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Remember ‘15 Days to Slow the Spread’? Don’t Let Them Off The Hook!

Four years ago, government officials told us, “Stay home!” We have “15 days to slow the spread.” Days turned into months and then years, while officials chipped away at our freedoms. I have long been wary of politicians, but even I was surprised at how authoritarian many were eager to be. Some demanded police to go after people surfing. They took down the rims of basketball hoops. Children’s playgrounds were taped up like crime scenes. They told people in rural Utah and Wyoming to stay in their homes. In the name of safety, politicians did many things that diminished our lives, without making us safer. They complied with teachers unions’ demand to keep schools closed. Kids’ learning has been set back by years. Politicians destroyed jobs by closing businesses. Some shutdown orders were ridiculous. Landscaping businesses and private campgrounds were forced to shut down. Both Donald Trump and Joe Biden sharply increased government spending. Trump’s $2.2 trillion “stimulus” package, followed by Biden’s $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan,” led to so much money-printing that inflation doubled and then tripled. This week, the fourth-year anniversary of “15 days to stop the spread,” my new video looks back at politicians’ incompetence. First, government probably killed people with its endless red tape. At least the Trump administration broke FDA rules to speed vaccine approvals. But FDA rules kept perfectly good American Covid test kits off the market because they hadn’t gone through its multiyear approval process. Michigan’s Gov. Gretchen Whitmer banned “public and private gatherings of any size.” Residents were told they could not see friends or relatives. Many of her rules seemed random. She banned motorboats and jet skis, but allowed kayaks and canoes. She closed small businesses, but exempted big-box stores if they blocked off aisles offering plant nurseries and paint. Why? Even the CDC’s “six-foot rule” under Trump was arbitrary, says former FDA commissioner, Dr. Scott Gottlieb. Covid travels in aerosols that flow much farther than six feet. When some Americans became fed up and protested, they were vilified for “threatening the public.” Some were fined. A few were arrested. It’s clear now that restrictive rules were not the best way to protect people. Sweden took a near opposite approach. They mostly left people alone. Swedish officials encouraged the elderly and other at-risk people to stay home. But beyond that, they let life carry on as normal. Sweden didn’t impose lockdowns, school closures or mask mandates. They followed standard pre-Covid wisdom that the best protection is what epidemiologists call “herd” or “collective” immunity. Once a critical mass of people are infected and recover, collective immunity will reduce the total number of infections. Arrogant American politicians and media “experts” sneered at Sweden’s approach. NBC “reported” on what it called, “Sweden’s failed experiment. How their dangerous Covid gamble went wrong.” CBS confidently stated, “Sweden becomes an example of how not to handle COVID.” Time Magazine headlined: “Swedish COVID-19 Response Is a Disaster.” But the media’s experts were just wrong. Swedish health officials were right. Yes, at the beginning of the pandemic, Sweden suffered high numbers of Covid deaths, but as predicted, over time, herd immunity protected people. Sweden’s excess death rate was the lowest in Europe. Sweden’s economy got through the pandemic much healthier than other countries. Because Swedish schools never closed, Swedish students didn’t suffer the learning losses that American kids did. Four years later, have media blowhards who were wrong apologized? Corrected their stories? No. Have American politicians apologized and begged forgiveness for their arrogance, for destroying jobs, restricting our freedom and needlessly pushing us around? No. Let’s not give politicians power like that again.

