Leftists Brandish Knives to Support Vance in Face of Climate Skepticism *WorldNetDaily* by Tilak Doshi, Real Clear Wire

A day after former President Trump announced the nomination of “climate denier” Mr. J.D. Vance as his Republican vice presidential candidate, the climate industrial complex and its supporting mainstream media outlets have come out with their knives. A few headlines from the last 24 hours are an indication of that.

The New York Times“JD Vance is an oil advocate and a skeptic of man-made climate change”

The Independent:JD Vance: ‘Climate activists alarmed by Trump’s ‘dangerous’ VP pick’

The Guardian“Climate advocates fear JD Vance’s VP pick is ‘dangerous step backwards'”

The media commentators’ offense is familiar. CNBC laments that “former venture capitalist However is a well-known critic of climate change and renewable energy (emphasis added). The Independent The newspaper reports that “activists are reacting with alarm to the selection of Ohio Senator and climate denier J.D. Vance as Donald Trump’s running mate, with activists warning that he represents a ‘dangerous’ voice for the United States.” Mr. Vance’s eagerness to please Donald Trump adds to the image of the vice presidential candidate as a ruthless politician seeking election.

Get the biggest, hottest news stories on the internet delivered to your inbox for FREE as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND’s email news alerts!

Cassidy DiPaola, a spokeswoman for the climate advocacy group Fossil Free Media, said that “this (vice presidential) pick signals that a potential Trump-Vance administration would likely double down on expanding fossil fuels at a time when we desperately need to transition to clean energy.” Stevie O’Hanlon, communications director for the Sunrise Movement, a climate advocacy group, said that “like Donald Trump, J.D. Vance has proven that he will make rolling back climate protections a top priority while doing the bidding of oil and gas CEOs.”

Does Mr. Vance have a principled position and is his position on climate and energy policy worthy of consideration?

Climate change denial
As the highly polarized debate over climate change has amply demonstrated in recent decades, the discourse often devolves into ad hominem attacks and name-calling. “Climate skeptic” is a charge often used by climate alarmists to shut down critical debate and dismiss climate skeptics from the stage. Lena Moffitt, executive director of the environmental advocacy group Evergreen Action, said of Vance: “Donald Trump has chosen as his running mate an avowed climate skeptic who has used his time in Congress to vote against the environment and to sing the praises of fossil fuel companies at every opportunity.”

The charge of “Holocaust denial” is one of the most pernicious and popular epithets used to denigrate skeptics of so-called “consensus science.” It evokes a comparison with those who engage in Holocaust denial. It is true that most observers would find it ridiculous to suggest that to question the accuracy and predictive power of scientific models is to question the historical fact of the genocide of the Jews in Europe.

What is Mr. Vance’s position on climate?
Leaving aside epithets and press reports, it seems legitimate to ask what politicians who are skeptical of climate alarmist discourse think. And what are their political positions on the Paris Agreement’s “net zero emissions by 2050” goal. This political goal is an imperative, at least nominally, for most current governments in North America and Western Europe?

Mr. Vance — a lawyer, businessman, former Marine and author of the best-selling “Hillbilly Elegy,” who comes from a humble working-class background — places himself firmly in the right-wing populist movement. It now seems very likely that Mr. Trump will be the next president of the United States. Saturday’s assassination attempt, his miraculous split-second head-turn that saved him and the iconic image of his raised fist with the American flag in the background seconds after he was shot make him almost irresistible. So Mr. Vance will likely join Donald Trump next year as vice president in an administration that will seek to rapidly eliminate the myriad policy and regulatory constraints that the Biden administration has imposed to hobble the American oil and gas industry at every turn.

Vance has also criticized the Biden administration’s “green energy fantasy,” noting that “solar panels can’t power a modern manufacturing economy” and that “that’s why the Chinese are building coal plants.” He has also denounced wind turbines. Speaking at the Turning Point Action conference last year, he said, “They’re hideously ugly. They kill all the birds. And they’re mostly made in China.” The Biden administration’s unwavering support for electric vehicles has come under similar criticism. In a July 2022 radio interview, he said, “This whole electric vehicle thing is a scam. If you plug it into your wall outlet, do these people think there are Keebler elves behind it generating electricity in the wall? It comes, of course, from fossil fuels.”

Mr. Vance’s climate skepticism is not limited to encouraging the renewed dominance of American oil and gas in global markets—a strong theme of Trump’s first term—if Republicans are elected. He has spoken out fiercely against the ESG (environmental, social, and governance) movement. In a 2022 interview with Breitbart, he said that “ESG is fundamentally a massive racket to enrich Wall Street and the financial sector of the country, at the expense of industries that actually employ a lot of Ohioans in middle-class jobs.” The push against ESG in Republican states across the United States and the increasingly apparent lack of success of ESG-focused firms and investment advisers suggest that Mr. Vance probably has a better finger on the pulse than his critics would like to admit.

Who is more credible?
As a climate change skeptic, Vance is in good company. For example, 2022 Nobel Prize winner in physics John Clauser recently explained that the models and analyses of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) do not meet basic standards of scientific inquiry. IPCC models have been used as “proof” of scientific consensus by politicians and activists to support claims of a “climate crisis.” Another example is Richard Lindzen, an American atmospheric physicist and professor emeritus of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who published an assessment of the global warming narrative in 2022. Professor Lindzen believes that climate alarmism is “a quasi-religious movement based on an absurd ‘scientific’ narrative. The policies invoked in the name of this movement have led the United States to hamstring its energy system.” Whatever one’s views on climate science, it is clear that Mr. Vance is not alone in his skepticism of the claims of climate policy advocates, as his many critics claim.

JD Vance’s criticism of the renewable energy and subsidized electric vehicle sectors is consistent with emerging empirical evidence amid higher inflation, higher interest rates, and a sharp decline in renewable energy stocks. For example, an Associated Press report from last November described the challenges facing the Biden administration’s ambitious offshore wind plans: “The cancellation of two major offshore wind projects in New Jersey is the latest in a series of setbacks for the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry, jeopardizing the Biden administration’s goals of powering 10 million homes from towering ocean turbines by 2030 and establishing a carbon-free electricity grid five years later.” This news was preceded by earlier reports that developers had canceled three offshore wind projects in New England. They said their plans were “no longer financially feasible” despite the large grants on offer.

The news about the electric vehicle market, which Mr. Vance has called a “scam,” is equally dire for green tech enthusiasts. As David Blackmon, a keen observer of the renewable energy sector, notes: surveys show that the vast majority of car buyers in the United States will not buy an electric vehicle, even at “bargain-priced” prices (and despite government subsidies); overall growth in electric vehicle sales in the United States has slowed “to a trickle,” as it has in the U.K. and the EU; and the market for used electric vehicles is virtually nonexistent. “Pure” electric vehicle maker Fisker recently filed for bankruptcy, while Rivian is suffering the same fate. American auto giants GM and Ford have turned to gasoline-powered vehicles to maintain profits as the global slowdown in electric vehicle sales forces them to delay investment and cut costs on their electric vehicle production lines.

Supporters can criticize the man all they want, but the realities of thermodynamics and economics support J.D. Vance. He could prove to be the best vice president in a Republican administration that is focused on bolstering the country’s oil and gas industries and making America great again.

Dr. Tilak K. Doshi is an energy economist and independent consultant.

This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. DONATE TO WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!