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American law requires official support for low-greenhouse-gas (ghg) hydrogen made from renewables, nuclear power and fossil fuels with carbon capture. Some activists are hostile towards carbon-capture technologies, which they believe are giving Big Oil a longer lease on life, but un climate experts have said they are needed to achieve long-term climate goals. America will support all forms of carbon capture capable of making it the global leader in this nascent area. Bloombergnef (bnef), a research firm, reckons that merely the projects announced so far will propel America to a six-fold increase in its ccs utilisation by 2030. Also encouraging are early indications that the Biden administration wants to soften problematic protectionist provisions written into the new laws. One worry was that the desire to combat Chinese domination of vital supply chains will lead to an overreaction, with stringent tax guidance forcing American firms to domesticate supply chains radically and quickly or risk losing out on subsidies. Proposals are also making the rounds in Congress for an anti-China border tax on carbon that could become a form of protectionism. But there are further signs of pragmatism. To avoid a tit-for-tat battle over carbon border taxes, European and American trade officials are discussing forming a carbon club of economies that would levy tariffs on steel and aluminium based on the ghg-intensity in their production. On March 31st the Treasury unveiled rules governing the tax credits available for evs. If these had been written in the most stringent way, they would have made it much harder to earn tax credits for new ev models. In the event, the proposal widened eligibility such that it would make it easier to source some key inputs from countries lacking the comprehensive free-trade deals long enjoyed by Canada and Mexico. The rules were denounced by Senator Joe Manchin, an influential Democrat from West Virginia favouring much stronger protectionism, as “horrific”.

A year ago Ms Granholm addressed energy bosses in Houston at ceraWeek, the country’s main oil and gas conference, just as America was imposing sanctions on Russia. The oilmen did not respond well to being scolded as climate villains by the administration at the same time as it was asking them to produce more oil to make up for global shortfalls. She returned to Houston a few weeks ago for the same conference but this time her innovation-focused speech “really electrified the audience”, says Daniel Yergin, who chaired the event. “We have provided a suite of carrots to make the United States irresistible,” says Ms Granholm. Sure enough, energy firms from around the world are accelerating their investment plans in America, even as they express private doubts about the efficiency of industrial policy. They also worry about the strings Congress has attached, such as woolly social-justice provisions and onerous domestic-sourcing rules. The ira’s climate-related provisions provide some $369bn in tax credits and other direct government funding over the next decade for energy and infrastructure. Some of the tax credits (such as the lavish $3/kg production credit on offer for clean hydrogen) are uncapped by Congress, so if investors flock enthusiastically—as early signs indicate they are, from around the world—the ira’s public climate spending could exceed $800bn. Add in the likely catalytic impact on private capital, says Goldman Sachs, a bank, and the figure soars to $1.6trn in decarbonisation investments over that period (see chart 1). America’s energy system is at an inflection point. Last year power generated from renewable energy surpassed the total generated from coal for the first time (see chart 2). That trend looks likely to accelerate sharply. The unsubsidised costs of wind and solar are plummeting below the cost of coal generation, and tax credits for their deployment will soon flow freely. The ira is unlikely to be overturned by a future Republican Congress. Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, reports that, despite noisy complaints from Republicans in the House of Representatives, he is “not hearing from Republicans in the Senate that they want to completely repeal it in 2024”, in part “because Houston benefits as much as Chicago, if not more”. A report by Climate Power, an advocacy group, found that over 100,000 new jobs were announced in 31 states between the passage of the ira and the end of January, with the lion’s share of the 90-plus clean-energy projects in conservative states. Georgia, hardly a liberal stronghold, came top with over $15bn in investment. Bryan Fisher of rmi, a clean-energy non-profit, estimates that more than 75 decarbonisation projects worth $1bn or more are under development in deep-red Texas and Louisiana thanks to bil and ira inducements. ExxonMobil, once a highly climate-sceptical company, is now heading a $100bn project for ccs along the Gulf of Mexico. America’s new approach to energy rightly tackles the climate externality previously neglected by federal policy while mostly leaving the picking of specific technology winners to the private sector. Thanks to the insistence of Senator Ron Wyden, a wonkish Democrat from Oregon, the tax credits for clean power will shift to a technology-neutral approach. A geothermal entrepreneur gushes that his hitherto-overlooked technology will finally get a fair chance. As Mr Wyden explains: “This ties together markets with choice and competition…the more you reduce carbon emissions, the more tax credits you earn.”

