The Patriot Post® · Biden's Big Earth Day Giveaway

Yesterday marked the 52nd annual celebration of Earth Day, and we’ll forgive you if you missed it. The commie commemorative just doesn’t seem to have the same je ne sais quoi that it used to.

Still, that didn’t stop Joe Biden from taking full advantage. He marked the event by announcing a $7 billion federal grant boondoggle for solar projects that will “serve” low- and middle-income housing communities. In addition, our decrepit president announced plans to expand his American Climate Corps training program for “green” (read: government-subsidized) job opportunities.

As NBC News reports: “The grants are being awarded by the Environmental Protection Agency, which unveiled the 60 recipients on Monday. The projects are expected to eventually reduce emissions by the equivalent of 30 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and save households $350 million annually, according to senior administration officials.”

Three-hundred and fifty million annually? Spread across some 900,000 homes in low-income and disadvantaged communities? Wow, that’s roughly $400 per lucky household. Of course, that pittance isn’t nearly enough to offset the ravages of Bidenflation, but it’s the thought that counts.

And, hey, what better way to celebrate Vladimir Lenin’s birthday? And what better way for Biden to reconnect with and energize not only the urban poor, whose support he’s been bleeding of late, but also to reinvigorate the Jew-hating pro-Hamas youth vote, which might be growing impatient with his student loan transfer vote-buying scheme?

What’s the source of all this taxpayer-funded largess? The 60 gifts came from Biden’s redistributionist Solar for All program, which is part of the administration’s $27 billion “green bank” slush fund. It was created in 2022 when the Democrat-controlled Congress rammed through its deceitfully named $370 billion Inflation Reduction Act. The slush fund is intended to buy votes under the guise of reducing climate and air pollution while shoveling money to, in NBC News’s words, “neighborhoods most in need, especially disadvantaged and low-income communities disproportionately impacted by climate change.”

As for Earth Day itself, proponents appear to be trying a different tack this year, as their annual Thunbergian scolding and doomsaying don’t seem to be doing the trick. Don’t worry, they seem to be saying, be happy.

Here, for example, is what Hannah Ritchie, a senior researcher at Oxford who studies sustainability in relation to climate change, told her fellow travelers at USA Today: “People assume that in the 50 years since the first Earth Day we’ve made no progress. That we’re in a worse position now than we were in the 1970s, that there’s no point to environmental action.”

USA Today’s Elizabeth Weise picks up where Ritchie left off: “Quite the opposite is true. Climate-friendly advances that would have seemed impossible even 10 years ago are now commonplace. And three times in the past 50 years humanity has faced — and fixed — massive, man-made global environmental issues. This Earth Day, some climate scientists think climate change could be added to the list.”

Weise’s unbridled optimism seems to know no bounds. She adds: “But there’s something else happening that doesn’t get as much notice but is very hopeful. Experts — including the International Energy Agency — say that global carbon dioxide emissions will probably peak next year and certainly by 2030, using a scenario based on current policy settings.”

This, we suppose, is better than indoctrinating our children and causing young people to reconsider having kids due to their gloomy outlook for the future of planet Earth.

You might wonder, though, whether Wiese might want to curb her enthusiasm. After all, if there’s too much good news about the environment, then the green movement can’t dupe politicians and soak the American people as effectively as it might under the alarmist outlook that has defined Earth Day since its inception. Because if there’s one thing we need to remember about the “green movement,” it’s that green is the color of money.

Furthermore, the green movement can’t supply the world with sufficient energy. As economist Stephen Moore told Fox Business yesterday, “If we continue to shut down coal plants, not allow LNG terminals, not build nuclear power plants,” we’ll usher in an era of energy scarcity. Wind and solar, after all, are vastly inferior technologies when it comes to energy density. “But,” says Moore, “we have the capacity to lower our energy prices by an all-in energy policy.”

“If I sound a little frustrated,” Moore concluded, “I am. Because we have more energy than any other country in the world.”