Applying the theory in this case, the President has “revealed” that he prefers slightly cheaper gasoline and more CO2 emissions to the alternative of elevated gasoline prices and reduced CO2 emissions. “I’m gonna work like the devil to bring gas prices down.” - President Biden /jUIrtCu7nuĪccording to the theory, a consumer prefers the bundle of goods he purchases to the alternative ones, holding the prices of goods and income constant and presuming he is rational. Samuelson proposed that rather than examining consumer behavior based on “utility,” economists might instead observe purchasing decisions. If the American people are unwilling to accept $3.50 gasoline, will they tolerate the current French average of $7.45 per gallon, the sort of price necessary for the environmental radicals to make good on their “net-zero” fever dreams?Įconomists call this concept “ revealed preference.” In 1938, American economist Paul A. Forced to choose between the cheap fossil fuels that enable Americans’ high standards of living and climate idealism, the Democratic Party chooses the former for political reasons. The left’s professed desire to price carbon fuels out of existence does not translate well to reality. Thus, American progressives are perfectly sanguine in strangling oil producers in the Bakken or Eagle Ford shale formations with red tape and canceled pipelines in the name of climate exigency while simultaneously begging foreign nations to increase production.Īs the cost of the Biden administration’s climate idealism materializes, even true believers blanche. But it is to say that most serious people know that sea level rise of approximately one inch per decade is a manageable long-term challenge, not Armageddon.īut apocalyptic predictions are the best way to persuade citizens out of their liberties (see: Australia and COVID) and concentrate greater power in the federal leviathan, arguably the Democratic Party’s core mission since Woodrow Wilson. This isn’t to say climate change doesn’t exist or that humans don’t cause some portion of it. Between the two, the climate change concern is the likelier façade. Logically, progressives must be relatively unserious about one of these two concerns. greenhouse gas emissions at least in half by 2030.
That’s why I’ve set a bold new goal of cutting U.S. There’s no time to waste when it comes to the existential threat of climate change. Reconciling a desire for low gasoline prices and more oil production abroad and a desire for net zero carbon emissions in the foreseeable future and curtailed drilling at home is impossible. As any student of even elementary economics knows, the lower gasoline’s price, the higher the quantity consumed, and the more CO2 is emitted. Ensuring low gas prices is incompatible with these assertions.
Yet, the environmentalist wing of progressivism constantly warns, as the President does, that climate change is an immediate and existential threat to our national and economic security. Famously, the sitting US President begged the Saudi royal family to produce the oil his party didn’t want extracted in North America. This follows rhetoric from a few months ago in which Biden blamed oil companies and OPEC for rising prices and released oil from the national strategic reserve. Hence the president’s recent pledge to “work like the devil” to bring gas prices down for American families. With inflation now at 7.5 percent, its fastest pace since 1982, President Biden feels the political heat. The AAA nationwide average for regular unleaded gas stands at $3.51 per gallon, $1 more than this time last year and $1.50 more than election day 2020.