As hot-button issues go, climate change hasn't had the world in trouble lately.
Gallup reports that Voters in the 2024 U.S. presidential election ranked climate change as their 21st “extremely important” concern. That's well behind inflation, crime and war, but slightly ahead of crabgrass.
The COP29 climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, brought no comfort to climate alarmists. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev set the tone by telling delegates that the fossil fuels they hate are “a gift from God.”
There are no more gifts for those who reach the summit, because the trillions of dollars trying to “fight” climate change are lost in someone's luggage (paging Sam Brinton).
Add to this the news that the German government collapsed after its “net zero” folly, electric car sales continued to decline and cost jobs, and the Atlantic failed to produce enough hurricanes to satisfy a record number of doomsday predictions from leading alarmists. Called the Storm, the hits just keep coming.
But just as Bogart and Bergman will always have Paris, Fans of climate alerts always have New York.
Last week, “New York” appeared on time and sounded the alarm for climate scientists. Gov. Kathy Hochul reinstated the state's congestion pricing program in Manhattan, which activists praised for taking cars and trucks off the streets and saving the planet.
In a statement from Hochul's office, Environmental Defense Fund president Fred Krupp expressed some “leadership” affection for this bad idea:
“It has never been more important for national leaders to take decisive action to combat climate change.”
New York regularly revokes permits for much-needed natural gas pipelines, but it remains an avid practitioner of gaslighting.
It described the congestion charge adjustment for motorists as a “savings” because the state will charge just $9 to enter Manhattan streets, instead of the previously announced $23, which dropped to $15.
For those who don't know New York's math (test scores show our students don't), that means police officers, firefighters and teachers who drive to work will spend an extra $2,500 a year.
The money will allegedly be used by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to prop up our creepy subways. The MTA needs the money because it can't raise the $700 million it annually receives from fare evaders. The beatings will still continue, but now they will be targeted at drivers.
The government's claim that pricing will reduce congestion doesn't pass the joke test.
If congestion is indeed the problem They won't clog our major arteries with bike lanes, bus lanes, tricycles charging unsuspecting tourists $9.95 a minute, and fruit vendors setting up stalls at traffic lights.
The real goal is to get people out of dirty cars and onto clean bikes. Please ignore this inconvenient fact In the first six months of this year, the city's bicycle fatalities hit a 20-year high. No one is saying there won’t be casualties in this battle to save Mother Earth.
“New Yorkers deserve less traffic, cleaner air and significant investment in public transportation because we are not out of the climate crisis,” said Julie Tighe, president of the New York League of Conservation Voters.
No, but we can carve a way out with U-Hauls because the state's depopulation is worse than George Costanza in cold water.
Cornell University predicts that the state's population will decline by 2 million people over the next 25 years. As for the reason, an editorial in the New York Post said: “It’s simple: Progressives keep raising taxes, allowing crime and lawlessness to flourish.”
The only good thing I can see from New York’s madness on climate is that it provides fodder for my writing.
My latest novel, Hostile Climate, dramatizes The fact that climate is shaping the national energy agenda shows that our leaders have lost their minds. The bad news is they are entering dangerous territory and could cost us our lives.
The Greens can rest assured that their reversal is unlikely to last. Too much energy has been invested in the idea that something must be done to stop climate change.
As the congestion charge shows, they will do whatever it takes, even not paying the fare. That will be automatically deducted.
Jon Pepper is a novelist and consultant living in New York. He was a former business columnist for The Detroit News and a senior executive in the automotive and energy industries. His fifth novel, Hostile Climate, is released today. Climate Change Letters reviews here and here the satirical story of an ambitious politician blaming an energy company for climate change.
