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Jan. 11, 2024 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
23:50
The "Transition To Green Energy" Farce Is Already A Disaster!

From the very start, the idea of getting rid of fossil fuels is an absurdity. But politicians are hardly ever deterred by truth and reality. The policies to "transition" to "green energy" are already producing economic pain and suffering. The further the "transition" proceeds, the higher the pain will become. Central planning never works.

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Time Text
Electricity Shortage and Beyond 00:12:12
Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today is Chris Rossini, our co-host.
Chris, good to see you today.
It's great to be with you, Dr. Paul.
Good.
We have a few problems left over.
We thought last week we cured everything, but there's still a problem here and there.
But some of it, some of us, some of these problems are man-made, like most of them, especially right now because there are some people in Washington.
There's more of those individuals that think they have all the answers to anything that's ever happened, whether it's in the weather or whether it's in the marketplace and all these things.
So they believe they know everything.
So now we have a real mess going on when it comes to energy.
Because, you know, California is really the example of how crazy governments can get with a pretense that they still live in the real world of freedom.
Because they'll even use, if you ever notice Pelosi and Newsom and the others, they use a lot of the same words.
I get a little cautious about using the words that I believe in, like freedom and liberty and non-intervention, because they're starting to use those words.
So they think if they use those words, you know, everything is going to be okay.
The people will say, yeah, we're, well, I know there's a people out there that care about the Constitution.
A little bit of that went on, you know, during their presidential campaign.
If they just use the words, then that'll satisfy them.
But right now, we're in the age of the people demanding truth.
That's what they want.
They want to trust somebody.
And I think that was one of the reasons why they've liked Trump over the years.
They say, oh, yeah, he's goofy on this and goofy on this.
And he's so politically incorrect.
But they came away saying, well, at least he's telling us what he believes, you know, and it's not all cooked up.
So that's the thing that they have been facing.
But California, Chris, is sure an example of the crazy stuff that they're doing.
Because, you know, within a few years, everybody has to have an electric car, you know, by 220, 30 or something.
And so everybody has to do this.
And even some people say faster, faster.
But they're running into trouble now because of some extremes out there with weather and air conditioners running and the lack of the marketplace and the interference of the government.
Guess what?
They've created a shortage of electricity.
And so because they're anticipating hot weather and more people are going to want to cool their houses, they say, oh, that's okay, but you've got to put a delay.
Let's put a delay on this stuff about cars.
We better be really careful.
Don't charge those cars with your electricity from home because that's liable to close the grid down.
And the whole program really hasn't started, but they're already warning about the complications of it.
It is true.
And I think the economics are very, very clear-cut that you can't get enough cheap energy to run all our vehicles without interfering with prices and with the efficiency of it all.
And besides, all this electricity, guess where it comes from?
Hydrocarbons.
You have to use hydrocarbons to create your electricity.
And people just blithely go on.
Yes, but we're taking care of the environment.
And if these people like Trump and his followers, they're unpatriotic and they're treasonous and they hate the environment.
So they use that demagoguery to do that.
So I think we're a long way from solving the problem politically, but the efforts will shift as they are right now in foreign policy and monetary policy.
The system is failing and people are waking up.
We noticed that in COVID.
And we think that's fine and dandy.
But where our jobs lie, Chris, I believe, is us making sure that people understand there's an alternative which is very, very much better.
And that is just trying to answer these questions with the emphasis on personal liberty, individual choices and volunteerism, sound money, all these things which don't cost very much.
They don't cost much.
But so far they have not been listening, but they're going to have to listen.
There will be a change.
Some of them are lining up.
They say, well, that's why we have to have Marxism.
Well, I think our lines better get big faster because there is an alternative and we have to make sure people know what it is and understand it and they join the effort to promote freedom.
Very good, Dr. Paul.
Yes, we're dealing with people in political power are suffering from terrible delusion.
You know, our world, our economic world especially, is so complex that no one could possibly wrap their heads around it.
So if you're looking at the world and saying we've got to get rid of fossil fuels or transition to a different form of energy, I mean, you're deluding yourself.
And pride, something that we all have to keep an eye out for, has set in for these people.
