If progressives are to be believed, the world is facing a “climate emergency” that requires the rapid elimination of fossil fuels and massive, never-ending taxpayer subsidies for wind, solar, and related infrastructure. But despite being ceaselessly propagandized by alarmist climate change messaging, a majority of Americans do not believe that global warming will pose serious threats in their own lifetimes, by a ratio of 54-to-45.

If progressive energy policies remain so unpopular with most voters, why do Democrats persist in promoting them? The answer is that they provide material benefits for both Democratic donors and progressive nonprofits. It’s an alliance of green and greed.

None of the analysis that follows is grounded in what is often attacked as “climate change denial.” Let it be stipulated that greenhouse gas emissions by modern industrial civilization are indeed causing the atmosphere to grow warmer, with some regions suffering and others benefiting as a result. Let it be stipulated that reducing the effects of those changes as quickly as possible should be a priority of U.S. energy policy. A rational case can therefore be made for a combination of mitigation—reducing greenhouse gas emissions—and adaptation—taking measures to deal with the consequences, including hotter average temperatures and slightly higher sea levels caused by melting ice.

A rational strategy to mitigate global warming (the honest term, not “climate change”) would be something like the energy expert Robert Bryce’s N2N strategy (natural gas to nuclear). In the long run, there would be a global build-out of zero-carbon nuclear power plants, with government subsidies provided as necessary. In the short run, high-emission coal in electricity generation would be phased out worldwide in favor of natural gas, which emits less carbon dioxide.

It is true that methane can be a potent greenhouse gas if it leaks into the atmosphere. But according to Tim Gould and Christophe McGlade, chief energy economist and head of the energy supply unit of the International Energy Agency (IEA), respectively, writing in “The environmental case for natural gas,” even when adverse effects of methane are taken into account the case for replacing coal with natural gas remains clear: “Despite these issues, taking into account our estimates of methane emissions from both gas and coal, on average, gas generates far fewer greenhouse-gas emissions than coal when generating heat or electricity, regardless of the timeframe considered.”

READ MORE