Green New Deal, a future without consumer choice

February 10, 2019

OPINION by YAËL OSSOWSKI

Democratic lawmakers in Congress have unveiled the outline of a number of policies they’ve dubbed as the “Green New Deal”. The Green New Deal is a series of legislative proposals that will focus on massively transforming society in hopes of achieving a future with “net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.”

The Green New Deal offers Americans a frightening future where there is no consumer choice.

This outline of a Green New Deal is probably one of the most extreme attacks on consumer choice that could be conceived of in written form. We all agree mitigating climate change is a noble and important goal, but centrally remaking the American economy and depriving millions of their ability to choose the goods and services they rely on is unfair.

Not only does the plan enforce mandates that will likely bankrupt a host of industries and severely reduce output, but it also proposes to massively expand governmental control of which goods and services are offered to consumers, and in what form. If the goals of the outline are achieved, they will effectively eliminate the capacity of consumers to choose what type of fuels, products, food, or vehicles they can buy, and likely much more.

Planning to eliminate vehicles that run on internal combustion engines within ten years and doing away with air travel in favor of high-speed rail is an antiquated vision that, if enforced with federal laws, would likely delay any meaningful innovations in alternative energy that consumers would otherwise be supporting in the marketplace.

Requiring every building in America be retrofitted to an impossible environmental standard will rob consumers of the choice to determine how, within current zoning rules, they can build or maintain their properties. Unreasonable emission restrictions on small farms will likely make it impossible to maintain current levels of food production, thus depriving consumers of the thousands of food items they rely on.

Much like the ‘shovel-ready’ jobs the ‘New Green Deal’ proposes to offer every American, we hope this proposal is shoveled as quickly as possible where it belongs: in the past.

YAËL OSSOWSKI  is the Deputy Director for the Consumer Choice Center (CCC). The CCC represents consumers in over 100 countries across the globe, closely monitors regulatory trends in Ottawa, Washington, Brussels, Geneva and other hotspots of regulation and informs and activates consumers to fight for consumer choice.


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Has everyone forgot about Atlas Shrugged, maybe rereading it will give some insight on what happens when all these big ideas come to failure.

It so happens that that book was required reading in some collage courses in the early Sixtys.


Another extremist rightwing hit piece with the same old narrative: the liberals are taking away my rights.


There is no such thing as green capitalism


“We all agree mitigating climate change is a noble and important goal”


No we all do not agree….stop saying that….we can’t do a damn thing to change the climate one way or the other….we had better stand up to this kind of lunacy and say once and for all to the know it all’s to prove it….they have yet to prove we have anything to do with climate change and they have not shown us that a temperature increase is harmful….its all speculation…

Most of their theories are based on flawed computer models…..lets have an honest national forum not some European party for the jet set and bring all sides together and hash it out but stop saying we all agree because we do not all agree…


Why is this handout from CCC printed here in our local news sheet? The CCC’s parent organization is Students For Liberty (SFL), an American libertarian student organization linked to right-wing billionaires Charles and David Koch. CCC is closely allied with the tobacco industry, which certainly doesn’t have our best interests at heart, and is known to have received funding from Japan Tobacco International, who co-funded its launch event, and Philip Morris. (Most of their financing is not disclosed.) They’ve also fought against public health measures like soda taxes and fast food ingredient regulations. They appear to be an industry astroturf operation, not a consumer organization.


And just how do we have choices now?? PG&E for electricity . . . So Cal for gas . . . finally an electric car choice, but what ever happened to the hydrogen engine, providing power by water breaking down into its individual molecules? We have expensive smog regulations now – we require buildings be retrofitted for earthquake safety – and we do not have enough jobs for most to provide basic health and safety needs for themselves and their families without working multiple jobs. True, for some, change is hard – for some, change is scary. And when some don’t think they have what it takes to adapt to change, they rant about how unfair and unnecessary that change is, and they call those people who see the future solutions “stupid” or “insane”. Our challenge is to preserve our planet so that our future generations will be able to survive here. I’m sorry if you don’t like change . . . some didn’t like the New Deal, either, but it brought us out of the Great Depression. We are headed toward environmental disaster, and all too soon it will be too late to care about what choices we have as we won’t have any. I say, make the choices now – learn to adapt – learn to accept change and look at it as a challenge to be met with innovation, commitment, community and common sense rather than fear, contempt and disdain.


Can these people get any stupider? No more airplane or fossil fuels. Of course they can still fly. Just us peons have to take the train. Where do they come up with this $hit…..


The amount of air time this kid is getting from yahoo is staggering. Im not sure its a case of hey, look at these wonderful ideas this person has, or its a display of stupidity from a bartender gone off the rails. Save the world eh? guess that’s what she thought about while serving poison to her customers and sending them off kill somebody when liquored up. She says we’ll all be dead in 12 years from climate change yet she figures all these changes she promotes can be put into place before then? never gonna happen. Cow farts? how about human farts? A claim of a billion on earth yet there is 7.50+ billion people on earth. Maybe smog devices for our asses are in order. No need for millionaires you say, yet untold MILLIONS or perhaps BILLIONS will be spent by this bunch so one of them is hopefully dubbed the “commander and chief”.Pull your head out people.

The bar tenders and friends paradigm is based on the assumption that private property and free market inevitably lead to social and economic inequality. As such, the government has the moral and social duty to intervene to protect workers’ rights and to ensure that wealth is equally and harmoniously distributed. Socialist societies prevent economic competition within the country and with other countries.

Im glad I’ll be long gone before the like these people take full control of this country. God help America when they do.


A perfect description of what insanity is.