A far-left environmentalist group is calling for people to walk off their jobs on Sept. 20 and Sept. 27 to demand “climate justice for everyone.”

“This September, millions of us will walk out of our workplaces and homes to join young climate strikers on the streets and demand an end to the age of fossil fuels,” the website stated. “Our house is on fire — let’s act like it.”

The call was posted on the website GlobalClimateStrike.net, which lists several locations in Michigan where participants can congregate. These include Traverse City, Manistee, Mount Pleasant, Grand Rapids, Grand Haven, Lansing, Kalamazoo, Marshall, Auburn Hills, Ann Arbor, Troy, Dearborn and Port Huron.

Other than demonstrations, the most concrete call to action posted on the group’s website appears to be this: “We need to act right now to stop burning fossil fuels.”

In Michigan, fossil fuels represent most of the energy used to heat and illuminate our homes and businesses. Three-quarters of the homes in Michigan are heated by natural gas. Coal-fired generation plants provided Michigan 32% of its electricity, as of May. Gas produced 27% and nuclear plants provided 31%. By comparison, renewable sources (not including hydroelectric) provided 8% of Michigan’s electricity generation, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Jason Hayes, director of environmental policy for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, said the following in an email: “Our CO2 emissions are 14% below 2005 levels, the six major pollutants tracked by the EPA have decreased by 74% since 1970, but over that same period we’ve increased the amount of energy we use by 44%. Fossil fuels provide the country with over 80% of the energy that we need to power our daily lives, and the rapid improvements in technologies mean that we are now using those fuels far more cleanly and efficiently than we have ever done before. The demands that we stop using them are a suggested cure that is far worse than the perceived disease.”

Patrick Michaels, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Competitive Enterprise Institute, characterized the group’s claims that the Earth was akin to “a house on fire” as “extremely overblown.”

Annual state spending on Michigan roads and other transportation services will hit a record high in the 2018-19 fiscal year at $3.64 billion, and the amount is projected to climb to $3.99 billion by 2021. The increases are in part due to a growing state economy and the resulting tax collections, and also from a tax increase enacted in 2015.

The figures refer to state tax revenues used by the Michigan Department of Transportation to fix roads and pay for other transportation programs, such as subsidies for local bus services.

Annual state transportation funding was substantially lower in 2010-11, just $1.97 billion, or the equivalent of $2.25 billion in current dollars. This means that in eight years, annual state revenues allocated for transportation have increased by $1.39 billion above the rate of inflation.

Some of those extra dollars are the product of increases in the gas and vehicle registration taxes passed in 2015. At the same time, lawmakers earmarked a portion of state income tax revenue to the road budget.

The increase has been persistent, too, with state revenue for transportation higher in each of those eight successive years.

An ongoing debate between politicians in Lansing over how to get more money for road repairs hit a reset yesterday when Gov. Gretchen Whitmer acknowledged that the votes are not there for the 45-cent-per-gallon gas tax increase she had been seeking.

State Rep. Matt Maddock praised Whitmer’s decision to pass a state budget now and put off decisions on finding more resources for road repairs. He called it “very wise,” and said that the Senate and House leaders are still looking for a way to do more to improve Michigan’s roads, preferably with no tax increase.

“In terms of finding more funding for roads, we need to find ways within our budgets we all know exists,” Maddock said.