CHAUTAUQUA–Suppose that you want to lay and connect a natural-gas line.

According to press reports: Under longstanding New York law, a natural-gas utility may not charge you for this if the connection is within 100 feet of an existing natural-gas line.

Yet now some protest that it’s wrong to make existing customers subsidize new customers.

Hmmmm.

This subsidy has continued for decades? Why the protest now?

Moreover, government frequently subsidizes–or requires subsidies of–economic activity? Why protest this one?

≤ ≤ ≤

Somehow, just somehow, one suspects that those protesting may not even know what an Adam Smith necktie is.

It seems unlikely that they oppose subsidies in general.

Please ask yourself this: Do you believe they want to change the law regarding natural-gas lines and connections because the law is–or to put it more precisely, in effect requires–a subsidy of new natural-gas lines and connections?

It’s fair to suspect that the current protest has nothing to do with subsidies and instead is part of Albany’s hostility toward fossil fuels of whatever variety.

In other words, the state government’s hostility toward fossil fuels continues.

≤ ≤ ≤

With that, let’s pick up where we left off 103 weeks ago.

On July 21, 2023, we recalled that some believe electricity-powered products generate no emissions.

Yes, really.

But electricity ultimately comes not from outlets but from power plants, including those burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas.

So even if electricity-powered products themselves generate no emissions, the electricity production does generate emissions.

≤ ≤ ≤

If you really want a good laugh, look at where we were 103 weeks ago:

“Some of the same people who are pushing electricity-powered products are pushing to take–and are, in fact, taking–fossil-fuel-burning power plants offline.

“Just where do they think electricity will come from?

“The hard truth is that solar and wind aren’t satisfactory replacements, at least not for the foreseeable future.

“And we are a long way from harnessing cold fusion.

“So is it nuclear power they want?

“Somehow, just somehow, one thinks not.”

≤ ≤ ≤

Oh, but wait. Some on the very side of the political spectrum that–in general–has been hostile to nuclear power for decades are pushing guess what.

Drum roll, please.

So great is their hostility toward fossil fuels that they’re pushing nuclear power.

Never mind what they’ve said all along, including that the radioactive waste from producing nuclear power has such a long half life that the waste remains radioactive for thousands of years.

Not scores, not hundreds, but thousands of years.

In however many generations when those who come after us manage to harness something such as cold fusion, they may shake their heads at the short-sightedness of those who in the 20th and 21st centuries pushed nuclear power.

≤ ≤ ≤

On the subject of fossil fuels, meet Dr. Willie Soon, who patiently explained to the June 30 Advocates for Balance at Chautauqua, or ABC, audience his position that the sun, not carbon dioxide, is the overwhelming cause of temperature changes on Earth.

Soon is an independent scientist at the Center for Environmental Research and Earth Sciences in Salem, Mass.

≤ ≤ ≤

On its website, https://www.abcatchq.com, ABC posts videos of most of its speakers.

ABC was formed in 2018. Its mission is “to achieve a balance of speakers in a mutually civil and respectful environment consistent with the historic mission of Chautauqua” Institution. ABC is its own Section 501(c)(3) organization, legally separate from the institution.

Shortly after ABC posted the Soon video, the website hosting the video posted the following just under the video with a link to a United Nations website: “Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. Human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.”

But that is just part of what the UN website says. Please notice what was omitted: “Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. Such shifts can be natural, due to changes in the sun’s activity or large volcanic eruptions. But since the 1800s, human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.”

Hmmmm.

≤ ≤ ≤

Dr. Randy Elf’s Aug. 20, 2020, ABC presentation, on “How Political Speech Law Benefits Politicians and the Rich,” is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3ebymA7xOo.

(c) 2025 BY RANDY ELF