The politicians believe that they are something that they're not.
They believe that they're greater than they actually are, you know, thinking that they could even do something like this.
You know, I love the show with Mike Rowe.
It's called Dirty Jobs.
I watch it often.
And he goes around the country highlighting all these amazing, obscure jobs that people perform out there.
And not only that, the complexity of all of them.
They're so complex, some of them.
And all the different types of machinery and what is this and all the capital that is used and all the capital that's been accumulated.
And you realize that fossil fuels are intertwined with just about everything that we do.
So when you then turn off that show and hear politicians say we're getting rid of fossil fuels, no, you're not.
You know, you shake your head and you're like, what are you even saying?
And then, like you said, Dr. Paul, with the cars 2035, they always push it out far away to where nobody's going to remember what was said in 2022, that they're going to get rid of gas cars.
You know, it's a long time from now.
And then days later, they're saying, whoa, whoa, don't charge those cars.
We can't handle it.
Turn off your air conditionings.
It's a total joke.
They have bid off way more than they could possibly chew.
And it's only going to get worse for the regular people that allow them to pull this stuff off.
You know, you'd think by now they'd be a little bit frustrated to see the unintended consequences, the mistakes they made.
And then the people who see advantages in the system and they're promoting Marxism and people making money.
You know, like in COVID, you had the pharmaceuticals.
There's always an angle out there.
But Newsom was quoted as saying something about the environment.
It really sends mixed signals as to just where he is on confidence about Mother Nature.
Because here's a quote.
It's pretty clear Mother Nature has overrun us.
What is going on?
He's not praising Mother.
I thought Mother Nature was our friend.
But Mother Nature is outrunning us.
And then he goes on to say, the reality is we're living in an age of extremes.
Extreme heat, extreme drought.
Yeah, that's happened before.
But guess what?
It's been extremely nice in some parts of the country.
There's been no hurricanes, you know, less hurricanes in many, many years.
So this is, you know, they're playing on weather.
And then if you say you're talking about weather and not climate control, they get a little annoyed because they're so, you know, they lack self-confidence, and they're afraid that they have to clarify that, then they yell and scream about why we need more government.
But what we lack is a lack of market activity making these decisions.
And we have an extreme amount of federal government, Republicans and Democrats, and especially the bureaucrats who have power, and their legislators, as well as judicial system, all in the department of agencies, which they can do and make up the rules as they go along.
So that's where the real problem is.
So we create, there are always problems with weather and different things.
There's things that we have to deal with.
But to all of a sudden say that that means that we have to have more government, they'd never ask the question, how much of this was preventable?
When you look at this energy thing about what the Biden policy has been, no more drilling, close the pipelines, start wars here and there, and antagonize the people.
And guess what?
It hasn't worked out too well.
It was all done politically because they figured everybody hates Russia, so we won't get the people to go along with it.
Well, I think Putin might be just sort of laughing right now.
He's selling oil like never before, and he's been making profits, and he's probably been instrumental in bringing the price of oil down temporarily because the monetary inflation will eventually raise the price of oil.
But we have way too much government, and we have too little market decisions.
And they say, well, Adam Smith called it the invisible hand, which just works things out.
No planning.
Nobody just sits there and says, well, you do this, you do this, you can drive here, do this.
That's not the way it works.
And Adam Smith didn't mean that.
I think what's happened is there is a real thing called the invisible hand, which is magic when people are allowed to do things freely and voluntarily.
I think what we have done is taken the invisible hand and turned it into an iron fist.
That's what we have to repeal.
That's right.
And you brought up a good point.
As bad as we have it here, Europe is in much worse shape.
And like you alluded to, the sanctions have totally backfired on Russia.
You know, I remember when it all started, they're going to isolate Russia.
They're going to isolate them from the whole world.
And it did the exact opposite.
Remember, all the U.S. companies are all pulling out.
It was like a pile on.
And it is Europe that is suffering, not Russia.
I mean, total backfire.
But remember the rule of modern-day politicians.
If it fails, you just do more of it.
You know, we went through that with the vaccines, and they went from the first one to the second to the third, the fourth.