(James M., Nicolas Loris, MA, Kevin Dayaratna, PhD, Principal Statistician, Data Scientist, and Research Fellow , 8-7)

As Heritage analysts have reported, governments in countries such as Venezuela and China routinely mismanage and waste resources or ramp up production with little to no accountability for the environmental damage that comes with it. The absence of price signals reduces the incentive to be more efficient and do more with less. In addition, the absence of property rights reduces the incentive to conserve and gives government-controlled industries a free pass to pollute without compensating or protecting its citizens.13 Venezuela consistently ranks at the bottom of the annual review of 180 countries in The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom. 14 While China ranks higher than Venezuela in the Index, its better performance is attributable, in part, to manipulation of data by the communist dictatorship in Beijing. Interventions by governments in an economy’s price-setting system and the weakening of property rights and the rule of law through corruption and governmental incompetence are key factors in the Index’s analysis. The EU is not China or Venezuela, but the more the EU taxes, regulates, and spends through GND-like policies, the more Brussels will erode the economic freedoms of Europeans. By shrinking the EU’s economy by potentially tens of trillions of dollars, the GND will cause lower levels of prosperity and leave Europeans with fewer resources to deal with whatever environmental challenges come their way.

(Nicolas, Deputy Director of the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies and Herbert and Joyce Morgan fellow at The Heritage Foundation, , 11-15)

We're not hearing much about the "Green New Deal" these days, but it's still a priority for some candidates, as anyone who's attended a recent Bernie Sanders rally can attest. Criticism of the GND tends to center on cost and rightly so. It would be extremely expensive. Researchers estimate it would take more than $5 trillion just to switch from coal, nuclear and natural gas to 100% renewables. But even if you set economic concerns aside, an ironic fact remains: In the United States and around the world, the central-planning policies at the heart of the GND have a horrible track record for the environment. Governments in countries such as Venezuela and China (or in the past like the Soviet Union and Cuba) either routinely mismanage and waste resources, or ramp up production with little to no accountability for environmental damage that comes with it. The absence of price signals reduces the incentive to be more efficient and do more with less. In addition, the absence of property rights reduces the incentive to conserve and gives government-controlled industries a free pass to pollute without compensating or protecting its citizens. The Green New Deal would massively expand the size and scope of the federal government's control over activities best left to the private sector. It would empower the feds to change and control how people produce and consume energy, harvest crops, raise livestock, build homes, drive cars and manufacture goods. Secondly, the Green New Deal would result in a number of unintended consequences. For instance, policies that limit coal, oil and natural gas production in the United States will not stop the global consumption of these natural resources. Production will merely shift to places where the environmental standards are not as rigorous, making the planet worse off. Moreover, it's not as if wind, solar and battery technologies magically appear. Companies still have to mine the resources, manufacture the product and deal with the waste streams. There are challenges to disposing potentially toxic lithium-ion batteries and solar panels, or even wind turbine blades that are difficult and expensive to transport and crush at landfills. While these are solvable problems, they're seldom discussed by GND proponents. There would also be massive land use changes required to expand renewable power. Ben Zycher at the American Enterprise Institute estimates that land use necessary to meet a 100% renewable target would require 115 million acres, which is 15% larger than the land area of California.

(Nicolas, Deputy Director of the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies and Herbert and Joyce Morgan fellow at The Heritage Foundation, , 2-25)

Ineffectiveness. No matter where one stands on the urgency to combat climate change, the Green New Deal policies would be ineffective in combatting climate change. In fact, the U.S. could cut its carbon dioxide emissions 100 percent and it would not make a difference in global warming. Using the same climate sensitivity (the warming effect of a doubling of carbon dioxide emissions) as the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assumes in its modeling, the world would only be less than 0.2 degree Celsius cooler by 2100.30

(Nicolas, Deputy Director, Thomas A. Roe Institute, Kevin, Principal Statistician, Data Scientist, and Research Fellow, , 8-16)

