Comments on: The Malthusian Wing of the Party in Power: When Will They Speak Up?

By: Is Joe Romm a ‘Global Lukewarmer’? — MasterResource

Is Joe Romm a ‘Global Lukewarmer’? — MasterResource — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:31:56 +0000

[...] He is emotionally attached to the issue with a track record of alarmism that is beginning to put Paul Ehrlich in the [...]

By: TokyoTom

TokyoTom — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 07:16:36 +0000

Rob, it seems that my comments – posted at my blog – on your Malthusian-like warnings about Malthusians didn’t make it past moderation. Guess your filter doesn’t like links.

My full comments can be found by clicking on my name above; the short version? Rather crying “Wolf! Malthusian!”, why not try enage both them and your readers in good faith by demonstrating that their premises are wrong and their proposed solutions are counterproductive? IOW, why not show that (1) there ARE clear and effective property rights and shared institutions to deal with what Marlo Lewis has called “collective action problems” relating to the atmosphere, oceans, tropical forests, etc., or (2) failing that, that the right approach to these problems is to do nothing?

By: rbradley

rbradley — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:39:21 +0000

For the record, I have emailed the above post to Paul Ehrlich at Stanford University asking him if he still stands by his quotations. I will share any response I get.

By: Wallace Kaufman

Wallace Kaufman — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 01:23:19 +0000

Add to the recent comments President Obama’s promise during the campaign to “use whatever policy tools are necessary, including standards that ban new traditional coal facilities … a stringent cap on carbon will also make it uneconomic to site traditional coal facilities and discourage the use of existing inefficient coal facilities.” This goes hand in hand with creating more competition for coal by subsidizing other forms of energy. Combine new regulations, cap and trade, and subsidizing his favored energy sources, he has already implemented a policy that says energy should be more expensive.

By: quanticle

quanticle — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 21:50:12 +0000

Will civil libertarians catch on and turn against the “Limits to Growth” wing of today’s dominant political party?

Given how the civil libertarian wing of yesterday’s dominant political party failed to catch on and limit the greatest expansion in government power over private individuals since the second world war, I have little hope.

By: Thin king Man

Thin king Man — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:52:26 +0000

bottomofthe9th, you needn’t worry at all: as you will see in seconds, by clicking on the links below, neither Paul Ehrlich nor his little buddy John Holdren nor Nobel-Prize-winning scientist Albert Gore have altered their neo-Malthusian views in any way whatsoever. On the contrary, those views have only solidified, which is why they strike us now as a kind of frozen dogma.

Here are a few of the more half-assed current examples:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7796209187825965419

http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2007/1029barnard.shtml

http://books.google.com/books?id=1vkYnktbFK4C&dq=Betrayal+of+Science+and+Reason:+How+Anti-Environment+Rhetoric+Threatens+Our+Future&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=h-2qSanTF4HasAPZuMXtDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result

http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/itgg.2006.1.2.3?journalCode=itgg

http://www.amazon.com/Dominant-Animal-Human-Evolution-Environment/dp/1597260967

http://members.optusnet.com.au/exponentialist/Ehrlich.htm

http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110005103

I should caution you, however: it’s not very pretty — that is, unless you call environmental propaganda pretty, and you might, I honestly don’t know.

You may also find interesting the Epilogue below from Julian Simon’s excellent book, The Ultimate Resource 2, which excellent book neither Paul Ehrlich nor his wife Anne nor their little buddy John Holdren — nor, for that matter, anyone in the world — ever successfully refuted. (I won’t bore you with another recapitulation of the infamous bet Ehrlich and Holdren lost to Julian Simon, to their everlasting shame). In fact, the word on the street is that The Skeptical Environmentalist was born out of Lomborg’s (and his students’) attempt to refute Julian Simon’s book, but in finding that most of it is irrefutable, Lomborg experienced something like a conversion; for he was at that time a dyed-in-the-skein Greenpeacer, this by his own account, which you may read in the Introduction to The Skeptical Environmentalist.

Julian Simon’s Epilogue can be found here:

http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

Scroll down. The Epilogue is titled “My critics and I.”

By: rbradley

rbradley — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 18:09:32 +0000

Good point Mr. 9th–but what is important to me is that these authors have not come out and said they no longer believe what was once said. I tried to get retractions from John Holdren, and he would have none of it. Holdren did backpeddle in his recent confirmation hearing on some things–calling “de-develop” an choice of terms–but there is little doubt in my mind that the anti-growth mentality is alive and well but just suppressed.

We will be hearing from the Malthusians when the “green” growth does not translate into economic recovery–indeed it is an anti-stimulus from an economic viewpoint.

By: bottomofthe9th

bottomofthe9th — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 17:46:31 +0000

Well I for one have changed my mind on quite a few things since the mid-70s. The vast majority of the quotes above are from 20+ years ago–presumably these guys have said some stuff since then, so the dated-ness of the quotes makes the argument not very compelling to me.

By: Tom Tanton

Tom Tanton — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 16:22:11 +0000

“When will some prominent Left environmentalist slip and say something like this? ” The extensive quotes you’ve provided Rob are unequivocal–the have already slipped and made such statements. Or they’re just trying to hide themselves from their own past.