From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By STEPHEN MOORE

Things are not going well at all for the global warming crusaders. Despite hundreds of billions of tax dollars spent on green energy over the past decade, the world and America used more fossil fuels than ever before in history last year.

The electric vehicle movement is stalled out, solar and wind power are both still fringe forms of energy, and the green candidates got crushed in recent elections in Europe because voters are sick of the higher prices associated with green policies.

So, having struck out with consumers, businesses and at the ballot box, the greens now are moving on to the courts. The climate-change industrial complex has now joined forces with trial lawyers to advance their war on fossil fuels.

One of the more absurd lawsuits happened in Hawaii.

There, a group of 13 teenagers — honest, I’m not making this up — sued Hawaii’s government over its use of fossil fuels. Environmental law firms Our Children’s Trust and Earthjustice claim that Hawaii’s natural resources are imperiled by CO2 emissions. Even if that were true, shouldn’t they be suing China?

The settlement will require the state to eliminate fossil fuels from its transportation system by 2045, and also formally recognizes the right to file future lawsuits against other parties.

Democratic Gov. Josh Green even stood next to the young plaintiffs as he read a statement claiming, “This settlement informs how we as a state can best move forward to achieve life-sustaining goals.”

There is so much that is wrong about this decision. How did a bunch of teenagers possibly have standing to sue? What possible harm have they suffered from fossil fuels?

The irony is that this island paradise in the Pacific — whose primary industry is tourism — is going to collapse without fossil fuels. With no jets and cruise ships allowed, will tourists and business travelers have to arrive by sailboat?

But this new technique of using lawsuits to advance the anti-fossil fuels movement has spread to other states. Last August, a judge ruled that GOP-dominated Montana violated its constitution when it approved fossil fuel projects without taking climate change into account.

After recent flooding in Vermont, green activists sued the state for not abolishing fossil fuels.

Massachusetts is suing Exxon Mobil for adverse weather conditions.

There are now 32 cases filed by state attorneys general, cities, counties and tribal nations against companies including Exxon Mobil, BP and Shell. The lawsuits claim that the industry tried to undermine scientific consensus about the crisis.

Here’s what’s so frightening about these sham lawsuits from trial lawyers who hope to turn oil companies into cash cows similar to the tobacco lawsuits 20 years ago: The end game of lawsuits against states and oil and gas companies for using or producing energy because of alleged damage to the environment could bring about abolition of fossil fuels through the back door of the nation’s courthouses.

But what none of these judges or litigators take into account is the catastrophic economic effects of not using fossil fuels. As an example, the Left wants to abolish air conditioning, which requires electricity, which mostly comes from fossil fuels. But air conditioning saves tens of thousands of lives a year. What about the millions of jobs that would be wiped out with no fossil fuels? How many thousands of Americans would die in hospitals, or assisted living centers, or day care centers, or schools if the lights go out with no fossil fuel power plants?

Fossil fuels have saved millions more lives over the last century than they take. They make Americans much richer and safer and happier and healthier and more mobile. Meanwhile, there is no evidence backing up the absurd claim by teenagers that if Hawaii stopped using fossil fuels, the state’s weather conditions would improve.

Will judges take that into consideration when they try to rob Exxon and coal companies of their profits for the sin of making life on earth much better?

Stephen Moore is a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a senior economic advisor to Donald Trump. His latest book is: “Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government Is Devouring Our Economy.”

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

(Featured Image Media Credit: Screen Capture/Supreme Court of the United States)

From LifeSiteNews

By Frank Wright

With Nigel Farage and Reform U.K. from the right, and George Galloway and his Workers’ Party from the left, the populist element threatens to make the cheerless pantomime of British politics entertaining – and interesting – again.

The United Kingdom’s general election is days away. Thursday, July 4, a memorable date for American home rule, may see a degree of self-rule return to Britain as the liberal establishment is shaken in its heartland by populists from the right and left of the center of permanent government.

Last week current Conservative Foreign Secretary David Cameron said on video that British policy on Ukraine was “fixed” and that nothing would change if Labour won the election – as many expect they will.

Yet a rising tide of populism led by two charismatic figures has complicated the situation.

Despite attempts routinely seen in European nations to “lock out” populists from mainstream media, Nigel Farage’s Reform continues to surge. Mass rallies across the country combine with several polls showing his party now pushing the Conservatives into third place nationally in three polls.

When the first poll showed Reform a point ahead of the Tories, Farage claimed his party was now “the real opposition to Labour.”

BREAKING

Reform UK has just overtaken the Conservatives in the polls.

We are now the real opposition to Labour.

Join me on ITV1 in 20 minutes. pic.twitter.com/jrPaf86PbM

— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) June 13, 2024

Farage has complained that his party is not being given fair media coverage. Reform have cautioned against believing mainstream media polls, as their own claim to show far stronger support – such as this from July 1.

As many former Conservative voters openly call for their party to get “zero seats,” Nigel Farage and George Galloway are rising in the polls to challenge both parties of government – widely seen by their traditional voter base as having betrayed them.