Degrowth: How to Make the World Poorer, Polluted and Miserable

The left has a new goal: degrowth. We should “buy less stuff,” forgive debts, grow our own food, etc. They say this will “build a more just and sustainable society” and “save the planet” from “climate chaos.” This idea is popular with capitalism-haters. One at a ChangeNow “eco conference” says, “A smaller, slower economy could also be a sweeter economy.” A sweeter economy? What nonsense. We already unintentionally experimented with “degrowth.” During the pandemic, frightened politicians closed businesses and ordered people to stay home. Growth stopped. “Did that save us?” asks Swedish author Johan Norberg in my new video. “No. It was a terrible tragedy. Sixty million people were thrown into extreme poverty.” Yet some “degrowth” activists call the pandemic a good thing. “Did a lot of environmental good,” says one on Al Jazeera. “Pollution has been radically cut, emissions have plummeted,” says another. It’s true. The pandemic did reduce carbon emissions. “But by no more than 6%!” says Norberg. “If we wanted to reduce global warming,” he says, “We would need one pandemic every year. And that would be a terrible disaster for human life and health.” Sure would. Climate change may be a serious threat. But reducing global growth won’t help. It would make things worse. Growth and that much-hated capitalism are our only hope to create the wealth that may help us better adjust to climate change. Norberg points out, “If we didn’t have any economic growth since the 1950s, we would have slightly less global warming, but around half a million more people would die because of climate-related natural disasters. The risk of dying has declined by some 90%, and that’s not because we have fewer disasters. ... It’s because we’ve had economic growth. It means that we improve construction, improve early warning systems, improve health care ... we can deal with disasters in a better way.” Over time, even a little growth makes a huge beneficial difference. “If Sweden, my own country, had had just one percentage point lower economic growth per capita, then Sweden today would be as poor as Albania.” “What’s wrong with Albania?” I ask. “Albanians are a quarter as rich as Swedes,” responds Norberg, “That shows in everything from life expectancy and child mortality to working conditions.” Albania’s growth was stunted by years of communism. Because of that, today Albanians risk their lives to try to reach capitalist countries. “That’s what you need to know about different economic and political systems,” says Norberg. “Look at where the refugees go. They always go from more socialist economies to capitalist economies. People risk their lives to get to freedom and prosperity.” The no-growth advocates don’t acknowledge that. They despise capitalism, and don’t see its benefits. We invited more than a dozen of them to come on Stossel TV to explain the evils of capitalism and describe how degrowth is better. Not one would. I wish one would come to my studio to argue. I’d ask what he thinks about the claim Norberg makes in his newest book, “The Capitalist Manifesto.” He says, “The global free market will save the world.” “That’s grandiose,” I tell Norberg. “But it is saving the world,” he says. “Bit by bit, step by step. Every day over the past 20 years, more than 130,000 people were lifted out of extreme poverty!” That means economic growth freed millions from stoop labor, from burning manure for heat, from lives where they die young. Not only did free markets release people from miserable poverty, when they did, they created conditions where people want to take care of the environment. It’s why capitalist countries are less polluted than socialist ones. Only when you aren’t worried about your next meal can you start thinking about preserving nature. On top of that, growth may give us the technology to reduce pollution and adjust to climate change. Degrowth would leave the world poor, miserable and polluted.

Juice: Why Wind and Solar Make Our Power Grid Less Reliable

“We’re building a clean energy future,” says President Joe Biden. Who is “we”? Well, you pay for it. He and his “green” cronies do most of the building. Lately, they’re pouring more of your money into “renewable energy.” They promise to give us “carbon-free power” from the sun and wind. My new video illustrates some problems with that, using scenes from a new documentary series called “Juice: Power, Politics and the Grid.” Political scientist Roger Pielke Jr. notes, “It’s quite intuitive for people to understand that there’s a lot of power in solar energy. We feel the wind. The idea that you can get something for nothing, people find enormously appealing.” Especially in California, where politicians now require all new homes to have solar panels, all new cars sold in 2035 to be zero-emission, and all the state’s electricity to come from carbon-free resources by 2045. They’re getting results, but not good ones: California’s cost of electricity increased three times faster than in the rest of America. People in Washington State pay about 11 cents per kilowatt-hour. In Oregon, 13 cents. In California, now almost 30 cents. Do they at least get reliable energy for that? No. The big problem with wind and solar power, of course, is that they don’t work when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine. Sometimes that happens when people most want heat or AC. Increased use of “renewables” is why blackouts are more common in California. Bloomenergy says there were over 25,000 in 2019 -- thousands more than the previous year. “We failed to predict and plan,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom. Right. Instead, they embraced unscientific green fantasies. Requiring all new homes to have solar panels is a big reason California has the most expensive housing in America. The average house costs almost $800,000. If you can afford that, you get government money for generating solar power. But the handout goes mostly to the rich. Poorer people are more likely to rent. On top of that, the subsidy is inefficient. “As their solar panels produce power during the day when the sun is up,” explains electrical engineer Lee Cordner, “They’re able to sell the excess power ... into the grid exactly when the grid doesn’t need it. The grid is then inundated with solar power and can’t use it all. Nonetheless, they get paid a very high price for that power.” Nice for homeowners. Taxpayers pay for rich people to have a highly subsidized solar system. I put panels on my house partly because of a tax credit. But I don’t delude myself by thinking that solar power will measurably reduce climate change, or that wind power is especially green. “Just to produce one turbine, we have to extract 900 tons of steel, 2,500 tons of concrete, and 45 tons of non-renewable plastic,” explains ecologist Merlin Tuttle. “Then we’ve got to transport that and burn fuel, getting it all carried across the world. None of these things that go into a turbine are renewable.” And they wear out. Turbines now get shut down in just 10 years for maintenance. Maintenance costs almost as much as a new turbine, but it’s worth it to “green” companies because of government handouts. Biden announced an $11 billion subsidy to “bring clean energy into rural communities.” That mostly encouraged people to put wind and solar in inappropriate places. Solar power makes sense in America’s south, and other sunny places. But an above average number of solar subsidies go to Minnesota. In the documentary, a Minnesota resident laughs and says, “The state is about to give me a whole bunch of subsidies to ... build solar in scenic, sunny Minnesota.” The “Juice” series highlights the stupidity of government throwing money at “green” schemes pushed by the politically connected. When solar and wind become more efficient, they’ll be cheaper and people will adopt them on their own. Politicians should stop their destructive meddling. You can watch the full documentary at JuiceTheSeries.com.
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