Issues & Insights is fast becoming one of my favorite daily reads. Here’s a bit that illustrates why, ‘You Will Own Nothing, And Like It’ — The Real ‘Clean Energy’ Future, from their actual by-gosh editorial board. Excerpt:
“We’re going to build a different future with one — one with clean energy, good-paying jobs.”
That was President Joe Biden talking about the climate “crisis” and how it “is literally an existential threat to our nation and to the world.”
Right about the time Biden was giving this speech, the World Economic Forum painted a picture of what Biden’s future would look like.
Suffice it to say, if you like socialism, you’ll love it. Because it involves a radical transformation of our economy that brings the end of private ownership of things like cars, phones, laptops, and other electronic devices.
The WEF article begins by admitting something that the left usually refuses to acknowledge: There aren’t enough metals around to power everything with “clean energy.”
“This transition from fossil fuels to renewables will need large supplies of critical metals such as cobalt, lithium, nickel, to name a few. Shortages of these critical minerals could raise the costs of clean energy technologies,” writes Winnie Yeh, the World Economic Forum’s head of responsible sourcing.
Let me just go on record here by saying, “Fuck the World Economic Forum, and the horse they rode in on.” But wait! There’s more!
Just how large a supply is she talking about? Even assuming that all the metals in use today are recycled, the World Bank estimates that the production of these minerals would have to increase roughly 500% by 2050 to meet the demand for “clean energy” technologies.
That means massively mining the stuff, which as we’ve pointed out repeatedly in this space, is hugely damaging to the environment — and far, far more damaging than drilling for oil.
“Mining has been called the ‘blind spot’ of the green energy transition,” Yeh writes. “On land, it has been associated with biodiversity loss, overuse of water resources, tailings waste, labor, and geopolitical issues.”
The stuff also can be mined from the ocean, but more than 100 environmental groups are opposed to deep-sea mining and more than 653 marine science and policy experts from over 44 countries have called for a moratorium on it because of the harm it would cause.
So, if raping the earth and ravaging the seas to get the minerals needed for “clean energy” are off the table, what’s left?
Well, I’m guessing, since you’re here reading these virtual pages, you’ll have a pretty good idea what’s left – your standard of living, and my standard of living, and everyone else’s standards of living. Here’s the onion:
Just get everyone to give up ownership of their cars, cell phones, and other stuff that needs power to operate. If we all shared the stuff, we’d need less of it.
“More sharing can reduce ownership of idle equipment and thus material usage,” Yeh says.
Other leftists have been singing the same song. Late last year, a transport minister in the United Kingdom declared that we had to move away from “20th-century thinking centered around private vehicle ownership and towards greater flexibility, with personal choice and low carbon shared transport.”
Of course, getting people to give up their cars for the “good of the planet” won’t be easy.
OK, I’m just going to speak for myself and Mrs. Animal here, but were we posed with this question by this Winnie Yeh asshole, my reply would be this: “We live in rural Alaska. How the hell are we supposed to ‘share’ our vehicles? How about our ATV? Boat? Should I ‘share’ my tractor, that I use to mow, move stuff around, till the garden plot and clear snow in winter? Should I ‘share’ all my equipment? With whom?”
I suspect that answer should be that I should give up my rural lifestyle and move into some rabbit warren of a city. Well, if they want to drag Mrs. Animal and me out of our home back in the woods and into some city – even Anchorage – they are going to have to come a-shootin’, because we aren’t leaving.