To assess the economic effects of such a scheme, we started by looking at a carbon tax – the most popular recommendation of those asking government to "nudge" us off of fossil fuels. Using the Energy Information Administration's model, we tested to see how high a carbon tax would have to go to meet the Green New Deal's emission targets. We ratcheted the tax up to $300 per ton, which dropped emissions 58% below 2010 levels – but not until 2050. That left us far short of reaching the deal's targets, but when we tried to push the tax higher, the model crashed. Clearly, the Green New Deal's emission targets are unrealistic. Yet the danger they pose to the economy are far too real. Before the model's lights went out, we found that a $300 per ton carbon tax and associated regulations would cost a family of four nearly $8,000 per year in income lost to higher energy costs, consumer prices and foregone wages. The 20-year cost totals $165,000. During that same 20-year period, the tax would siphon off an average of 1.1 million jobs per year and diminish GDP by a total of more than $15 trillion. That's a hefty price to pay for getting barely halfway to the net-zero emissions goal. Is it worth it? After all, proponents of eliminating conventional fuels argue that the cost of climate change dwarfs the cost of climate policy. However, it terms of "climate insurance," eliminating greenhouse gas emissions doesn't get you very far. To see if this is true, we turned to another tool: the Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Induced Climate Change (MAGICC). Developed at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, this model assesses how much increases and decreases in greenhouse gas trajectories will affect global temperatures and sea levels. Running this model, we found that overhauling America's economy – as envisioned in the Green New Deal – would abate global warming by approximately 0.2 degree Celsius by the year 2100. The reduction in sea-level rise would be less than 2 centimeters. In other words, the Green New Deal offers minimal climate improvement at impossibly high prices.

Plug Power, a pioneer in energy technology, provides warehouses operated by Walmart and Amazon with forklifts run on hydrogen. Plug is building one of the world’s largest plants to make liquid hydrogen. When your correspondent visited, workers were removing tarps from giant electrolysers, which will use clean energy to crack water into its constituents, hydrogen and oxygen. Sanjay Shrestha, Plug’s chief strategy officer, says the output will be able to power 10,000 of those forklifts a day. Local officials helped with site selection and permitting, he explains, but the Inflation Reduction Act (ira), a climate-focused law passed by Congress last August, has had “a transformational impact” on the prospects for clean hydrogen. Mention of that project gets Ali Zaidi, the White House’s national climate adviser, leaping to his feet in his West Wing office. Pointing to a chart showing clean-investment trends outperforming forecasts, he says: “We’re seeing people make bets on America even ahead of where our ambition might have been.” Since President Joe Biden took office, thanks to three recent laws, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (bil), the chips Act and the ira, firms have announced about $200bn in investments into everything from batteries and electric vehicles (evs) to renewables and hydrogen. Some $65bn of that has come just since the ira was signed into law last August. Jennifer Granholm, America’s secretary of energy, argues that the country is well on its way to becoming “a global energy superpower”. America’s oil exports, which hit a record high last year, have kept world markets supplied, and its exports of liquefied natural gas helped rescue Europe during the Russia-induced energy shock of the past year. Mr Biden came into office with an anti-fossil-fuel stance, but concerns about energy security have led to a more open posture towards Big Oil. Witness his approval last month of Willow, an Alaskan oil project that became a cause célèbre of anti-fossil-fuel activists. Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from that state, credits his “much more pragmatic” approach to the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on energy markets. That pragmatism is enshrined in the fine print of the bil and ira. The laws offer subsidies for decarbonisation technologies well beyond wind and solar to include carbon capture and sequestration (ccs) and hydrogen made from fossil fuels. They are specifically designed to persuade the oil and gas industry to clean up its act.

(Morriss, Andrew (Prof. Econ, Dean of the School of Innovation, and Vice President for Entrepreneurship and Economic Development@Texas A&M University, PhD Econ@MIT), Bogart, William T. (President of Maryville College, PhD Econ@Princeton), Meiners, Roger (Prof. Econ and Law@University of Texas at Arlington, PhD Econ@Virginia Tech), Dorchak, Andrew (Head of Reference Library@Case Western Reserve University School of Law). “Green Jobs Myths,” Journal of Environmental and Sustainability Law, Spring 2009. https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1339&context=jesl)

