Saving the planet can wait: The climate cult is a cult of convenience
Zachary Faria
The climate crisis is going to kill us all, and yet the first thing that California is cutting to get its budget under control is climate funding.
Wow, who is the climate denier now?
THEY SIGNED ALL THESE CLIMATE AGREEMENTS, AND ALL WE GOT WAS A NEW WORLD RECORD FOR BURNING COAL
California recently had a large budget surplus, but it ran into a minor issue of productive residents fleeing for states that do not have an outrageously high cost of living or homeless people leaving needles on Little League fields. With those departures, California saw $29.5 billion less in revenue this year, leaving the state with a $22.5 billion budget deficit.
Therefore, California needs to make some budget cuts. Surprise, surprise, climate spending is the first thing on the block. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) budget proposal would delay funding for “building decarbonization and watersheds” and would strip billions in funding for electric vehicles. You may recall that Newsom wants to ban the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035 to save the world. Apparently, saving the world can wait — it doesn’t fit into his $297 billion budget plan.
The climate cult may spread doom and gloom, but at its core is a cult of convenience. Newsom apparently can’t find room in a $297 billion budget for climate spending without cutting programs he thinks people actually care about. He doesn’t want a political fight, so suddenly those billions we needed to give up to protect the planet aren’t so important after all. His gas-powered car ban works in much the same way, as Newsom will be long gone by the time California Democrats have to reckon with the consequences of such a move.
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You can see this throughout the country as well. White House climate envoy John Kerry talks about the end of the world while zooming around on his private jet because it’s convenient for him to maintain his luxury lifestyle. The Biden administration wants to ban gas-powered stoves (now under the pretext that they cause asthma, which Biden is pretending was always a serious and real concern). Even bans on plastic straws, which require no lifestyle changes for climate-cult liberals but make them feel like they are changing the world, fit into this category.
The climate cult lets liberals satisfy several of their impulses: the need to feel like they are important and leading an important movement, the ability to control lifestyle decisions for people they do not know or care about, and the need to morally lecture people so they can feel superior to them. But the moment they have to sacrifice some political capital, or private jet trips, suddenly the alarmist rhetoric vanishes and saving the planet goes on the back burner.