Unleash Prosperity Hotline – Weekend Edition Issue #872
10/06/2023, 10/07/2023, 10/08/2023
New to the Hotline? Click here to subscribe–it's free.
1) Oh, For the Days When yhe Pope Was Catholic
As everyone knows the Vatican is filled with some of the world’s greatest climatologists, so when Pope Francis warns that the world is “collapsing and nearing the breaking point” because of climate change, we all need to listen up – especially when it is an Encyclical proclamation.
In the history of the Papacy, this may have been one of the most anti-Christian statements by a Pope ever. He has now officially fully embraced the pagan religion of climate change – which is at its core anti-human and anti-progress. It’s a direct contradiction to Pope John Paul II’s celebration of economic freedom and human ingenuity. People are the greatest resource, he declared.
This Pope has sided with the collectivists and the anti-western civilization progressives. It is the “limits to growth” orthodoxy of the green movement. But Francis doesn’t get it: the Western world’s economic advancement and our advanced “lifestyles” haven’t held back the poor countries or jeopardized civilization – we have made life on Earth profoundly better for everyone.
The Vatican – which alas has been infiltrated by leftists (what international institution hasn’t?) – seems to believe that the solution for the planet’s ills is for everyone to get poorer. That hardly seems to be very Christian to us.
If climate change is the existential threat that the Pope sermonizes that it is, we surely won’t reverse temperature warming trends or stop hurricanes through government actions or by surrendering more of our basic human rights to politicians. We will solve climate change the way humans have combated every problem since the days when human life on earth was nasty, brutish, and short. We will harness new-age technologies that will tame Mother Nature.
Thanks to the freedom agenda, deaths from natural disasters have fallen by 90% over the past 100 years. Has anyone in the Vatican told the Pope THAT?
Even some of our closest free-market friends have endorsed a carbon tax as the most efficient solution to reducing greenhouse gases. We are opposed for three reasons: 1) carbon dioxide is NOT a pollutant; 2) the carbon tax will be added ON TOP of the regulatory attacks against fossil fuels, and 3) a new tax on energy will hurt the economy.
Now we have evidence of the impact of a carbon tax that comes from Washington State. It’s a story of false promises, deceit, and economic hardship.
We quote liberally from a fabulous story by The Center Square with added insights from the Washington Policy Center in hopes that lawmakers in other states don’t get similarly duped:
“In 2021, Governor Jay Inslee signed into law the Climate Commitment Act to reduce carbon emissions in the state. This law required all businesses with emissions to purchase “emission allowances” from the state to allegedly offset their greenhouse gas emissions. These allowances are purchased during quarterly auctions hosted by the Department of Ecology.
Proponents denied that gas prices would rise more than 12 cents per gallon.
What happened was wildly different. Between January and April, prices in Washington jumped by 46 cents. On September 5, The Center Square reported an average price of $5.09 per gallon across the state, with some stations charging $5.89 a gallon for 87 Octane (regular) gasoline. (Only California has a higher price at the pump.)
This was way above the price the Department of Ecology promised consumers.
And they knew it.
The original claim they had published downplaying the effects of the carbon tax quietly vanished from the department’s website in May.
There are two lessons here. Carbon taxes will hurt consumers and drivers. Leftists will lie through their teeth to advance their green agenda.
3) TX Governor Abbott Endorses School Choice for EVERY Child
Time to cap off the greatest year of school choice expansion in American history with the big prize: Texas. Five million kids in the school system. Let’s hope Texas can make history in this special session and nearly double the number of families in America with education freedom.
4) Largest EV Charging Station in the World Runs off of Fossil Fuels
Today there are fewer than 900,000 electric vehicles on California’s roads. In 2035, the year the state outlaws the sale of new gas automobiles, EV advocates claim there will be 13 million electric cars.
But that is highly unlikely.
Signs of a strained electric grid are everywhere. Take the Harris Ranch Tesla Supercharger station in Coalinga, California, off of Interstate 5 – the largest EV charging station in the world.
How’s this for irony: the entire station is powered by diesel generators hidden behind a Shell station, despite promises they would be solar powered.
Every EV that replaces a fossil-fuel powered car represents another bite taken out of a power grid that’s more and more precarious every day.
Thomas Sowell, Is Reality Optional?: And Other Essays (Hoover Institution Press Publication) (Volume 418)
Someone should tell that to Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren.
And while we are on the subject of this iconic American economist, we recommend that you watch this recent interview he did with Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institute:
