Guest contribution by Larry Hamlin
The Orange County Register published a great article by columnist Susan Shelley, addressing ironic comments from former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who drafted the state’s AB 32 Global Warming Solution Act, which stated that people had “hidden” the climate activism movement because they are “stuck in despair and confusion.”
Her column explores the politics of climate alarmism that has conquered and flooded the public air, and press articles that parrot endless doom and gloom and fuel the global climate alarmist campaign.
She points out the following key programs by climate activists:
“The wild exaggerations of the doomed climbers were highlighted by longtime environmental activist Michael Shellenberger in a 2020 book entitled” Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All “. In the introduction he describes himself as “fed up with the exaggeration, alarmism and extremism that are the enemy of positive, humanistic and rational environmental protection”.
“Let’s just say there is a lot of money to be made raising grassroots funds for purposes that align with the business interests of various actors in the energy sector of the economy. On all sides.”
“Who gets the money and what is it spent on? These are questions that are seldom asked and even more rarely answered. Climate alarmism is making it easier to move billions of dollars from one pocket to another, and there is nowhere evidence that these wealth-transfer policies do anything to affect the climate. “
Your article then exposes the utter futility of these plans to actually do anything that affects climate change:
“Yet anything is sold to the public as“ doing something ”to stop climate change.
In 2006, then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger AB 32 signed the Global Warming Solutions Act, which obliged the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The law put the California Air Resources Board in charge of figuring out how to do this, and CARB has developed a cap-and-trade program that essentially requires utilities, refiners, and manufacturers to pay an additional fee to operate . The cap and trade program works like a tax. It increases the cost of gasoline, diesel fuel, electricity, and heat, and it increases the price of anything made or moved in California, where the high cost of living has contributed to the country’s highest poverty rate, according to the Census Bureau.
What has it done for the climate?
Nothing.
Meanwhile, California’s mandate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has influenced decision-making in everything from road repairs to residential construction. Driving is seen as an “impact” that increases greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, your gas taxes will be used to build bike lanes, and building new homes in remote areas where housing would be more affordable is practically prohibited. Therefore state legislators are trying to force high-density apartments into existing single-family neighborhoods; The old pattern of expanding the suburbs into new areas where young families can happily buy houses is considered bad for the climate. So young people are told that the world is going to end and then they cannot afford to live anyway. “
She then questions the legitimacy of the climate alarmism campaign, pointing out that Arnold Schwarzenegger is right to put an end to the endless and useless message of desperation spread by alarmists.
“With his signature on AB 32 and his advocacy of a useless climate policy, Arnold Schwarzenegger has done more than anyone to cause California’s housing crisis, high energy costs and high poverty rate.
Now he says it is time to stop depressing the public.
Perhaps it is time to stop manipulating public opinion and open a new debate about the costs, effectiveness and unintended consequences of the policies he is promoting. “
The GWPF has also chosen to treat Ms. Shelley’s article as indicated below.
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