COVID lockdowns and mandates: A model for addressing climate change?

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COVID lockdowns mandates climate change

COVID lockdowns and mandates: A model for addressing climate change?

Over the past two years of two weeks to flatten the curve, our government overlords have shredded the Constitution and implemented a plethora of COVID lockdowns and mandates that some are saying could serve as a model to address so-called climate change.

If you thought government’s abuse of power during COVID was bad, wait until you see how so-called climate change is about to make it worse (excerpts from Op-Ed by Kristin Tate via TheHill.com):

The past two years have been a checklist for the worst impulses of government and public sentiment. COVID allowed for supposedly temporary measures to morph into two years of “emergency” restrictions.

But what if COVID was only the opening act, and another proclaimed crisis is the main event? Implementing significant but partial restrictions, one by one, in the name of the common good can allow for encompassing government control that results in relatively little backlash. Fear over climate change could lead to long-term soft lockdowns, given the precedent of immense growth of government power and significant support for sweeping state actions.

This isn’t a right-wing fever dream. Calls for harsh government measures in the name of saving the environment are already in the parlance of influential organizations and figures.

In November 2020, the Red Cross proclaimed that climate change is a bigger threat than COVID and should be confronted with “the same urgency.” Bill Gates recently demanded dramatic measures to prevent climate change, claiming it will be worse than the pandemic. Despite millions of people having died from COVID, former governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney last year predicted that climate deaths will dwarf those of the pandemic.

Lockdowns, which significantly reduced carbon emissions during 2020, could be the solution. (emphasis mine)

In March 2021, I wrote about a report published by a group of climate scientists that documented how carbon emissions fell thanks to COVID lockdowns and mandates and how, in order to meet goals spelled out in the Paris Climate Agreement, they suggested that pandemic lockdowns needed to occur once every two years to end global warming and keep the earth at “safe” temperature levels.

Such a scenario could easily become a reality via the well-established abuse of executive power we’ve witnessed from the White House over the past several presidencies — an end-run around the Constitution that laid the groundwork for the destruction of what little remains of the separation of powers and the role of Congress as the representatives of the people.

Using Trump’s abuse of executive power as an example, far-left Democrats have posited the idea of continuing the tradition to address climate change.

In an appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation during the 2020 election season, Washington Governor Jay Inslee (D) — he was running against Biden at the time for the Democrat nomination for president — was asked about Trump’s emergency declaration for border security. In response, Inslee warned Republicans that this abuse of executive power would greenlight a new standard by which Democrats would govern on issues like so-called climate change.

“Republicans ought to stand up on their hind legs, because they took an oath to the Constitution, not to Donald Trump, and reverse this decision.

“But if there are new rules, the Republicans have to understand that Democrats will play by whatever the rules are, particularly when it comes to climate change.”

Inslee’s suggestion that climate change could be the next national emergency shouldn’t be taken lightly.

One of Biden’s first appointments to his administration was John Kerry as “climate czar.” In an appearance on the world stage prior to Biden’s inauguration, Kerry told a gathering at the World Economic Forum that he and Biden were committed to the New World Order plan known as the Great Reset to address climate issues, and he reminded those in attendance of Joe Biden’s commitment to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement, and his plans for imposing carbon-dioxide restrictions.

On his first day in office, Biden signed an executive order rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement as a first major action in what will likely be many addressing global warming, but that did little more than put America back where she was when Obama left office.

In an interview with Rachel Maddow shortly after becoming Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer used Trump’s track record of abuse of executive power to suggest that Biden do the same and declare a state of emergency to address climate change:

“It might be a good idea for President Biden to call a climate emergency.

“He can do many, many things under the emergency powers … that he could do without legislation.

“Trump used this emergency [power] for a stupid wall, which wasn’t an emergency. But if there ever was an emergency, climate is one.” (emphasis mine)

Sen. Marco Rubio essentially predicted that Trump’s abuse of executive power to declare his border wall a “national emergency” could greenlight Biden’s to do the same in the name of fighting climate change. In a January 2019 CNBC interview, the Florida Republican issued the following warning:

“We have to be careful about endorsing broad uses of executive power.

“If today, the national emergency is border security … tomorrow the national emergency might be climate change.”

Of course, Rubio and the rest of the spineless Republican Party did nothing to stop Trump’s abuse of executive power, but you can easily replace the words “border security” with “COVID” and come to the same conclusion.

By the way, Democrats aren’t limiting themselves to global warming. COVID lockdowns and mandates and the abuse of executive power could serve as a model to advance the far-left agenda in many other areas:

Should COVID lockdowns and mandates lead to climate change lockdowns and mandates, Big Brother Republicans and Democrats have already put things in place to make sure everyone complies.

Facial recognition technology, driver surveillance programs, license plate-reading software, and drones like the ones used to enforce COVID lockdowns could be used to enforce climate lockdowns.

And let’s not forget that the bipartisan infrastructure bill signed into law last year included money to launch a program that makes it possible for government to track every mile of every trip you take.

It has become a game of sorts for Republicans to ridicule the climate agenda of far-left Democrats as simply too extreme to be a serious threat, but I remember how they ridiculed healthcare reform when Democrats first proposed Obamacare.

Chuck Schumer and the rest of the Democrat leadership and the socialists running the party have been setting the agenda for the Party, so talk about climate change lockdowns shouldn’t be dismissed as the rhetorical rantings of extremists. Nor should we assume that they will fail to advance that agenda, particularly in light of the noticeable shift to the left by Trumpist Republicans who have replaced conservatism with nationalism.”

COVID lockdowns and mandates and the abuse of executive power have gone unchecked by both Republicans and Democrats over the past two-plus years, so all bets are off if they decide to use it as a model to do it again in the name of climate change.

 

David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties.

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