Distinguishing Respect From Patronizing Condescension In Matters Of Race

  • In our current national moment, distinguishing respectful conduct or language toward others from patronizing condescension in matters of race is of great importance. You might think that making this distinction would be easy, but I suggest that in many circumstances it is not easy at all.

  • Recently, many things that have become the latest fashion in what practitioners think is heightened respect appear to me to be exactly the opposite — condescension. That can be the case even where the respect-that-is-really-condescension is demanded by the recipient. And I am not the only one noticing this phenomenon.

  • Let’s consider a few examples.

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Swiss "Climate" Referendum: More Intrusion Of Reality Into The Climate Debate

  • To my list of examples of reality intruding into the utopian dreams of climate cultists, add the results of yesterday’s referendum in Switzerland. The headline at Reuters is “Swiss reject law to help country meet Paris carbon emissions goal.”

  • It seems that the Swiss parliament, after multiple years of considering and debating various proposals, had finally passed a package of measures intended to “save the planet,” or at least to push the Swiss people into achieving a Paris agreement goal of 50% emissions reduction (from 1990 levels) by 2030.

  • As usual with these things, the entire strategy consisted of forcing the Swiss people to atone for their sins of prosperity by becoming poorer, in the form of higher prices for fossil fuels and airline tickets and forced restrictions on building heat and automobiles.

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The IRS Is A Criminal Enterprise In Service Of The Progressive Cause

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The Future Of Energy: One Of These Things Is Not Real

  • As we all know, making predictions can be difficult, especially about the future. On the other hand, sometimes it’s just a question of distinguishing reality on the ground from pure self-delusion.

  • At the moment, we have two visions competing to be the reigning official prediction of the future of energy. One of those visions, foreseeing the rapid demise of fossil fuels, is on full display even as we speak in a virtual summit put on by the American Clean Power Association.

  • The summit began today and is running for four days, through Thursday June 10. The speakers are a who’s who of “clean energy” glitterati, starting with essentially all the leading U.S. Democratic pols. OK, President Biden is not speaking; but then, he doesn’t get out much these days in his dotage. But the speaker list includes both Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, as well as all the leading Biden admin “climate” officials (Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Climate Envoy John Kerry, White House Climate Czar Gina McCarthy} and plenty of representatives of “woke” corporate America (e.g., Andrew Steer of the Bezos Earth Fund, Anne Finucane of Bank of America). And on and on.

  • You get the idea. These people are our betters, and to the extent they are not actually the “experts” themselves, we can be sure that they are tightly tied in to the true experts by direct brain connections.

  • The other vision of the future of energy can be called the “reality on the ground.”

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Don't Get Discouraged About The Preposterous Plans To Eliminate Fossil Fuels

Don't Get Discouraged About The Preposterous Plans To Eliminate Fossil Fuels
  • It’s easy to get discouraged about the “climate” scare, otherwise known as the socialist takeover of everything under the cover story of a faux moral crusade to “save the planet.” Sometimes it seems that all you can hear are preening politicians and academics and journalists and “scientists” shouting about the immediate “existential crisis” that requires the prompt end of fossil fuels and that your energy use (but not theirs) must be severely restricted.

  • Just today, UN Secretary-General António Guterres issued a statement warning that the next ten years are our “final chance” to avert a “climate catastrophe”:

  • We are rapidly reaching the point of no return for the planet. We face a triple environmental emergency — biodiversity loss, climate disruption and escalating pollution. . . . Science tells us these next 10 years are our final chance to avert a climate catastrophe. . . .

  • The few people pushing back get shouted down and drowned out. How could this possibly end well?

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California May Be Crazy In Its "Climate" Initiatives, But New York Wants To Be Even Crazier

California May Be Crazy In Its "Climate" Initiatives, But New York Wants To Be Even Crazier
  • In the competition among the states to establish progressive and “woke” bona fides, California and New York run neck and neck for the lead positions. In no field is this more true than in the area of “climate change,” which as progressive public policy turns into a program to drive up the cost of energy, suppress fossil fuels and anything else that works (nuclear), and demand creation of a new fantasy energy system based on the wind and the sun.

  • In recent years, California has seemed to pull well ahead of New York in the accumulation of climate virtue. California has been aggressively building wind and solar generation facilities ever since 2002. In 2018, thinking that the way to achieving lower carbon emissions is to cover the countryside with wind turbines and solar panels, California upped its game with a bill known as SB 100, having the official title “The 100 Percent Clean Energy Act of 2018.”

  • Among other things, SB 100 called for a 100% carbon-emissions-free electricity sector by 2045. Meanwhile, the California Energy Commission reports that in 2020 California achieved a level of 36% of its electricity generation from renewables.

  • So are we here in New York just going to stand around and let our butts get kicked by these upstarts? No!

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