from the poor to the rich.
Extreme global warming of 2.5 degrees Celsius by 2100 is estimated by economists to reduce the average person’s buying power by a mere 1.3 percent. That’s less than the average annual rate of economic growth. This means that existing environmental regulations already do more damage to the average person’s buying power than the worst case global warming scenarios.
Anti-Global Warming Policies Are Devastating Minorities
Studies by academics and think tanks find environmentalist-inspired public policy likely increases unemployment, slows economic growth, and often leads to regulatory incentives that make the plight of minorities much worse.
Increases in the price of electricity harm black Americans and other ethnic minorities far more than they harm the average household, according to a study by the Pacific Research Institute(PRI).
President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan is estimated to raise the average annual electricity bill from 2.9 percent to 3.8 percent of average household income. Minorities tend to have lower than average household income and thus spend a far higher proportion of their money on electricity and energy. PRI found the average black household in America will see its annual spending on electricity rise from 4.5 percent to 5.8 percent of income thanks to the Clean Power Plan.
Lower-income black Americans will bear an even larger burden and could spend up to 26 percent of their household income on electricity.
Using Taxpayer Cash To Brainwash Kids About Global Warming
The best way to get adults to act like environmentalists is by brainwashing their children, according to research published in July by Oregon State University.
The study found that talking to kids about global warming encouraged parents to use less energy and act more like environmentalists. The research was conducted on 30 Girl Scout troops in northern California and had a “lasting impact on family energy consumption” for at least eight months after the program ended.
The study was financially supported by government grants from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency — Energy Program, the California Energy Commission, the Child Health Research Institute and the Precourt Energy Efficiency Center.
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