I think they're up to the sixth one now.
You just do more of it.
You know, and today there's a video going around on social media.
It's stunning.
It's of the German foreign minister.
She's the German foreign minister.
And this is what she says.
If I give the promise to people in Ukraine, we stand with you as long as you need us, then I want to deliver.
And here's the kicker.
No matter what my German voters think, I want to deliver to the people of Ukraine.
I mean, that is, could it be any more stunning than that?
She doesn't care about the people that she's serving.
She wants to deliver for Ukraine.
So if it fails, you do more of it.
And Europeans are suffering from the sanctions and these green, so-called green policies.
Election Season Concerns 00:03:21
They're in such deep trouble.
They would have been so much better off, Europe, just by sitting on their hands and doing nothing.
No sanctions, none of this green agenda.
But unfortunately, they have to suffer for the decisions of their politicians.
And she did say that I'll never desert you.
I'm going to do this and that.
And I got to thinking, except when it benefits somebody, and maybe it will be done quietly, and somebody is making a deal somewhere, the way most governments operate.
So yeah, they're words.
But that is the thing that we're facing the most now is where do we get anybody to, you know, you can trust.
They're out there, and we call on them because we want to get the message out the best we can.
But there's so little of it.
And now in election season, you can imagine.
But one thing is, you know, finding out the truth, you know, is enhanced when the news finally gets out to some degree about how unreliable and immoral and dishonest our policing agencies are.
We're not supposed to have a national police force.
But just look at the trouble the FBI has gotten themselves into.
And it's not just, say, some right-wing conspiracy person saying that.
There are some now that are considered moderate and considered Democrat.
And they're saying, you know, this is over the top.
But then you have the conventional, their conventional wisdom of saying, oh, no, you know, it all comes out of the only enemy.
We only have one enemy, and that's Donald Trump.
He epitomizes the enemy of everything good in this country.
So I think they're going to make another mistake because I think the real facts of the last election never came up that they concentrate on hate and to concentrate on one person.
At the same time, if you take a look at some of the infractions of the law from the other side of the aisle and how they distorted and misused the FBI in the last election raised all these questions, and it was totally ignored.
So that is what's happening now, but people are waking up.
And fortunately, that is the effort that people want to know.
But it's so hard to find in a political system like this just who's telling the truth.
And you can't even rely on the television news.
There was a time we over-relied on television news, and now you can't.
It's a legitimate complaint now not to rely on it for us to sort this out.
But generally speaking, there's a lot of verbiage about how wonderful liberty is and the Constitution is, but it's so insincere that it's difficult to say some of those same things in a sincere manner and say, you know, our guideline, our book that we're supposed to follow and the laws to try to guide us through all these problems, it's written down there.
Challenges to Liberty 00:08:16
But it's totally ignored.
I think the Constitution is not in healthy shape.
And unless the people change their minds and decide we need to be guided by that set of standards that was written down there and agreed to, rather than just saying more, more, more, print more, counterfeit more money, fight more wars.
It's almost exactly opposite of what was advertised and advocated when the Constitution was written.
But in spite of all the shortcomings of this, I think, Chris, that we can look at some of the places where people are waking up and hope we can contribute to that continuing.
Very good, Dr. Paul.
I'll finish with my closing statement.
And that is, you know, the overarching idea behind all of this is that central planning cannot work.
And that is a good thing.
We should always be happy that that's a fact.
The problem is, as central planning fails, you know, we have to endure a lot of pain and suffering because of it.
You know, and globalism, quote unquote, is central planning on a global scale.
So it's craziness to the max.
And that's what we have to deal with.
That's the position that we find ourselves in.
And from my view, it's falling apart, as it should.
That vaccine agenda did not succeed.
The passport, this was a global thing, obviously.
This wasn't just for one country.
This was for the whole world.
And that has not worked.
Yes, there are some stragglers out there, unfortunately, the people that still suffer under the most extreme governments.
But from the global standpoint, it failed.
It did not achieve its intended goal.
But they just ignore that and just move right on to the next thing.
Now we're dealing with climate change and the green energy.
And this is the big one.
