Larry Kudlow: The radical climate change agenda equals big government socialism

In an especially bold must-read editorial today, the Wall Street Journal took aim at what they call "the West's climate policy debacle," adding that "utopian energy dreams are doing great economic and security damage." 

They quoted the final word of the famed movie The Bridge on the River Kwai: "madness" and they concluded by quoting historian Arnold Toynbee, that "civilizations die by suicide, not murder." 

It was embarrassing enough to America watching Joe Biden fist-bumping Saudi ruler MBS. That kind of casual gesture is usually reserved for good friends, not American presidents interacting with foreign leaders, but the real problem is that President Biden had to beg the Saudis for more oil production and, indeed, has gone to other dictators in Venezuela and Iran because of his, and I quote the Journal, "utopian dream to punish fossil fuels, and sprint to a world driven solely by renewable energy." 

The Journal goes on to say, and I quote, "It's time for political leaders to recognize this manifest debacle and admit that, short of a technological breakthrough, the world will need an ample supply of carbon fuel for decades to remain prosperous and free." 

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Viewers of this show will recognize the same themes yours truly has been arguing for the duration of Joe Biden's collapsing presidency. 

Shrinking baseload power, such as natural gas and nuclear, has been replaced by unreliable renewables that have driven energy prices sky-high, including gasoline and electricity prices paid by typical American families. 

Crazy goals such as carbon-free electricity by 2035 and a 32% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 highlight the insanity of Biden's radical climate activism. Renewables have proven unreliable and unsustainable. 

The war against fossil fuels—including extremist environmental restrictions that have ended permitting for drilling, pipelining, and refining—have taken a huge toll on the economy and delivered a massive inflation tax on the middle class. 

A new TIPP poll on climate change shows that 32% of Americans approve, and a whopping 57% disapprove. Incidentally, it's not only here in the U.S. A recent U.N. report where 10 million people worldwide were asked to rank 16 issues in order of importance found that climate change finished dead last and I want to add to all this the important theme that the radical climate change agenda equals big government socialism. 

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It's an attempt to transform American society into a centrally planned regulatory state of the sort that the late Nobel Prize winner Friedrich Hayek wrote about in his famous book, The Road to Serfdom. Newt Gingrich will be here in a short while to talk with me about radical climate change and big government socialism. 

For now, I would note that the war against free market capitalism that is deeply embedded in the war against fossil fuels that comprises the radical climate activism of the Biden administration. 

Across the board, through a regulatory octopus of agencies as far-reaching and unrelated as the EPA, the FTC, the SEC, and the Federal Reserve, the Bidens have attempted to employ what Steve Forbes calls modern regulatory socialism. 

Hopefully, the recent Supreme Court decision ruling against the EPA will slow this regulatory socialism down, or even stop it altogether. Let us hope, but Joe Biden doesn't understand that either. While in Saudi Arabia, the fist-bumper-in-chief threw a temper tantrum at Senator Joe Manchin for ending the high-tax and renewable energy spending rampage. He then promised to counter Manchin with a massive onslaught of yet more executive branch regulations. But the Supremes just said you can't do that Uncle Joe, or hadn't you heard? 

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Finally, Joe Biden proudly said many times on his Middle East trip that he has a new Iran nuclear deal on the negotiating table, and it's just up to Iran now to take that deal. This is utter insanity, but part of that deal would end Donald Trump's stern economic sanctions and allow Iran to reopen their oil spigots and better finance their terrorism in the region and around the world. 

That's another place where this radical climate activism has taken the Biden administration. Thank heavens the cavalry is coming, but will it get here soon enough?

This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow's opening commentary on the July 18, 2022, edition of "Kudlow."