New York seems determined to challenge California for the title of green energy “leader,” regardless of what doing so costs residents. The state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is reportedly “considering” (read: almost certainly will adopt) rules that will be used to justify more forced electrification and higher energy costs for New Yorkers.
The DEC intends to accomplish this using new estimates of the “social cost of carbon” (SCC). The SCC is a made-up number, calculated using simplistic models that assume a one-to-one relationship between carbon emissions and global temperature. After estimating how much carbon dioxide will get released into the atmosphere and the resulting temperature increases, the models project the resulting environmental doom and its costs: rising seas that will flood coastal cities and sink island nations, the expansion of virulent tropical diseases into colder climates, and megadroughts leading to crop losses.