Unfortunately, the analysis provided in the green jobs literature is deeply flawed, resting on a series of myths about the economy, the environment, and technology. We have explored the problems in the green jobs analysis in depth; we now conclude by summarizing the mythologies of green jobs in seven myths about green jobs: Myth 1: There is such a thing as a "green job." There is no coherent definition of a green job. Green jobs appear to be ones that pay well, are interesting to do, produce products that environmental groups prefer, and do so in a unionized workplace. Yet such criteria have little to do with the environmental impacts of the jobs. To build a coalition for a far reaching transformation of modern society, "green jobs" have become a mechanism to deliver something for every member of a real or imagined coalition to buy their support for a radical transformation of society. Myth 2: Creating green jobs will boost productive employment. Green jobs estimates include huge numbers of clerical, bureaucratic, and administrative positions that do not produce goods and services for consumption. Simply hiring people to write and enforce regulations, fill out forms, and process paperwork is not a recipe for creating wealth. Much of the promised boost in green employment turns out to be in nonproductive (but costly) positions that raise costs for consumers. Myth 3: Green jobs forecasts are reliable. The forecasts for green employment optimistically predict an employment boom, which is welcome news. Unfortunately, the forecasts, which are sometimes amazingly detailed, are unreliable because they are based on questionable estimates by interest groups of tiny base numbers in employment, extrapolation of growth rates from those small base numbers, and a pervasive, biased, and highly selective optimism about which technologies will improve. Moreover, the estimates use a technique (input-output analysis) that is inappropriate to the conditions of technological change presumed by the green jobs literature itself. This yields seemingly precise estimates that give the illusion of scientific reliability to numbers that are simply the result of the assumptions made to begin the analysis. Myth 4: Green jobs promote employment growth. Green jobs estimates promise greatly expanded (and pleasant and well-paid) employment. This promise is false. The green jobs model is built on promoting inefficient use of labor, favoring technologies because they employ large numbers rather than because they make use of labor efficiently. In a competitive market, factors of production, including labor, earn a return based on productivity. By focusing on low labor productivity jobs, the green jobs literature dooms employees to low wages in a shrinking economy. Economic growth cannot be ordered by Congress or by the U.N. Interference in the economy by restricting successful technologies in favor of speculative technologies favored by special interests will generate stagnation. Myth 5: The world economy can be remade based on local production and reduced consumption without dramatically decreasing human welfare. The green jobs literature rejects the benefits of trade, ignores opportunity costs, and fails to include consumer surplus in welfare calculations to promote its vision. This is a recipe for an economic disaster, not an ecotopia. The twentieth century saw many experiments in creating societies that did not engage in trade and did not value personal welfare. The economic and human disasters that resulted should have conclusively settled the question of whether nations can withdraw into autarky. The global integration of wind turbine production, for example, illustrates that even green technology is not immune from economic reality. Myth 6: Mandates are a substitute for markets. Green jobs proponents assume that they can reorder society by mandating preferred technologies. But the responses to mandates are not the same as the responses to market incentives. There is powerful evidence that market incentives induce the resource conservation that green jobs advocates purport to desire. The cost of energy is a major incentive to redesign production processes and products to use less energy. People do not want energy; they want the benefits of energy. Those who can deliver more desired goods and services by reducing the energy cost of production will be rewarded. There is so little evidence that successful command and control regimes accomplishing conservation. Myth 7: Wishing for technological progress is sufficient. The preferred technologies in the green jobs literature face significant problems in scaling up to the levels proposed. These problems are documented in readily available technical literatures, but resolutely ignored in the green jobs reports. At the same time, existing technologies that fail to meet the green jobs proponents political criteria are simply rejected out of hand. This selective technological optimism/pessimism is not a sufficient basis for remaking society to fit the dream of planners, politicians, patricians, or plutocrats who want others to live lives they think other people should be forced to lead. To attempt to transform modem society on the scale proposed by even the most modest bits of the green jobs literature, such as the Conference of Mayors report, is an effort of staggering complexity and scale. To do so based on the combination of wishful thinking and bad economics embodied in the green jobs literature would be the height of irresponsibility. We have no doubt that there will be significant opportunities to develop new energy sources, new industries, and new jobs in the future. Just as has been true for all of human history thus far, we are equally confident that a market-based discovery process will do a far better job of developing those energy sources, industries, and jobs than could a series of mandates based on imperfect information.

(Dolan, Ed (Snr. Fellow for Fiscal and Monetary Policy@Niskanen Center, Fmr. Prof. Econ@Dartmouth University). “Can We Put Everyone to Work? — The Alternatives to a ‘Job Guarantee,’” Niskanen Center, January 14, 2020. https://www.niskanencenter.org/can-we-put-everyone-to-work-the-alternatives-to-a-job-guarantee)

Second, I think advocates overstate the ease of creating 10 to 15 million meaningful new public service jobs. To avoid competing with the private sector, they could not be jobs in hotels or factories. They could not require advanced skills or investments in heavy equipment, which would mean JG workers could play a limited role in projects like replacing aging bridges or building green energy infrastructure. When we read advocates’ descriptions of JG jobs, they talk about things like teachers’ aides, recycling, and planting trees on vacant lots. How many workers could be absorbed in such jobs before they became mere make-work?

(Third Way. 3-25-2019, Former Senior Policy Advisor, Economic Programhttps://www.thirdway.org/memo/what-is-the-federal-jobs-guarantee-and-what-are-people-saying-about-it )

#1: It solves a different problem. Right now there are over seven million open jobs and six million unemployed people. Yet, many of these jobs are going unfilled. Why? Many people don’t have the right mix of skills or training. New jobs are often in different places than old ones. Childcare and transportation are often prohibitively expensive. And others struggle with opioid addiction and other conditions. And yet, a federal jobs guarantee doesn’t address any of this. Even during economic downturns, there are better and far more efficient ways to help workers and communities such as targeted public works programs, hiring credits for employers, temporary tax cuts for working families, extended unemployment insurance, and money to shore up state and local budgets.

(Leslie, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/readers-react-to-the-editorial-boards-green-new-deal/2019/02/28/9f72a302-3b77-11e9-a06c-3ec8ed509d15_story.html , 2-28)

Much of the FAQ is devoted to the showier stuff, the policy equivalent of gold plumbing fixtures and Calacatta marble walls: replacing air travel with high-speed rail; junking every automobile with an internal-combustion engine; making affordable public transportation available to every single American (presumably including those who live hours from the nearest town?); replacing the electric grid with something smarter; meeting “100% of power demand through clean and renewable energy sources”; and — I swear I’m not making this up — providing economic security to people who are “unwilling to work.” This, too, is supposed to happen within only a decade, or thereabouts.

(Nicolas, Deputy Director of the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies and Herbert and Joyce Morgan fellow at The Heritage Foundation, 3-22)

Granted, a massive tax-and-spend program will "create" jobs by building wind turbines, installing solar panels and building electric vehicles. Yet government spending does not actually create jobs; it merely shifts resources to politically connected sectors of the economy and away from more productive uses. Overall, the number of jobs destroyed would far outweigh any subsidized jobs created. Let's not forget President Barack Obama's warning about the costs of his cap-and-trade plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over a decade ago. To meet the carbon-dioxide reduction targets, he said, electricity rates would "necessarily skyrocket." According to one FAQ sheet on the proposal, cap-and-trade "may be a tiny part of the larger Green New Deal plan to mobilize our economy." To fulfil the obligations of the Green New Deal, the economy would necessarily have to tank.

Why now? Unemployment was 20% or more when Roosevelt put millions to work through the Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration. Nowadays, full employment is part of the Federal Reserve’s mandate, and while its record has blemishes, today it can claim mission accomplished. With the unemployment rate now at 4.1%, mainstream economists consider the U.S. effectively at or beyond full employment; Letting unemployment go lower risks shortages and inflation. But the big thinkers behind the federal jobs guarantee have their eyes on a bigger prize. That 4.1% only represents the 6.6 million who are unemployed under the Labor Department’s official definition. Another 5.1 million don’t meet it but want a job, and 5 million work part time because they can’t find full-time work. Eradicating these last vestiges of un- or underemployment “would fundamentally transform the current labor market,” write Mark Paul, William Darity and Darrick Hamilton in a paper for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-of-center think tank. Their proposal, which forms the basis of Mr. Sanders’s bill, would “significantly alter the current power dynamics between labor and capital” by forcing all employers to match the federal standards for pay and benefits. Yes, a job guarantee would cost a fortune, but ignoring the obvious political impediments, the price tag isn’t the catastrophe some critics claim. To hire all the official and unofficial unemployed and half the involuntary part timers at $15 an hour plus $3 an hour for benefits would cost around $450 billion, or 2.3% of gross domestic product. The actual cost could be much lower: Many of the unemployed won’t take up the federal offer because they expect to get something better, don’t like what’s being offered, or face some sort of obstacle (family, disability, etc.). Also, some of what gets spent on salaries will be saved in reduced Medicaid, tax credits, unemployment insurance and other safety net outlays. Five scholars at the Levy Institute, a think tank, have advanced a plan they say will cost just 1% to 1.5% of gross domestic product. The federal government spends three times that on Social Security and twice that on defense. The price tag would jump in recessions as laid-off people flock to the program. That’s a feature, not a bug: By automatically injecting public money into the economy, it would prop up spending, private employment and tax revenue, lessening the recession’s severity. And unlike universal basic income, another fashionable idea for reducing inequality in which everyone gets a check regardless of whether they work, a jobs guarantee gets the taxpayer something in return: workers. That, however, is also the problem. Here’s why. According to the Economic Policy Institute, 39% of the workforce, some 54 million people, now earn $15 an hour or less. All would have an incentive to quit and join the federal program. Of course, most wouldn’t because their employers would, grudgingly, raise pay to keep them, then pass the cost on to customers, a de facto inflation tax. Indeed, advocates say the job guarantee accomplishes the same thing as a $15 minimum wage without the job loss. Nonetheless, potentially millions of workers would end up on the federal payroll instead of in the private sector. And there’s the rub. Utopians would argue jobs exist to give people dignity and a decent standard of living. The reality is more mundane: Jobs are how people, as producers, satisfy their needs as consumers. Low-paid work such as brewing coffee, cleaning hotel rooms and flipping hamburgers gets a bad rap but it satisfies a genuine demand: People want coffee, clean hotels and hamburgers. A federal make-work program would crowd out many of those private services. Crowding out is fine when the government is providing something more valuable, Roger Farmer and Dmitry Plotnikov, economists at the University of California at Los Angeles, wrote in 2010. For example, military spending crowded out private consumption during World War II, when the U.S. “was fighting for its survival.” In ordinary times, that is a harder case to make. A 2011 study by ​Lauren Cohen,​ Joshua Coval​ and Christopher Malloy of Harvard Business School found that when a member of Congress takes over an important committee, his state often enjoys an influx of federal spending. But that benefit is offset by a contraction in private investment and employment, evidence of crowding out.

(Erin, lecturer in artificial intelligence and the future of work at the University of Surrey https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/22/ai-jobs-policies)

However, despite the predictions of doom, history offers reasons to be optimistic about AI and its impact on work and employment. Jobs have changed and evolved throughout history, which has resulted in the creation of new professions that were previously inconceivable. For most of the 20th century, typing was seen as a desired and decent job, and typists were in high demand. Illustration of humanoid robot and a person chatting together over a water cooler ‘Why would we employ people?’ Experts on five ways AI will change work Read more As computers grew in popularity and typing got easier, the demand fell away, and the profession nearly became extinct. But, thanks to the same trends, the demand for web designers, graphic designers and copy editors increased. The advent of the computer gave birth to countless sectors and transformed our way of life (mostly) for the better. I believe that AI can repeat this very trick, if we get it right. What does that look like? For a start, it means understanding which jobs and industries are actually at risk, and how AI will become part of them. AI can automate tasks such as data entry and administrative operations, which puts jobs that involve repetitive data input and basic decision-making at risk. Interestingly, the banking and financial industries, which are generally seen as white-collar jobs, may see a decrease in demand for data analysts and risk assessors as AI systems become more efficient at handling large amounts of data. Manufacturing and logistics jobs seem an obvious target for AI, as automation is used more and more to save on costs. Jobs in transportation, assembly-line activities and repetitive manual work can be automated to some extent. However, the technology still has limitations which require regular maintenance and a balance between AI/robots and human workers. If jobs are poorly designed or if there is an imbalance between AI and human workers, it could result in dissatisfied customers, decreased revenue (especially in the current cost of living crisis), and even business closures. Two months ago, a restaurant named Robotazia in Milton Keynes that had robotic waiters closed down due to rising costs and recruitment issues. We need to bear in mind that while automation and robotics can bring novelty and efficiency to certain industries, the overall impact on jobs can be complex and multifaceted, with problems including maintenance costs, recruitment challenges and the need to adapt to changing economic situations. Another area we need to watch is customer service. Chatbots are already being implemented in this area, but their inability to understand complex scenarios can result in service failures and unhappy customers. Human support should be maintained alongside these chatbots, especially in industries such as hospitality, where human interaction, empathy and emotional/social intelligence are vital to customer loyalty. In the healthcare industry, AI has been used to aid medical diagnostics, radiology interpretation and patient monitoring. However, while AI can help healthcare professionals with data analysis, imaging and decision-making, current AI is limited in performing difficult tasks that require fine hand-eye coordination, and the physical execution of such tasks is still reliant on human capabilities.

(Nicolas, Deputy Director of the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies and Herbert and Joyce Morgan fellow at The Heritage Foundation, https://www.heritage.org/energy-economics/commentary/the-great-hypocrisy-the-green-new-deal, 3-5)

Green New Dealers are trying to sell their policies in the name of economic security and justice. However, policies that take away affordable, reliable power from American families are highly regressive. Higher energy costs hit low-income households hardest, because they spend a higher percentage of their budget on energy. The higher these costs climb, the more they are forced to make difficult choices between keeping the heat on or providing food for their family or perhaps going to the doctor. Higher energy prices mean more than just having less money available for other necessities. It means having to spend more for all of the goods and services you purchase. That’s because energy is a critical component of manufacturing, communications and transportation—all of which are involved in getting goods and services to your household. The Green New Deal doesn’t lead to more economic security and justice. It leads to greater economic strain, with low-income families being stressed the most. And where’s the justice in cronyism and corporate welfare. The Green New Deal would open the floodgates of both. Ocasio-Cortez rightly blasted New York’s special tax breaks for Amazon’s proposed HQ2. Offering up billions in state and city special tax breaks left a sour taste in many peoples’ mouths. Cronyism works for big companies because they can offer a lot: investment, jobs and prosperity. But it is not a strategy for long-term economic success because it comes at the expense of other investments and opportunities. The investments will come when there’s an attractive, level-playing field for all companies to compete. The Green New Deal would introduce significantly higher level of cronyism because Ocasio-Cortez wants the federal government (i.e., American taxpayers) to pay for the whole thing. Remember Solyndra, the half-billion dollar solar boondoggle that went belly up? That’s just a small taste of things to come under a Green New Deal that puts potentially trillions of dollars up for grabs. As was the case with Solyndra, when the feds start picking energy technologies and companies to fund, they are essentially gambling with other peoples’ money. And there is never a guarantee the bet will pay off. Solyndra is merely one example of a failed company that could not survive even with the federal government’s help. And there are many other examples of green cronyism that even more closely parallel New York’s erstwhile deal with Amazon, which Ocasio-Cortez found so distasteful. Taxpayers gave money or government-backed loans to companies that already enjoyed large market capitalization and/or substantial private investors. Federal “investment” wasn’t needed. But, hey, who’s gonna turn down free money? The economic pain of green cronyism cuts deeper than wasted taxpayer money. When Washington steers money to — or away from — “favored” businesses or technologies, private-sector investment follow. This not only stifles competition and innovation, it also centralizes control in the hands of politicians, elites and lobbyists.

(Nicolas, Deputy Director of the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies and Herbert and Joyce Morgan fellow at The Heritage Foundation, , 11-15)

Two recent National Bureau of Economic Research papers underscore the unintended consequences of energy policy on human well-being. One found that cheaper home heating because of America's fracking revolution is averting more than 10,000 winter deaths per year. The Green New Deal would wipe all of that away, and reverse course by mandating pricier energy on families. Another paper found that the Japanese government's decision to close safely operating nuclear power plants after Fukashima increased energy prices and reduced consumption, which consequently, increased mortalities from colder temperatures. In fact, the authors estimate that "the decision to cease nuclear production has contributed to more deaths than the accident itself." Unintended consequences.

(Nicolas, Deputy Director of the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies and Herbert and Joyce Morgan fellow at The Heritage Foundation, , 2-25)

Direct Taxpayer Costs. Regardless, the Green New Deal proposes that the federal government largely pay for the transition, and this would come at significant cost to the taxpayer. Moreover, switching over to a 100 percent renewable electricity grid is only a fraction of the plan. Eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation, manufacturing, and agriculture sectors would substantially increase economic harm. Americans will pay as taxpayers for the government borrowing and taxing to finance the Green New Deal but will also devote more money to their energy bills. The reality is that the costs to families, businesses, and the economy would be considerably greater than any direct cost to taxpayers. An essential reason coal, natural gas, and nuclear power provide 83 percent of America’s electricity generation is because these resources are abundant, reliable, and affordable. A government-forced transition to 100 percent renewables or politically determined clean energy sources would cause electricity rates to skyrocket. In fact, 29 states, the District of Columbia, and 3 territories have a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), which mandates that a certain percentage of a given state’s electricity generation come from politically determined renewable sources. While a number of variables impact the price of electricity, RPSs are a factor in driving electricity bills higher.21 Research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in November 2018 has perhaps the most detailed model estimating the costs of deep decarbonization in the electricity sector.22 The authors run 912 scenarios looking at a wide range of uncertainties that take into account geographical differences in renewable potential, different technology cost assumptions, and different carbon-dioxide-emission-reduction targets. In some scenarios they include “firm” low-carbon power sources, such as nuclear power, natural gas, and coal with carbon capture and sequestration and high-capacity reservoirs for hydroelectric power. In the scenario that achieves zero carbon dioxide emissions in the power sector by using 100 percent renewable power, the study projects that average electricity prices would increase to $150 to $300 per megawatt hour.23 (In 2017, the average was $105 per megawatt hour.24) As calculated by Philip Rossetti at the American Action Forum, families would face electricity costs that are between 43 percent and 286 percent higher, resulting in households paying hundreds of dollars more in their monthly electricity bill.25 Regardless of what Green New Deal proponents ultimately accept as clean energy sources, the reality is that 63 percent of America’s electricity needs are met by coal and natural gas. Petroleum products account for 92 percent of the country’s transportation sector use. They make up such high percentages because they are abundant, reliable, and affordable. Significantly restricting their use would, in turn, significantly raise the costs of electricity bills and the price at the pump. Importantly, the policies proposed in the Green New Deal are highly regressive. More expensive energy adversely affects low-income households disproportionately because they spend a higher percentage of their budget on energy costs. Americans with after-tax incomes of less than $30,000 spend 23 percent of their budgets on energy, compared to just 7 percent for those earning more than $50,000, according to a report by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.26 According to the 2011 National Energy Assistance Survey, a poll of low-income families, 24 percent went without food for a day, and 37 percent decided to forego medical and dental coverage, in order to pay higher energy bills. Nearly one in five had a family member who became sick due to the home being too cold.27

