Wednesday, February 17, 2021

So much for "the consent of the governed"!

 

Earlier this month, a Massachusetts bureaucrat defined the way government looks at its citizens subjects.


A Massachusetts climate official said people who heat their homes and fuel their cars will need to have their “will” broken in order to combat emissions and climate change.

“I know one thing that we found in our analysis is that 60% of our emissions come from … residential heating and passenger vehicles,” said David Ismay, Massachusetts, undersecretary for climate change, during a virtual meeting with the Vermont Climate Council. “Let me say that again: 60% of our emissions that need to be reduced come from you, the person on your street, the senior on fixed-income. Right now, there is no bad guy left, at least in Massachusetts, to point the finger at and turn the screws on and now break their will, so they stop emitting. That’s you. We have to break your will.”

Ismay reasoned that climate agencies were running out of options.

“We can’t have no offshore wind, no transmission, no solar, and have clean energy,” he said. “Something has to give. There has to be some mechanism we trust to find a place to site a transmission line.”

But Ismay also admitted his remarks would not be popular.

“I can’t even say that publicly,” Ismay said.


There's more at the link.

Frankly, I'm astonished the good people of Massachusetts didn't rise up in a body and run Mr. Ismay out of town on a rail (after the suitable application of tar and feathers).  If any North Texas government official said something like that, I venture to doubt he'd make it home to his family in safety that night.  Almost everyone's instant reaction would be, "Oh, yeah?  Well, break this!"

Nevertheless, that's the way our current Administration seems to think about energy.  It's all about the Green New Deal, which means big bucks for their supporters and sycophants, all the energy they want for their own homes and vehicles, and not very much for the rest of us.

The "consent of the governed" is normally regarded as a foundational principle of government.  Clearly, Mr. Ismay and his ilk don't share that perspective.  Perhaps someone should educate him.




Peter


19 comments:

Maniac said...

Massachusetts is a close second to California in being one of the most Communist states in the Union. The governors say, "Jump!" and the people say, "How high?"

libertyman said...

I left Massachusetts 33 years ago, and don't even like driving through it. Why am I not surprised at those comments?

rickr said...

Peter, this is another sad example of how far downstream we've floated, like dead leaves, from the place our Founders stood. How many "Americans" can even understand the historical reference, let alone would challenge their "betters" to take back their liberty? I have family members who are excited about relocating to MA in the near-future, and all I can do for them is bow my head in sadness. To be overtaken by tyrants is one thing; to submit willingly to them is very different.

McChuck said...

The factions of the Left disagree about the uses to which power should be used. But they are in lockstep agreement that they must have ultimate power, over everyone and everything.

Aggie said...

Hasn't he left this job? I think he was made to resign. Maybe he can open up a consultancy with Jonathan Gruber.

Beans said...

He was, after a huge number of Massholes got very angry, forced or asked to resign, of which he did.

Now. Texas. Oh, yeah, who's friggin bright idea was to put so much of your energy production into spinning bird choppers that get eaten regularly by tornadoes, blown down by windstorms (both of which West Texas is known for) and... don't work in adverse conditions like hurricanes or ice/snow/glacierizations...

When is Texas going to rise up and attack the idiots who pushed (un)green energy production over conventional power and fortifying the grid? Before throwing stones, mayhaps you should look at all the glass walls surrounding you.

Sam L. said...

Tar and feathers...and a keg of itching powder!

AJ said...

I one sense, he's absolutely correct, IF (and that's an increasingly big IF) there's any truth to the anthropogenic global warming hype.
IF it is true, then it cannot be slowed or undone by living anything like we do now. Someone crunched the numbers back in the days of the Paris Accord meetings & calculated that the average American would need to live in greater energy poverty than the ordinary (poor) person did in the mid-1700s.
Near destitute.
Poor sanitation.
Lack of clean water.
Illiterate.
Short life-span due to disease & lack of modern medicine (in all its forms).
Naturally, this would not apply to the elites, only to the masses being governed...

dogsledder said...

Better that we do away with the biggest waste of time, money, and energy of all- the government, at least 90% of it and 90% of its employees.

Unknown said...

