Energy

De Blasio Is Out Of The Presidential Race, But He’s Bringing The Climate Fight To New York


Fresh off of his decision to drop out of the presidential race, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York is continuing his bid to over-regulate his city into economic decline. This morning he tweeted support for a variety of extreme measures to “fight climate change” that would do nothing for his constituents but make their city even more expensive and less efficient.

He wants to:

  1. Require that buildings emit less carbon pollution. Maybe they will have to turn off their heat in the winter and the air conditioning in the summer. Maybe they will be required to put solar panels on the roofs, but the number of solar panels will do little to supplement power usage in a high rise. Maybe he is referring to existing regulations about insulation. Maybe he just means newer water heaters and refrigerators that operate more efficiently. The point is, such a goal gives him a lot of room to mandate and require action by his constituents, all at the expense of the tenants who live and work in New York.
  2. Charge drivers for driving on New York streets at the times that people want to be driving. That might cut traffic—something every New Yorker would value—but it is also a recessive fee. It is already expensive to drive in New York. Now, he wants to make it even more expensive at certain hours so the only people who can afford to drive (excluding taxis and Ubers) will be the wealthy. The construction worker or the food delivery man will be priced out or forced to forego more of his hard-earned income to the city. 
  3. “Divest from fossil fuels.” This is a strategy that a lot of environmentalists and activists have used recently to show their disapproval of certain business practices. The question it raises in this case is, why would the city divest from investments in fossil fuel companies when it is still a major consumer of fossil fuels?
  4. Sue oil companies, presumably for contributing to pollution. This has already been tried by the State of New York and other local and state government with little success
  5. “Reduce unnecessary plastics.” This either means prohibiting certain disposable plastic items from public facilities and/or from private businesses. This is part of a trend that other municipalities have adopted to ban plastic straws and plastic bags. It could help reduce littering from disposable plastic in the city.

The most absurd part of this tweet is that the Mayor seems to forget that New York is just a city—a huge city, but just a city. De Blasio can make the life of his constituents more expensive and more difficult, but it will not make a significant impact on carbon pollution which is a global problem. New York is no longer engulfed in smog, like it was decades ago. This is not a local issue, and local-only solutions do nothing but create inconvenience and economic stress on the local population





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