After three years of apocalyptic wailing and gnashing of environmentalist teeth over President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the job and economy killing Paris Climate Accord, it is ironic that the one country that faces the brunt of criticism from climate change zealots such as Greta Thunberg is leading the world and the European Union in lowering emissions and promoting cleaner energy, such as natural gas, all the while not hurting the economy:

Despite shrieks of terror from the left about how President Donald Trump’s presidency threatens the existence of Earth and thus mankind, the fact is that under his leadership, America continues to lead the world in total emissions decline.

“The United States saw the largest decline in energy-related CO2 emissions in 2019 on a country basis -- a fall of 140 [million tons], or 2.9%, to 4.8 gigatons],” the Paris-based  International Energy Agency (IEA) revealed in a report Tuesday.

The entire European Union, which consists of 28 nations, meanwhile only lowered emissions by 160 million tons total, or roughly 5.71 mt per nation.

This achievement by the United States occurs amidst an economic boom led by President Trump's unshackling of the fossil fuel industr, including ending the war on coal. While the European Union achieves its reductions through draconian energy mandates and economic stagnation, the U.S. has unleashed hydraulic fracturing or fracking to produce abundant oil and natural gas, a fossil fuel that has made our emission reductions happen without laying waste to the economy with job-killing regulations as the Europeans have done and Democratic Socialists like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and, yes, Michael Bloomberg want to do.

After Fukushima, Germany turned its back on emission-free nuclear power, committing to a phase-out by 2022  But if the planet is really nearing extinction from climate change , isn’t the risk of an occasional, even rare, reactor leak worth preventing planetary doom?  European energy policy is not risk-free, just plain stupid. As Drew Johnson notes in the Washington Examiner:

European countries have not had much success using regulation to fight climate change. Germany recently spent 150 billion euros on an aggressive campaign to lower emissions by mandating across-the-board fossil fuel reductions. As part of this quest for renewable energy, Germany foreswore cleaner-burning fossil fuels such as natural gas. But because solar and wind don't generate enough consistent power, this means that Germany must rely on coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, to generate 40% of its electricity. As a result, Germany is projected to fall short of nearly every national and European Union clean energy standard this year

Germany's experience is typical for bureaucratic climate policies, and it stands in sharp contrast to the American experience. The U.S., though heavily criticized for not signing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, is curbing emissions today much faster than any country that actually did sign the agreement…

… U.S. carbon dioxide emissions have hit 30-year lows, even as global emissions have increased by 50% during the same period. And since 2005, natural gas has done more to reduce power sector dioxide emissions than all renewable energy sources combined, according to the Energy Information Administration.

The United States, with fracking and without the Paris Climate Accord, is leading the world in economic growth with wages that are rising fastest among lower incomes, soaring household median incomes, fatter pensions and 401-K retirement funds thanks to a Dow nearing 30,000, and record unemployment, especially among minorities, record labor force participation as millennials get off their parent’s basement couch and others that couldn’t find work under Obama’s environmental and regulatory straitjacket find jobs. Those who have jobs have no fear in looking for better ones, as we have more jobs than skilled applicants to fill them.

The 2020 Democrats would take all this away from us, including the record-setting emissions reductions. One gigaton is a lot of stuff and a number equivalent to the gigadollars Bernie et all would spend on climate change and free stuff.

Paying for anything without the economic growth and energy independence led by fracking, which Democrats would ban entirely, is impossible. All that would be left is economic desolation. A microcosm of the choice we face on November 2020 is seen in the northeastern United States, much of which sits astride the Marcellus Shale Formation, a layer of porous prehistoric rock from which fracking has produced abundant oil and emission-reducing natural gas.

Pennsylvania fracks, but not Bloomberg’s New York, Sanders’ Vermont, or Warren’s Massachusetts. New York is in economic decline while hemorrhaging population. Pennsylvania is enjoying a renaissance thanks to its embrace of fracking, but Democrats want to reduce Pennsylvania to economic rubble for the sake of the environment, destroying its shale oil boom:

In fact, it was shale development that carried Pennsylvania through the depths of the Great Recession at the turn of the last decade.

Hard-working Pennsylvanians realize energy savings of $1,100-$2,200 per household, according to Public Utility Commission data, as wholesale electricity and natural gas prices have plummeted thanks to our abundant supply.

As clean, domestic natural gas maintains its position as the largest electricity production source, carbon emissions tied to the power sector continue to fall, according to new federal data, soon to reach levels not seen since the Reagan administration. This sustained improvement in air quality has saved more than 26,000 lives since 2008, according to new University of California San Diego research.

Misinformed policy positions from some presidential candidates to ban the safe, responsible use of hydraulic fracturing are alarming. Should such a ban be enacted, more than 600,000 Pennsylvanians would be out of work and our state’s economic output would take a $261 billion hit, according to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce report. It is no wonder voters “fear the economic impact,” a Rasmussen Reports survey found, of such a ban.

Put Pennsylvania in the Trump column as Democrats seek to save the planet by killing the nation’s economy, a policy that will lead to electoral disaster.

Fracking doesn’t cause earthquakes but it does save lives by reducing emissions and it also saves jobs, families and  their dreams Trump’s energy policies have produced a true green new deal -- the green of dollars flowing into family bank accounts and retirement plans.    

Wealthier societies are healthier societies and by relying on American technology and not liberal ideology we save both the environment and the economy.

Daniel John Sobieski is a former editorial writer for Investor’s Business Daily and freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Human Events, Reason Magazine, and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.