Al Gore’s has “made a living peddling lies” about global warming that is hurting poor African-American households, according to black conservative activists.
“Isn’t it cute when someone who has made a living peddling lies about the weather lectures Americans about how they should live?” Stacy Washington, Project 21 Co-Chairman, said in a Thursday statement. “Actually, it isn’t. It’s not cute, it doesn’t make sense and it’s downright insulting.”
The National Leadership Network of Black Conservatives Project 21 claims that Gore is behaving hypocritically by attempting to restrict access to cheap energy with an environmental justification. Gore’s net worth has swelled to $200 million off of profits he has earned from global warming rhetoric, and he has used that wealth to consume far more electricity than the average American.
The group took offense to Gore’s repeated comparisons of the civil rights movement to modern environmentalism.
“Americans have every right to use all the energy they can afford — just like Al Gore does in a mansion you might be able to see from space at night because of its size and energy use,” Washington said. “Gore simply doesn’t practice what he preaches. His electricity use rivals over 21 American households combined. We should ignore his climate decrees until he starts walking the walk.”
Rich white people are naturally better able to afford expensive energy sources like solar panels or wind turbines as they have more disposable income. Yet the subsidies that end up paying for solar and wind are a cost on all sections of society and raise the price of power for everyone.
“Al Gore’s comments and actions hammer home the fact that climate change alarmists aren’t taking into account how much their pet project hurts African-Americans, other minorities and low-income families,” Derrick Hollie, a member of Project 21 and the president of the Reaching America policy organization.
“Energy is the lifeblood of our society,” Hollie said. “Any increase in its cost disproportionately affects lower income groups. Green activists tend to ignore how their agenda affects energy poverty, which keeps disadvantaged populations poor through high energy prices and decreased economic opportunities.”
These subsidies also hurt the poor most because they tend to spend a higher proportion of their incomes on basic needs like energy. As essential goods like electricity become more expensive, the cost of producing goods and services that use electricity increases, effectively raising the price of almost everything. Green subsides hurt the disproportionately African-American poor 1.4 to four times more than the rich, according to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
For example, the Gore-endorsed Clean Power Plan (CPP) was estimated to raise the average annual electricity bill from 2.9 percent to 3.8 percent of average household income. However, since African-Americans tend to have lower than average household income, a study 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 CPP. Lower-income black Americans will bear an even larger burden and could spend up to 26 percent of their household income on electricity.
A slew of impending and costly global warming policies will ultimately harm the world’s poor, according to a growing number of academics.
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