Unleash Prosperity Hotline – Weekend Edition Issue #805
06/30/2023, 07/01/2023, 07/02/2023
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1) Price Tag So Far for Climate Change Programs $2+ Trillion – Trillions More Needed by 2030
It’s now official: Climate Change is the greatest global money swindle in history – even outpacing COVID.
A new report from the International Energy Administration finds that since 2020 governments around the world have spent $1.34 trillion for clean energy investment.
This spending on the "Climate Change Industrial Complex" has made many people very, very rich. (That’s the real “green” component of this movement.) The impact on the environment has been zero. In 2022 global CO2 emissions hit their highest levels ever. This year, given the Canadian forest fires burning millions of acres of wood, carbon emissions are likely to be greater still – knocking out almost any progress from the wind and solar industry.
One effect of these anti-fossil fuel policies has been to raise the prices of energy, so governments have spent another $900 billion providing support to consumers.
The tidal wave of climate spending has just begun. The IEA reports that an equitable energy transition, and investments in clean energy in emerging and developing economies must reach between $2.2 trillion/yr and $2.8 trillion/yr by the early 2030s to meet rising energy needs and Paris Agreement targets. PER YEAR!!!
This is sheer madness. With these trillions of dollars, nearly every family in the world could be lifted out of poverty. We could end World hunger. We could cure cancer. Remember this the next time you hear the left pontificating about “Climate Justice.”
You would never know it from the lunatic reaction from Democratic politicians and pundits to yesterday's Supreme Court decision, but here is a fresh poll from just last month:
We’ve been saying for years that the economic and industrial center of gravity in America has shifted to the South, and now we have the concrete evidence:
Per Bloomberg:
The numbers tell the story. For the first time, six fast-growing states in the South — Florida, Texas, Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee — are contributing more to the national GDP than the Northeast, with its Washington-New York-Boston corridor, in government figures going back to the 1990s. The switch happened during the pandemic and shows no signs of reverting.
A flood of transplants helped steer about $100 billion in new income to the Southeast in 2020 and 2021 alone, while the Northeast bled out about $60 billion, based on an analysis of recently published Internal Revenue Service data.
The Southeast accounted for more than two-thirds of all job growth across the US since early 2020, almost doubling its pre-pandemic share. And it was home to 10 of the 15 fastest-growing American large cities.
4) Fourth of July Fireworks Are Being Outlawed in L.A.
Yet another iconic American tradition is under fire from radical environmentalists. Six annual Fourth of July fireworks displays are closing down in Los Angeles due to new rules designed to clean up ocean pollution.
Los Angeles now prohibits any floating plastic trash after a show and recommends the use of only biodegradable fireworks.
Pyro Spectacular, the company responsible for Redondo Beach’s fireworks, said “We cannot and will not risk the safety of our staff and the public to comply with the restrictive regulations," Chief Executive Jim Souza said.
Los Angeles is only just coming out of the nightmare of COVID lockdowns, which saw absurd bans on the use of outdoor dining and even children’s playgrounds. Now L.A. killjoys are going after fireworks displays.
Remember, this is a city that can’t clean the omnipresent trash despoiling the city, but they can ban fireworks.
5) It's No Longer High School Debate, It's High School Intimidation
Last month, we reported that high school debates – one of the best ways to teach critical thinking – are becoming so “woke” that some judges are banning arguments in favor of free markets.
Now James Fishback, a former debate champion, has updated his original article for The Free Press to report things are worse than he thought:
“The National Speech & Debate Association (NSDA) has allowed hundreds of judges with explicit left-wing bias to infiltrate the organization. These judges proudly display their ideological leanings in statements—or “paradigms”—on a public database maintained by the NSDA called Tabroom, where they declare that debaters who argue in favor of capitalism, or Israel, or the police, will lose the rounds they’re judging.”
Debate Judge Zachary Reshovsky says “microaggressions will be considered” in marking down debaters.
The University of Minnesota offers a two-page list of examples of verboten terms, including: “America is a melting pot,” “There is only one race, the human race,” and “I believe the most qualified person should get the job.”
NSDA debates—once a forum for the open exchange of ideas—have become a minefield of political correctness.