Almost all polls exclude Galloway’s Workers’ Party from their calculations, locking his voice out on screen. But it is his voice which has resonated with many who share his support of Gaza against Israel’s ongoing genocide.

Galloway claims that the established parties have “abandoned the working class.” He claims to stand against “the uniparty” of British politics, having denounced the “one-party state” of Britain in colorful terms in the past.

His recent sentiments on the merits of both the Labour and Conservative leaders will be shared by many.

“I have never seen an election in which two people who less deserve to be the Prime Minister of Britain are competing for that office.”

Workers Party of Britain leader George Galloway says voters are fed up with the main political parties. pic.twitter.com/88JotpxXcL

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) June 19, 2024

With Galloway from the left, and Farage from the right, the populist element threatens to make the cheerless pantomime of British politics entertaining – and interesting – again.

Farage came to prominence as a leading figure in the “Brexit” movement, which following then Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to hold a referendum, saw the U.K. vote in it to leave the European Union.

Many British voters – known as “remainers” – sought to remain in and seek to rejoin the E.U., and hope that a vote for the Labour Party will realize this ambition.

British Christian commentator Peter Hitchens criticized the referendum at the time, saying that it introduced a conflict over sovereignty that replaced another. He said that the referendum made the popular vote sovereign at the expense of Parliament, and that the membership of the E.U. had also done the same. This, he said in 2023, had diluted the power of Parliament overall.

'Ever since the 1970s the UK has given away so much of its sovereignty, and people don't realise how little room for manoeuvre the British Government has.'

Peter Hitchens and Alex Deane discuss the UK leaving the ECHR amid the growing migrant crisis. pic.twitter.com/zTLgowelR3

— GB News (@GBNEWS) August 14, 2023

Hitchens concluded that the referendum really contested the supremacy of Parliament in determining the fate of the nation.

Election as referendum on Parliament?

This election can be seen as a sort of second referendum – on the legacy of that Parliament and how its determination to act against the nation should be judged by its population.

The Conservative Party has ruled Britain for the last 14 years. It has attacked Libya (in 2011), unleashing waves of mass migration, which saw the party then call for integration and diversity as scandals over child sexual abuse (2010-2014)  and the public execution of a British soldier (2013) by immigrant populations hit the press.

The Conservatives, as with many other parties of the liberal consensus in the West, strongly supported lockdowns and burdened the nation with record borrowing to fund the destruction of the high street businesses, community groups and the education and development of children and young people. They aggressively promoted the so-called “vaccines,” with conservative commentator Andrew Neil saying it was “time to punish the unvaccinated.”

With its “winner takes all” system of “first past the post,” the party with the most votes in each constituency wins. This means Reform may take millions of votes, but still end up with very few seats.

Elections are not only a matter of who counts the votes. They are also determined by who draws the boundaries – in reality and in the media.

Mass migration breaks the game

Yet it is mass migration – and its profound effects on the politics, policing, and practices established in Britain which is mainly driving support to Farage’s Reform. Why is that the case?

It is a reality which can no longer be ruled out of bounds by the politics and media of the establishment.

Mass migration has increased significantly under the Tories, as the Conservatives are known. So have laws against free speech, including a National Security Act which threatens to criminalize investigative journalism. Nigel Farage was himself “debanked” under measures permitted by Conservative rule. The party of law and order has marked the nation by the absence of both. 

READ: Press freedom under threat as UK National Security Act could put journalists in jail

Christians have been prosecuted and cautioned by police for praying, preaching the Gospel, and singing hymns. In May 2024, the Daily Telegraph reported that “Christians are the most despised minority in Britain” as a result.

The U.K. now has the highest tax burden in 70 years, and it is set to rise higher still. Taxes have risen in the U.K. more sharply than in the U.S. or the E.U. in the last five years.

For these reasons the most vociferous opponents of the Conservative Party are now its own former core voters.

This election will be lost by the Conservatives. It may finish them. But a massive Labour victory is not guaranteed, and the chaos created by Labour and the Tories in Britain is driving people towards populism to secure a meaningful change – from the politics of national suicide.

A guide for Christian voters

The U.K.’s Christian Institute has produced a guide to all the parties’ policies, showing where each faction stands on issues of concern to the near 60 percent of the population which identifies as Christian, per the most recent census in 2021.

Nigel Farage’s Reform is the only party to oppose the LGBTQI agenda in schools. Reform also supports marriage with a proposed raise in the marred couples’ tax allowance. It wishes to abolish “hate crimes,” including repressive measures on speech, and has pledged to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits most meaningful action against mass migration. 

The elephant in the room

The migration issue remains one which dominates ordinary life in Britain, but whose mention has been routinely and deliberately excluded from mainstream debate and media coverage for the decades during which it has taken place.

Nigel Farage has won one referendum – on Britain leaving the E.U. in 2016. Most polls said he would lose that one. One said “Leave” would lose by 10 points.

With the elephant of migration now dominating what little room is left in Britain, Farage may be on course to deliver another profound shock to a system designed to conduct business as usual – regardless of the interests and opinions of its people.