If America does not gut her economy by eliminating all carbon emissions, her people will suffer great loss of comfort due to the ever-changing climate.These are the findings and threats of the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which met in Egypt this month.Within this report, the effects of climate change, especially driven by carbon emissions, are examined in detail, from its effect on clean water to the destruction of ecosystems to the disruption of food supply.Not only does this report advocate for a complete restructuring of our industrialized country, it builds this conclusion upon the premise of white guilt.It is argued that those in the United States most threatened by climate change are the “marginalized communities [excluded] from the benefits of historical fossil-fueled growth.”The solution presented in this report is top-down control of industry.According to the draft of the report, while adaptive measures should be implemented where change has already occurred, humanity must reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 if there is any hope for the planet.Bjorn Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, found in his research that this promise will cost the American people hundreds of trillions of dollars, even if zero emissions were feasible.It is hard to imagine how drastically the government would need to infringe upon the rights of its citizens to accomplish this goal.In 2020, the American people got a taste of it when the doors of the economy were forcibly shut and bolted. The aftertaste of that decision lingers today every time Americans buy eggs or fill their car with gas. SEE ALSO: Inside the great fear: climate activism and its hopelessness Now imagine the same overreach, in every productive sector of the economy.Factories dismantled. Transportation and supply chains halted. Electricity only available for certain hours of the day. Oil drilling prohibited. A weaker America.Despite claims that the most equitable solutions will “strengthen community resilience and self-determination”, I hope Americans are not so foolish as to believe that.While the great green promise hopes that a gradual phase away from carbon-emitting fuels will be upon us soon, the reality of the situation is that the technology in existence today could not support any semblance of a functional society with the electric, renewable, and battery capacity thus far achieved.More government intervention is not the only solution.In fact, less would be more effective.Adaptation and innovation is the name of the game in climate change, and these two processes function better the smaller the scale.For example, consider coastal flooding. The government could either slash all carbon emissions, bringing poverty upon its people, and, assuming the emission cuts in the US are not replaced by another nation such as China, hope that the negligible decline in temperature that this produces also stops the permafrost from melting.Or, we could build a sea wall around coastal property. Perhaps even restore a wetland to retain and restrain some of the flooding conditions. SEE ALSO: Pennsylvania Spent Millions of Taxpayers’ Dollars on Trans Treatments For Minors A similar debate is found in the agricultural sector. The claim here is that changing weather patterns will bring pests to monoculture crop systems, or that the crops themselves will not grow because of the change in environment.Perhaps, but then farmers will grow new crops. Perhaps they will even farm previously unfarmable land that has experienced massive greening via carbon dioxide fertilization.Climate scientist Kim Cobb was wrong when she told the Washington Post that the report did a “remarkably good job of connecting the dots between climate change and the things that really matter to folks.”What matters to the American people is stability and strength. Drastic climate policies will bring sacrifice like the nation has never seen.The American people do not want to see the sunset of their nation.So they will adapt, for adapt we must, and adapt we always have.They will innovate using the strength of our free market system to someday invent truly renewable, healthy, sustainable, and affordable sources of energy.Rather than cutting ourselves off at the knees, America ought to build up her economy to withstand the storms of change and weather them as they arrive.Catie Robertson is an intern with the Convention of States Project, a project of Citizens for Self-Government.