This is the umbrella that this whole globalism is based on.
All of it rides on this.
And the people all over the world never felt for it.
They've been pushing this thing for 30, 40 years at least.
And despite endless propaganda, the people just could never get on board with this.
But that doesn't matter.
People want it or not.
They're going to try to implement these policies.
And we're highlighting how they're total failures, even right out the gate, even on a hostile public, they're going to try to pull this off.
They're going to fail.
But the answers, like Dr. Paul said in his last statement, are clear.
It's the exact opposite.
Decentralization, not centralization of power.
Limited and local government.
It's hard enough to rein in government as it is on a local level.
To think that you're going to have some kind of global institution is unworkable.
And then you need free markets and sound money.
And the sooner that we get to at least moving in that direction, forget about getting there.
Just at least moving in that direction, the better off we'll be and the less pain we'll have to endure.
Very good, Chris.
You know, one thing that our opposition represents, not everyone, but a lot who are in leadership position, is chaos is a benefit to them because it's been written.
Those who are dedicated Marxist economic and social planners, they think that it would be too hard to convince the people now to support a free market system.
So they say we have to destroy it and we have to prove that something new.
So anytime there's something wrong, even though they've created, they're creating problems with the monetary system, and they've created these problems with medical care and all these things.
So they create these problems and they use that as the excuse.
But a lot of people, though, will be sincere and they'll say, yes, but won't it be chaotic?
Won't it be worse if you just allow the people to make the decisions?
What if you didn't have the bureaucrats and the politicians who care about the people, care about public health, care about the environment, care about a sound currency?
What would happen if you didn't have people caring?
An individual is powerless to do this.
But you know what?
In a free society, it works out.
Matter of fact, it would be so much better than this group of people that nobody can quite identify or control.
And that is the part that where all the agencies of government, hundreds of thousands of carry up, and what they have are threats.
And the more problems they have, the more they add to it.
We have a problem with protecting our freedoms from the tax authorities.
And so, well, we'll just get 87,000 new ones.
And they will be kind and gentle to their customers, but you know what they're there for.
They do that because that's what enhances their power.
But you say, well, you can't find anybody that would be able to protect the environment.
That's too big.
You could under property rights.
Nobody in a free society has the right to pollute their neighbor's property.
There's a neighbor effect that should be recognized in a libertarian society.
We know we can't go next door and dump our garbage.
Why should we be able to take their water or pollute their water or pollute their air?
And there would be ways of controlling that without having a federal bureaucracy just spending more money and figuring out how do you protect the big guys.
How do we make sure that we protect our friends who are supporting us?
So it doesn't work.
People are concerned, and there's a legitimate reason for people to be concerned about public health and what it would be like without the government there, without Dr. Fauci telling us what to do with the CDC.
Well, everybody now knows that's a farce.
But that's the excuse they always use, like they're going to do good.
And if you disagree, you're going to be a bad person.
You're unpatriotic.
You're a criminal.
And therefore, we have to silence you.
Whoever believed two or three years ago that the effort by the government to silence people would be the use of the military-industrial complex through the business community, through corporatism, and put the onus on them to silence people through cancellation, plus the social media.
I mean, that's the arm of government that's pulling this off.
So that I'm sure there were warnings 5, 10, 15 years ago because some people did anticipate it.
But it's only been in these last couple years.
They had to scare the people to death about this virus that's going to kill everybody.
And right now they're just trying to accumulate the information on how many people actually got sick from the vaccine.
And unfortunately, I'm really concerned about that because when the statistics come out, it's not going to be a happy number, but that will be after the fact.
It's sort of look counting up your casualty after a non-no-win, unconstitutional, immoral war, and you count off the casualties.
What are you going to do about it?
Well, it's pretty tough.
The best thing you can do is recognize the mistakes and get people dedicated to working hard never to repeat those mistakes which has caused so much harm.
And whether it's regulating energy or whether it's regulating commerce and trade, believe me, freedom of choice and volunteerism and cooperation is far superior to the system that we have right now.
And we're seeing it crumble before our eyes.
But there is an answer, and it can be found in Liberty.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.
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