The False Promises of Environmentalism ... "With or Without Us"

"Mayor Pete" Buttyjudge (born 1982): "Look, I come from South Bend, Indiana. That's the home of UAW Local 5 and UAW Local 9. And I saw how the past generation of union auto jobs helped build the middle class and helped build communities like the one that I grew up in. And I also saw what happened when those factories closed. What the UAW is trying to do, right now, is to make sure that this next chapter of the auto industry .. which, let's be very clear, these cars are going electric with or without us."

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Troy Hailey / Ilíon (born 1957): I *also* am from South Bend, Indiana. And I have seen 25 years more of history than Pete Buttigieg has; moreover, I didn't start "at the top", as Pete Buttigieg did, but from very near the bottom. I have *seen* what he and his ilk have done to South Bend, and to America.

According to some stats I found, South Bend's population peaked in 1960, at 132,445, and was 103,353 as of 2021 -- keeping in mind that the city, like most US cities, has been chasing tax-payers -- madly annexing as much land as possible -- since the 1960s "urban renewal" craze.

In case Gentle Reader is unaware, South Bend, Indiana, is where these wonderful Studebaker cars used to spawn until the mid-1960s. I *recall* the devastation to the city when Studebaker closed its plants in South Bend in 1963 -- laid off vast swaths of its workforce -- relocating the corporation to Canada, and then totally ceased production in 1966. I *recall* driving past miles of the corpses of empty, shuttered factories well past 1980.

And I *recall* that it was the UAW honchos, in conspiracy with New Deal hold-outs deep within the bowls of the federal bureaucracy, carrying out FDR's New Deal socialist objective to consolidate all auto manufacturing into Detroit, who put Studebaker out of business.

-- If you have been at all paying attention, you *know* that the US is nowhere near to generating enough electricity to charge the batteries of over 290 million battery-powered vehicles.

-- If you have been at all paying attention, you *know* that even if the US were anywhere near to generating enough electricity to charge the batteries of over 290 million battery-powered vehicles, the power-grid could not sustain such a load.

-- If you have been at all paying attention, you *know* that a road trip of more than about 200 miles is out of the question with a battery-powered vehicle.

-- If you have been at all paying attention, you *know* that getting snow-bound in a battery-powered vehicle will likely leave you dead.

-- If you have been at all paying attention, you *know* that "renewable energy" schemes are nothing more than vehicles to hoover money from your pocket and into the pockets of rich politically-connected persons.

-- If you have been at all paying attention, you *know* that "green energy" cannot meet our current energy needs, much less adding the charging of the batteries of over 290 million battery-powered vehicles.

-- If you have been at all paying attention, you *know* that there are only two options to *meaningfully* increase electrical production in the US: build more a lot more coal-fueled and/or natural gas-fueled power plants OR build a few nuclear power plants.

-- If you have been at all paying attention, you *know* that the Democrats and other leftists and their "environmentalist" friends adamantly oppose both options, and that they *especially* oppose and demonize the only option which has the capacity to reduce their Great Boogey-Man of "carbon emissions".

-- If you have been at all paying attention, you *know* that the strip-mining that would be necessary to mine enough "rare earths" to build the batteries of over 290 million battery-powered vehicles would make the toxic environments of the late USSR or of today's Communist China look like a pleasant suburban park.

-- If you have been at all paying attention, you *know* that *nothing* the Democrats and their leftist puppet-masters advocate is ever aimed at the good of you or of your nation, but *always* has the goal of enslaving you in socialism, with them as your owners.

EDIT: Amusing to me, the Studebaker corporation started out as a buggy-whip manufacturer in Mansfield, Ohio, where I have lived since 1982.

@28:10 Pete Buttigieg asserting that we *must* accept being forced into battery-operated cars -- https://youtu.be/l-skV89tmFQ?t=1689