THE GREEN NEW DEAL:
Economics and Policy Analytics
by Benjamin Zycher
April 2019
American Enterprise Institute
The American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501(c)(3)
educational organization and does not
take institutional positions on any issues.
The views expressed here
are those of the author(s).
The full report,
117-page pdf,
is here:
My Carefully
Selected Quotes
are below:
From the
Executive
Summary:
"The Green New Deal (GND)
is a set of policy proposals,
some more concrete than others,
with the central advertised goal
of ameliorating a purported
climate crisis by implementing
policies that would reduce
US greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions to zero,
or to “net zero,” by 2050
in some formulations. "
"In addition, the GND incorporates
other important social-policy goals
as a means of forging a majority
political coalition in support."
"Under an assumption consistent
with the findings reported in the
recent peer-reviewed literature,
the (global average temperature)
effect would be 0.083°C by 2100,
a policy impact not measurable
against normal variation
in temperatures."
(Important Note:
The +0.083 C. assumes
a future global warming rate
that is double the actual global
warming rate from 1940 through 2018)
"This conclusion
(on temperature change)
is not controversial
and suggests strongly
that the GND’s
real goal is
wealth redistribution
to favored political interests
under the GND
social-policy agenda
and a dramatic increase in
government control
of resource allocation
more generally."
"The GND electricity mandate
would create significant
environmental damage
—there is nothing clean
about “clean” electricity
— and require massive land use
of over 115 million acres
(about 180,000 square miles),
about 15 percent larger
than the land area of California".
"Without fossil-fired backup generation,
the national and regional electricity
systems would be characterized by
a significant decline in service reliability
—that is, a large increase in the
frequency and duration of blackouts."
"The claim from some GND supporters,
based on a set of arguments subsumed
under the heading Modern Monetary Theory,
that it can be financed with money creation
is deeply dubious."
"Modern Monetary Theory is little more
than the latest example of the old argument
that there is available a free lunch ... "
"The current body of evidence
on climate phenomena supports
the hypothesis that some part of
ongoing temperature trends
and climate phenomena
are anthropogenic
are anthropogenic
(man made)
in origin, but it does not support
the argument that a climate crisis
is present or looming."
"Given the tragic and predictable
record of central planning outcomes
worldwide over the past century,
the GND should be rejected."
Other Quotes:
"This question of the
(global) climate impacts
of the GND, ostensibly
its main policy goal,
is so obviously central to GND
policy proposals that the failure
of its proponents even to
discuss it is revealing ..."
"That the GND proponents
advocate strong “climate”
policies even given the trivial
climate effects of the attendant
policy prescriptions suggests
strongly that environmental (“climate”)
benefits are not the central goal
of the proponents and indeed
are irrelevant. Instead, the actual goals
are more likely political and ideological."
"The proponents of the GND
assert that this destruction
of the economic value of
(fossil fuel) resources and capital
would increase national wealth
and employment, improve
environmental quality,
and enhance distributional equity
—a deeply dubious proposition."
"If conventional energy
is a social “bad” as assumed
by GND proponents, ...
(then) increasing GDP and rising
employment are inconsistent
with a reduction in the consumption
of conventional energy and thus with
the policy goals of the GND. At a
household (or individual) level,
rising incomes have the effect
of increasing energy consumption ... "
"The GND at a fundamental level
is antihuman in that its goals
are diametrically opposed
to the (economic growth)
aspirations
of nearly all
of nearly all
individuals."
" ... increasing
energy consumption
is correlated
with reductions
in the poverty rate,
and the data
on annual differences
in energy consumption
and the poverty rate
provide powerful evidence
that this correlation
is not spurious:
An artificial reduction
in energy consumption
would tend to increase
the poverty rate."
" ... several serious
adverse impacts
not acknowledged by
GND supporters
are of interest.
In summary:
There is the
heavy-metal pollution
created by
the production process
for wind turbines.
There are the noise
and flicker effects
of wind turbines.
There are the
large problems
of solar panel waste
and toxic metals.
There is the
wildlife destruction
caused by the production
of renewable power.
There also is the problem
of massive land use ... "
"Electric generation
capacity fueled by
renewable energy sources
is not “dispatchable”;
that is,
it is not available on demand
because wind and sunlight
are intermittent. "
It requires (fossil fuel)
backup generation
capacity to preserve
system reliability."