Real versus fake environmentalism; In defense of billionaires
Last week, I wrote about the efforts by environmental groups like Riverkeeper to prevent the construction of a transmission line to bring hydroelectric power from Quebec to New York from being built. There is good news on that front. Yesterday, the public utility commission in New York voted to approve the transmission line. When it is completed in 2025, it, along with another transmission line being built to bring in wind power, will bring enough electricity to New York City to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels by half.
Unfortunately, reducing New York City’s reliance on fossil fuels by half, while very good, will mostly serve to get it back to where it was just last year. That is because the Indian Point Nuclear Plant was closed down last year and replaced by gas, as I wrote about last week. If Indian Point was still open, the city’s reliance on fossil fuels could have been reduced to an insignificant fraction and their goal of eliminating reliance on fossil fuels could well have been within reach soon. I have no idea if it is possible to start it up again, but if so it should be done ASAP. It would be nice for Biden and other national Democrats to push for it and to push against the closure of other nuclear plants.
I write about this episode because I think it illustrates almost perfectly the difference between talk and walk when it comes to climate change. There are environmental groups who live in the real world and favor realistic approaches to reducing carbon emissions. Those groups were supportive of building the transmission line and opposed to closing down Indian Point. Fortunately, they won out yesterday. There are also environmental groups, like Riverkeeper, who just want to keep things exactly as they are. Those groups pushed to close Indian Point and were opposed to the building of the hydroelectric transmission line. Groups like that see energy use and economic growth as bad and needing to be reduced, albeit not for them personally, just for everyone else.
In the case of New York City, what has happened is maddening because it is one of the most liberal places in the country. Virtually every elected official from there talks endlessly about how urgent climate change is. Some of the city’s pension funds have divested from companies involved in fossil fuel extraction. The city has also sued oil companies for supposedly misleading people about the dangers of climate change and has set a goal of 100% clean energy by 2040. If performative theater was a food, the people pulling those stunts would be sumo wrestlers.
City and other officials have talked a great game on clean energy. Despite that, New York City is heavily reliant on fossil fuels to generate electricity and that has only become more so because of the closing down of Indian Point. To be fair, fossil fuel infrastructure is very entrenched because it has been in use for decades. Moving away from it was never going to happen overnight or easily. Still, there is no excuse for why the city should be depending on fossil fuels for nearly as much electricity as it does today. For that, you can thank environmental groups like Riverkeeper.
Calling groups like Riverkeeper environmental groups is very misleading. Such groups are just menaces. They are Malthusian and misanthropic. Groups like Riverkeeper think people are diseases (not themselves, just everyone else) and the earth is a patient. Building more of anything is evil in their eyes because it only spreads the disease. They do not care about carbon emissions at all. They just want to leave everything as it is and to keep other people and things away from them. If that means fossil fuels dominate forever, they are perfectly fine with it.
I am scathing of such groups because they are harming what I think is a very important cause and that is reducing and eventually eliminating and making negative carbon emissions. They are every single awful stereotype one can think of about environmental groups: privileged, insulated, selfish, short-sighted, insincere about what they claim to care about and just plain cruel. I am very glad that cooler heads prevailed in the case of the hydroelectric transmission line. Unfortunately, cooler heads have not always prevailed. The nuclear power industry has been severely hampered by groups like Riverkeeper since the 1970s. Had it not been for efforts by such groups, nuclear power may well have been the dominant form of electricity in the US for some time now and we would have much lower carbon emissions along with better air quality.
It drives me off the wall that anyone listens to groups like Riverkeeper. They represent no significant voting constituency of any sort. The few people associated with them are very vocal, but speak for nobody beyond themselves. Every single fake environmental group is just like that. They are loud and overrepresented on social media, but in the real world they are nothing but paper tigers. Elected officials at all levels need to remember that. As far as I am concerned, any elected officials who take seriously the ”concerns” of groups like Riverkeeper have disqualified themselves from holding office.
Elon Musk and billionaires
Elon Musk is now Twitter’s biggest shareholder and has made an offer to buy the entire company and take it private. I really do not care about the whole episode in all honesty. My guess is he is just doing what he does best and that is get attention. It looks like Twitter is doing everything possible to prevent him from taking it over and I suspect he really does not intend to do it just like he never intended to take Tesla private.
