Cal Thomas: Cooling down for $200 trillion

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Today is Thursday September 21st. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Paul Butler.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. Up next, Cal Thomas on a heated debate in the United Kingdom over electric cars. Despite conservative pushback, Britain’s leaders say it may be too late to unplug.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Rishi Sunak has decided not to extend the deadline requiring all new car sales in the UK to be electric by 2030. Many conservative Tories say the goal is impossible to meet. But according to The London Times, government ministers are sticking by tough interim targets. They have embraced the “climate change” faith and are supported by virtually all UK media, which refuse to interview scientists who take a different view.

Charging stations remain a problem, along with battery life. One cabbie said he is afraid to turn on the air conditioner during summer for fear he will run out of electricity before his workday is done. Another told me he has a good deal at a car park that includes a charging station which he uses for an overnight top-off. But what about lengthy road trips or emergencies when the car battery is depleted? A London Times editorial gets it right: “Britain’s infrastructure is far from ready for [this] abrupt transition…”

British public opinion is mostly opposed to the rapid transition from gas to electricity. A poll taken last May of readers of the Daily Express newspaper found a whopping 88 percent would not switch to an electric vehicle. More recently that attitude seems to be changing and why wouldn’t it, given the daily media drumbeat that the climate is getting worse and it is the fault of humans.

According to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, “one in every 32 cars now comes with a plug, with 1.1 million electric cars now in use” on UK roads. While small compared to the total number of gas-based vehicles on the road, the figure is up by more than 50 percent over the past year.

There are other problems, including paying China and other bad actors for raw materials needed to build electric car batteries. For instance, Republican Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey claims forced child labor is being used to mine cobalt in Congo, the world's largest producer of the mineral. Should we be morally comfortable with this?

Then there’s the cost. What happens when British and Americans – and who knows how many other nations – force their people to buy electric cars and make other lifestyle changes because of climate change? Bloomberg calculates lowering global temperatures will cost $200 trillion. Three years ago, Morgan Stanley said the cost to stop global warming would be $50 trillion.

This is all about politics, more government control of our lives, and the loss of individual freedom. What happens when Britain and America have gone electric and the results are not as predicted? Who will take responsibility? Certainly not those now promoting this fiction. If you’re in government and pushing something that doesn’t pan out, you never have to admit error.

I’m Cal Thomas.

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