(Guy, British professor of Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London,[2] and co-founder of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), PhD Econ@Cambridge, “Basic Income as Common Dividends: Piloting a Transformative Policy,” http://www.revistaprimerapiedra.cl/PDF/documentos/PEF_Piloting_Basic_Income_Guy_Standing2019.pdf//jum)

**bracketed for problematic language

Synthetic biology is an emerging new technical field that aims to make biology easier to engineer and more amenable to rational design, so that biological traits, functions, and products can be programmed like a computer. The concept of engineering biology is not a new one, nor is synthetic biology the first instance in which biology has been declared engineerable.1 Stephane Leduc wrote about the concept in the early 1900s.2 In 1974, the renowned cancer biologist Waclaw Szybalski described then-current work on molecular biology as the “descriptive phase,” adding that the real challenge will begin “when we enter the synthetic biology phase of research in our field. We will then devise new control elements and add these new modules to the existing genomes or build up wholly new genomes.”3(p23) Though what is now termed synthetic biology is not wholly distinct from previous studies of genetic engineering, the ability to fruitfully accomplish bioengineering is much greater now than it has been at any other point in history. Thanks to advances in computing power; the ability to rapidly, reliably, and inexpensively synthesize long tracts of DNA; new tools to reliably edit genomes; an increased understanding of biological systems; and the enthusiasm of young scientists who want to enter the field, synthetic biology is a new field and a new phenomenon, which proponents believe could revolutionize medicine and manufacturing.4-7

Synthetic biology encompasses widely diverse aims, making it difficult to draw boundaries for the field. For example, synthetic biology applications have included making a synthetic version of an anti-malarial compound that is difficult to harvest from nature; synthesis of influenza vaccines that could be produced in a shorter time than by traditional methods; manufacturing standard biological parts that can be assembled into genetic machines, including measurement devices, inverters, or logic devices; investigations into how life emerged on earth through the development of protocells; the synthesis of a bacterial cell; and the development of cell factories to produce biofuels and other compounds.8,9 In addition to synthetic biology being its own discipline, it has also brought about new tools to manipulate the genomes of biological organisms, which are used by scientists in disparate fields and in a variety of biotechnology companies.

Cyclical economic fluctuations can originate in (possibly nonfundamental) shifts in expectations about economic activity. This idea goes back at least to Pigou (1927) and Keynes (1936), who postulated that waves of optimism or pessimism might influence current economic conditions. For many years mainstream macroeconomic models have largely ignored the role of such factors as drivers of business cycles. More recent literature, both empirical and theoretical, attempts to formalize and quantify the impact of fluctuations in moods. As will be shown below, most studies document a highly significant role of such factors.

An important, related and highly relevant question is, whether confidence also spills over borders and affects cyclical fluctuations abroad. The importance and relevance of this question stems from three observations. First, that economic fluctuations between countries are highly correlated, so that obviously business cycles spill over borders (e.g., Gong and Kim 2018). Second, that confidence indicators are highly correlated across countries as well (Ha et al. 2020). Third, that the literature (with special emphasis on structural macroeconomic models) has a clear problem with explaining where such high correlation comes from. Neither the international real business cycle model (Backus et al. 1992) nor new Keynesian models (Justiniano and Preston 2010) can explain the high correlation of business cycles, unless productivity shocks are assumed to be correlated. Trade seems by far not sufficient to explain comovement, adding financial factors helps somewhat (Olivero 2010; Brzoza-Brzezina et al. 2018), but international correlations still remain a puzzle.Footnote1 This paper investigates the role of confidence in driving the international comovement of economies.