If he actually did take it over, I have no idea what would come of it. He has complained about free speech issues on the platform although I have not followed what he has said close enough to really know what he thinks the problem is. Ideally, he would take it over and shut it down because Twitter is poison. For the Democratic Party and left-wing advocacy groups, shutting down Twitter would actually be a godsend because so many of their leaders and staffers are addicted to it and have forgotten that it is not remotely representative of most voters. But it is not going to be shut down so that is a moot point.
It has become very popular on the left as of late to hate on him. I do not care for many of his antics although I am used to it at this point and have just learned to always expect it. Despite his erratic behavior, I am very glad he exists. He has done more to fight climate change than any other private citizen has. Because of him, electric cars have gone from being a rich person’s hobby horse to soon becoming widely used. It is only a matter of time before most cars sold are electric. Eventually, the internal combustion engine will go the way of the horse and buggy and will only be seen in museums.
The move towards electric cars is unstoppable and will only accelerate going forward. Virtually every single car company has spent or will spend billions on producing electric cars. Some car companies have even pledged to go all electric within the next two decades. Electric cars may well be at a tipping point where enough people buy them, the cost goes down, more people buy them and the cycle keeps repeating. You can thank Elon Musk for starting that.
Tesla is the first major car company to sell exclusively electric cars. Its growing popularity has forced the other car companies to follow suit. Without Elon Musk, electric cars probably would have caught on, but it may not have happened for a much longer time. For those who care about climate change, time is of the essence. Electric cars by themselves will not solve the problem of carbon emissions, but they will be absolutely essential to it. Elon Musk has done for electric cars what Henry Ford did for cars.
As for his being the richest person in the world and having hundreds of billions, honestly, so what? Of all the things I can’t stand to hear from the left, the idea that billionaires should not exist is high on the list. Hearing candidates for president in 2020 and a few elected officials saying that almost made me want to read Ayn Rand. Last I checked, it is called the Democratic Party, not the Communist Party.
Snark aside, much of the left has a very unhealthy obsession with hating billionaires.* Yes, there are serious injustices in the tax code that they benefit from. That is why I favor eliminating the preferential tax treatment for capital gains and the stepped-up basis rule. I also favor heavy taxes on inheritance and making borrowing against stock a taxable event. It is also true that not all billionaires are created equal. Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos have undeniably created things of value. It is much harder to argue that hedge fund managers have done the same. I have some thoughts on how to deal with that but that is for another blog post.
The more important issue with the billionaire hatred from the left is that billionaires are not the cause of our major problems. The reason places like California and New York are unaffordable and losing people is because of zoning laws that make housing prohibitively expensive for almost everyone who is not already a homeowner. Those laws are supported by existing homeowners there, most of whom are liberals. It is homeowning liberals (often upper middle-class) who make California and New York unaffordable, not billionaires. Taxing Elon Musk at 100% will not make housing in California or New York one drop more affordable.
To correct injustices in the tax code, taxing billionaires at more than they are taxed now will help to solve it. Beyond that issue, taxing billionaires will not solve much of anything. It will not solve healthcare, immigration, climate change, criminal justice, infrastructure, education, child care, etc. The US is suffering right now from a lack of supply on a whole host of issues. Taxing billionaires does not address that in any way. If your goal is to entertain or rile people up or make a name for yourself on cable news or social media, then rail against billionaires to your heart’s content. If your goal is to actually accomplish anything of substance and improve people’s lives, then keep your eye on the ball.
As for whether it is morally right for someone to be worth hundreds of billions of dollars, I am neutral on it. I do not think someone should or should not be worth that much, but I do not favor setting a maximum net worth or maximum wage. Progressive taxation is good and all forms of income should be treated the same with the exception of inheritance, which should be taxed much more heavily. Beyond those things, I am neutral on most everything else. If someone has created something of value that has made society better off, the fact that they have billions is not problematic in my view. I do not want them to create dynasties with it, but if, for example, Elon Musk gets to live the high life because he made electric cars cool, more power to him.
*As much as I dislike the billionaire hating on the left, I absolutely, positively cannot stand listening to billionaires whine about how mean people are to them. Just as my sympathy for snowflakes on college campuses or in left-wing circles is zero, my sympathy for billionaire snowflakes is also zero. Congratulations to anyone with billions. You are doing great. Give yourself a big pat on the back. If the worst thing that ever happens to you is someone calls you a fat cat and says you’re greedy and should not exist, you are in great shape. This is a country with more than 330 million people. There will always be some idiot saying something awful or stupid. Get over it, grow up and move on with your life.