The individual in question is not to blame...the non-tolerance of fighting in elementary and middle school is to blame. Back in the day, people learned what happened when they stepped out of line...and the teachers were always around to swat a backside as well...

Simpler times...gunracks in trucks and no school shootings...of course, divorce rates weren't over 50 percent back then...only Dad can keep the boys in line in highschool...

Jimmy the Saint said...

@McChuck: "The factions of the Left disagree about the uses to which power should be used. But they are in lockstep agreement that they must have ultimate power, over everyone and everything."

Fortunately for the Left, the only political party on the Right agrees with them - the Left *should* have ultimate power over everyone and everything, they just need a slightly better manager.

dogsledder said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
dogsledder said...

There is only one political party. The NationalSocialistDemocrat party. They recently proved that since the "election".

Candygram4mongo said...

Here’s some better news about renewable energy that might work for all of us:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/16/chevron-and-bp-back-renewable-start-up-focused-on-geothermal-energy.html

Hopefully it will be green enough and reliable enough to get us out of solar and wind.

Beans said...

Candy. Geothermal only really works in area where the geo is active. Which has a whole host of other issues like volcanic activity, earthquakes and unstable ground.

Works in Iceland, until the volcano that feeds the plant goes wonky, which has happened.

There is no renewable energy that does not come with a huge price, either in making the storage equipment, collection equipment, or infrastructure (ever seen how much concrete they use per bird-chopper? Hint- it's to the level of making nuclear missile silos in steel and concrete just for the bases, which are not hollow like missile silos or command bunkers.)

Geothermal... let's put a power plant on an active fault or volcanic vent.

Wind Farms - see above, bazillion tons of concrete and steel just for the bases, and then oil spray that destroys crops, blades and other components that are not recyclable, de-icers that aren't very environmentally friendly, and of course the destruction of birds and bugs and people (the low-infrasound has driven people to slab themselves.)

Solar. Don't get me started on that waste. Works in small, intimate areas where the owner can spend all their time cleaning the dust and snow from them.

Tidal collectors? They've talked about those for years...

Hydro? That's a whole huge topic full of actual geological issues compounded by environmental issues (real and/or imagined.)

Funny, nukes or fossil fuel still reign supreme to this day.

Unknown said...

Had this conversation with an unaware friend today. Highlights:

Wind and solar are like having the toughest tank on the planet...six inches of armor...105mm cannon...lasers...and a big red bullseye painted just below the hatch that a 22 lr can penetrate and bounce around in til it's just a blood-coated bb...

The only reason these retard systems are in place is because of govt subsidy to achieve scale...scale comes at a price...what good is getting 100 percent of your energy from wind and solar when you're gonna need 150 percent of your base requirement when wind and solar are down? You know, in a big blizzard...seems the greenies really believed the globe was warming...their faith told them to ignore the previous ice ages and the fact co2 is only 400ppm which is strangling plant life...

Democracy is doomed when 50.1 percent of the population are morons.

Math is raysis.

Will said...

Why are they afraid of a warm world? The LAST time it warmed up, there were cattle and crops on GREENLAND, and they were growing grapes on the east coast of Canada. Lots of food in Europe, too. Only lasted a few centuries, though.

Rick in NY said...

Let's back up and look at the big picture for a moment...

Global warming, Climate change, whatever you wish to call it, is all based on a simple misconception, that the Earrh has a thermostat and is stuck there. Show me a single natural system that is static. There are none that I have found.

Nature is cyclic. Things happen. Things change. And then things change the other direction. It is a perpetual wobble to both sides of "normal" but it is the very stability weather has had for the past two hundred years that is the anomaly. Mother Earth is just going back to her normal, and we're along for the ride.

Unknown said...

It's not a "misconception" unless you have a grim sense of humor.

Greenism is another way to claim humans are a plague...and must be eradicated. Contraception, abortion, Gayism, Transism, white racism, Warmism, etc, are all a part of the big message being delivered by Death Cult...

God's first commandment (FC) to humanity was to go forth and multiply...any message contrary to the FC is not from God.

There is this nuclear reactor in the sky and it sends its energy thru space...this is 99.99 percent of all the energy the earth receives...puny dirt scratchers releasing piddling amounts of previously placed carbon are not a problem...unless you have an agenda.