The world is ending once again, in case you’re missing it. Today’s skyfall is the failure of the Green New Deal in the Senate. Except, of course, it wasn’t really the Green New Deal; the vote was only for a resolution to take up the proposal as an actual bill. But no matter: as far as you know, Republicans thwarted the Democrats once again in their plan to save the world.

Well, not exactly. Because the vote was for a resolution, the goal was really to see if there was enough support for it in the Senate. Not Congress, just the Senate. So naturally the Republicans managed to defeat the Democrats 53 to 45, based on the six seats they must have stolen from a fair election.

But not really. The resolution was defeated 57-0. Not a single Democrat voted for it; and if you’re quick with math, you’ll note that three Democrats (and whatever the hell that whackjob from Maine is) also voted no. Therefore, the tricky Republicans voted while the rest of the Democrats were out saving horses from a burning barn.

No, not so fast. Those Democrats were all present, and they voted “present,” because they were protesting the outcome of the Mueller report. Or the Jussie Smollett story. Or that thing that happened with the other thing.

Um, alas. No, the Democrats voted present because they want to keep their jobs. The entire Green New Deal, which originated with that goofy house across the street, is a nakedly socialist power grab that would destroy the country. And every Democrat in the Senate knew it.

How do we know it’s socialist? Because it’s a save-the-earth policy. Follow us on this one.

As you probably know, every proposal, bill, or plan to Save the Earth from Global Climate Catastrophe is a socialist paradigm. We know this because if you strip all the nouns out of a typical Green proposal, you can drop in socialist terms and the structure still holds. This reverse Mad Libs analysis is pretty easy to do: basically, the government takes over everything, distributes assets and money globally, is beholden to no one, and suddenly everyone is saved forever by minds much smarter than you.

And thus we learn that those horrible, anti-science Republicans somehow and narrowly voted against saving the world.

Did you know that the Green New Deal could be paid for with the same amount of money we spend each year on defense? If you didn’t know that, and the Czar didn’t, because he heard the cost of the Green New Deal would cost multiples of our entire Gross Domestic Product, you will be happy to learn that it must only cost $686 billion. No, in fact, that’s exactly backward. The Defense Department is getting that amount—smaller than other years—which comes as a surprise to many Green New Deal supporters who heard that Defense pulls in trillions.

Still, you have to be upset. After all, the United States has 5% of the world’s population and uses 80% of the world’s energy. Doesn’t that sound terrible? Actually, one suspects that’s actually a really good thing: the United States is using its energy to produce really amazing things that benefit the entire world.

But wait a minute, wait a minute…80% of the world’s energy? The Czar wasn’t aware there was a maximum amount of energy available to us. After all, 18% of our nation’s energy is renewable, which is an amount that also stuns a lot of people. Yes, it’s that high. And ready for more? Another 20% on top of that is nuclear-based, which while not strictly renewable (there’s uranium to be mined and waste to be carefully stored), is safe and pollution free. You know, a lot of the remaining 62% could be replaced with nuclear power, leaving some clean-burning coal and natural gas to round out the balance to produce more power.

About all that would leave is that awful, polluting petroleum energy sources. Except, even today, those account for less than 1% of America’s energy consumption.

In other words, we might account for 80% of the world’s energy usage, but we’re actually not producing very much pollution at all. The better question is why isn’t the rest of the world catching up to us?

Maybe because they’re morons and don’t have the resources to produce it. No, that can’t be it: because the statement “80% of the world’s energy supply” assumes there’s a 100% limit, with only 20% left for anyone else. Where else do we see this zero-sum logic?

Right: socialism. There’s an idea present in almost all socialist doctrine that runs along the line of “there’s only so much of X, and the rich have most of it.” You have heard it from Bernie Sanders gripe about the one-percent-of-one-percent, from Obama decrying the rich hogging 99% of available healthcare, or Clinton’s yelping about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

It’s poppycock, of course. There isn’t a finite amount of energy available: there’s enough uranium in the world to produce 100% of the world’s current power demands for over a millennium, and enough light-water fuel to add a few hundred on top of that. And the sun, well, that produces both solar and wind power. The earth’s gravity will produce hydroelectric power and geothermal power for billions of years.

This makes one wonder: if the United States is using 80% of the world’s current electrical output, when is the rest of the world going to catch up?

Evidently, we’re wrong about something, here. The Czar also learned this morning that the United States produces most of the world’s pollution. Sure, you and the Czar thought this was China and India, but a whole bunch of sources will agree that those countries have drastically reduced their pollution output, while the United States has not.

That sounds bad, provided you don’t look too closely at the basis for the claim. China and India have reduced their polluting emissions…but they’re still the worst. They drop from the top only if you look at reductions as a percentage, and not as a unit. In other words, if a thief steals $100,000 from Bank of America, he’s less deserving of punishment than a thief who steals $25,000 from the Oakdale Bank of West Summit, because the percentage of the total cash taken from Bank of America is a lot, lot lower than Oakdale’s. You get into real trouble when you rank two different entities solely by percentages.

That’s as dumb as suggesting California needs more senators than Wyoming does because they have more people. And no one could be that stupid, could they?

Speaking of yes, the whole notion of top polluters is a real mess to figure out. Did you know America is the second-worst producer of carbon dioxide? China is first, by the way.

Actually, the United States is far behind China. And know who is third, right behind America? The European Union, which as we know is the Greenest Damned Paradise on Earth. You thought India, with its slums? Or Russia, with its lax safety? No, America and Europe are practically hand-in-hand in carbon dioxide output. The next time a European takes you to taks about America’s rejection of global climate initiatives, feel free to remind them that their carbon dioxide makes them a nearly equally major problem.

Okay, well let’s question about whether carbon dioxide is a pollutant. It’s true you can’t breathe it like you can nitrogen and oxygen, but trees and plants sure do. And its ability to trap solar radiation is definitely a thing. But how much CO₂ is too much?

Gosh. nobody really knows. But there must be a maximum amount, right? And each day, we must get closer to that. Zero sum.

All right, let’s concede that we really don’t know how much carbon dioxide is bad. Studies from the last fifty years aren’t exactly in agreement, and predicted levels for destruction have either been safely exceeded or have not actually been reached in their predicted time frames. Let’s drop the whole thing.

Surely there are other things America is doing that are bad for the environment. What about air pollution? Aren’t we producing a lot of toxins in the air with all the coal we burn? You’d think so, but America ranks eighth from the bottom of a list of countries producing toxic air. Given how much coal we cleanly burn, that’s not a surprise. China, though, is at the top of the list.

Polluted water? China. Not the United States, which is far, far down that list. In fact, some of our industrial water is cleaner than what comes out of most kitchen taps around the world.

What about countries who dump plastic in the ocean? Well, America is really far down that list. Really far. China, of course, is at the top, and if you aren’t seeing a pattern by this point, the Czar isn’t sure what to tell you.

Indeed, when you look at environmental catastrophes, America seems to be down the list by quite a bit, except for carbon dioxide emissions. Which, conveniently, seems to be at the center for all Green initiatives requiring the government to take over private industry.

Know where government has taken over private industry? China.

It’s not a surprise the Green New Deal failed. Even Democrats know that if they support this nonsense, they’re going to get kicked like a jackass at election time. It’s just socialism in a different crisis—a crisis created by playing with numbers that make America look worse than it is.

There’s nothing New about that Deal. And it’s no longer Green.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.