Days after eliminating tens of thousands of jobs by terminating the Keystone Pipeline and halting drilling on Federal Lands, Joe Biden gave a speech in which he said “Today is ‘Climate Day’ at the White House and -- which means that today is ‘Jobs Day’ at the White House.’” He explained that he would hire Americans to modernize the infrastructure so that it can withstand the increase in hurricanes resulting from global warming. As is true for all of his climate policies, this is delusional.

Increased hurricanes resulting from global warming? In the 51 years from 1915, 19 major hurricanes hit the Atlantic coast; in the 51 years to 2016, just seven did. In the last 11 years, only two hurricanes greater than category three hit the continental USA -- a record low since 1900. From 1915 to 1926, 12 hit.

Biden said his administration would hire people to transform the American electrical sector to produce power without carbon pollution and provide rebates so that Americans would buy electric cars. He said jobs would be created for Americans to build electric charging stations all over the country. He plans to replace with electricity all the energy we get from gas.

Where is all that electricity going to come from? In the same speech, he answered that question. He said: “We’re going to take money and invest it in clean energy jobs in America -- millions of jobs in wind, solar, and carbon capture” and “We need solar energy cost-competitive with traditional energy.”

There’s a fundamental problem with that. Solar energy isn’t anywhere close to being cost-competitive with traditional energy even when the sun is shining. Neither is wind power. This fact alone means that for every job that Biden creates multiple jobs will be lost.

That point was lost on the American public when they voted for Joe Biden. It’s still lost on the majority of America’s youth as shown by a Hill-HarrisX poll. Perhaps America’s youth would have been better served by being taught basic economics in school instead of global warming propaganda. Even fact-checkers such as Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post, who disagree with Biden’s rosy predictions of jobs gained by fighting global warming, don’t seem to realize how many jobs will be lost.

The problem is that, if you replace cheap energy with more costly energy, the additional money you spend is money that otherwise would have paid for jobs. That additional money must come from somewhere and that somewhere is either from taxing, borrowing, or printing.

If you get the money from taxing consumers those consumers have less money to spend on goods with the result that there are fewer jobs for the people who make those goods. If you get the money from taxing corporations, those corporations have less money to pay for salaries. If you borrow the money, you might temporarily stave off the inevitable loss of jobs but the loss will come with interest. Whatever jobs you create will be more than offset by the jobs that will be lost.

Biden’s track record is not encouraging when it comes to job creation. Tony Heller made a video in which he suggested that we examine Biden’s track record and start by looking at the Obama Biden web page from the 2008 campaign. According to that page

The Obama Biden comprehensive New Energy for America Plan will provide short-term relief to American families facing pain at the pump by helping create 5 million new jobs by strategically investing 150 billion dollars over the next 10 years… We will save more oil than we currently import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined… we will strategically invest 150 billion dollars over 10 years to accelerate the commercialization of plug-in hybrids, promote developments of commercial scale renewable energy, encourage energy efficiency, invest in low emissions coal plants and advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure...

Heller says that “that sounds really exciting” and suggests “Let's look now at how Joe Biden did.” After taking a look and myriad specifics, he concludes:

Obama and Biden's efforts were a complete disaster. They invested huge amounts of money in scandals like Solyndra. What actually happened was Biden and Obama sent lots of money to people who donated to their campaign who started up green energy companies, went bankrupt, took the money and ran.

Biden justified the trillions of taxpayer money he plans to collect by scaring everyone about global warming. He said in his speech:

That’s why I’m signing today an executive order to supercharge our administration ambitious plan to confront the existential threat of climate change. And it is an existential threat… We see it with our own eyes, we feel it, we know it in our bones, and it’s time to act.

I might have believed Biden except I had to shovel snow this morning. I might have believed all the climate scientists who said that snow would be a thing of the past by now if it hadn’t been so hard to walk to my mailbox only to find that the mailman hadn’t made it through the snow to deliver the mail. I might have thought all this snow was just a fluke if I hadn’t watched yet another great video by Tony Heller about how snow just blanketed places like Death Valley and Arizona.

Our country does face serious threats, but global warming is not one of them. We face the threat of hyperinflation, a threat that will become more serious as Biden goes on a trillion-dollar solar spending spree. Americans face the threat of not being able to pay their heating bills as they skyrocket under the Biden administration. Ironically, his concern with global warming may cause many Americans to be cold in their homes.

We face the threat of virus variants that are more contagious, harder to protect against, and potentially more lethal. We face growing military threats from nuclear powers (North Korea, China, Russia) and an imminently nuclear Iran.

In order to deal with these threats, we need a booming economy, one that can pay for vaccines and that can support a strong military. We need the economy we had under the Trump administration before the coronavirus invaded our shores. Our economy was making a comeback before Biden became president. Within just a few days in office Biden has cost America thousands of jobs, and many more will be lost as he spends our money on windmills in his quixotic fight against global warming.

IMAGE: Wind power by Faungg’s photos. CC BY-ND 2.0.