By Andy Caldwell
The war on fossil fuels is now fully engaged, and casualties are abounding.
The first casualty is the affordability of fuel. Gas prices will soon be double what they were when Joe Biden became president, because he has done more than any other president in history to eliminate production, including shutting down the Keystone pipeline and drilling on federal lands.
Biden has shot America in the back by triggering the law of supply and demand: decreasing supplies while accomplishing nothing to abate demand.
Casualty Count Rising
Unfortunately, the reality is, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
The price of absolutely everything in America is about to skyrocket because of the rise in gas and diesel prices, on top of the inflation arising from trillions of dollars per year in government spending. Case in point: our farmers and truckers use fuel to bring food to your table, and virtually all consumer goods are trucked to markets.
The more ominous truth about the war on fossil fuels is that nearly half of every barrel of oil is used to make something other than fuel. For instance, food prices could very well quadruple, because fertilizers are made from fossil fuels. You can’t make fertilizer from electricity. Nor can you make plastic, asphalt, polyester, or the 6,000 other petroleum-based products from windmills and solar panels.
California Fuel Folly
Did you know that while California pretended to be going green, we were importing some 42,000 barrels of oil from Russia every day, and even more from the Middle East?
California imports 70 percent of the fuel the state uses, most of it from halfway around the world.
Why are we cutting off our domestic supplies only to import the same product? Now Joe Biden is looking to Iran and Venezuela for oil because we ceased to be energy-independent by his own fiat. Buying oil and gas from the despots in Russia, Iran, and Venezuela demonstrates a complete void of consciousness on the part of this administration.
“Letting no crisis go to waste,” the Biden administration would like to use this manmade disaster to force us to purchase expensive and unneeded electric vehicles, solar panels, and the like.
The phrase “let them eat cake” comes to mind. Most folks in America are one paycheck away from abject poverty. They can’t afford a new electric vehicle and a charging station, just like they can’t afford $6.00 to $7.00 per gallon gas. They can’t afford to see their food bill go up exponentially, either.
How many Americans are soon going to experience Third World living conditions because of these stark raving mad ideologues?
Other Countries Engaged, Winning
It is no secret we don’t have enough electricity generation or infrastructure to convert our entire economy to electricity in the next few decades.
Most electricity in the United States is still generated from fossil fuels, meaning nothing would be gained through such a transition anyway.
Moreover, the most-populous nations—such as China, India, and Pakistan—refuse to abandon reliance on fossil fuels, which expresses the futility of going alone to an economic grave.
Meanwhile, the United States has become completely dependent upon China for the raw materials for the batteries used in modern electronics and electric vehicles and in the production of solar panels.
This means we went from energy independence to dependence on China, setting us up for geopolitical blackmail and numerous other security risks.
The greening of America only works well for Red China.
Politically Inflicted Wounds
In my home state of California, County Supervisors Joan Hartmann, Das Williams, and Greg Hart denied a trucking permit for ExxonMobil to transport oil there temporarily, perfectly exemplifying the tone-deaf ideologues of this movement.
They seem to have determined that oil from Russia, Iran, and Venezuela beats California production, despite all the negative consequences to the environment, the economy, and world peace.
May our pain at the pump and the grocery store become their pain at the ballot box.
Andy Caldwell (andy@colabsbc.org) is executive director of The Coalition of Labor, Agriculture, and Business, a nonprofit organization that serves the families, heritage, and economy of California’s Central Coast region. Article originally published by the California Globe. Republished with permission.
And the larger point that those on the right always fail to make is that this war on fossil fuels is being fought over the mistaken belief that CO2 from fossil fuels drives our climate. It does not!! Solar cycles and the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere primarily drive global temperatures!
I’m a rusted on right winger, but think this climate change hysteria will destroy our economies and lifestyle. It’s a real disgrace.