Richard McCann (Ph.D), co-founder and senior consultant in energy, water, and environmental policy at M.Cubed, is a regular critic of my posts and comments on social media. Here is an exchange that flushes out Malthusianism (really neo-Malthusianism) in the climate debate for the record.
Bradley: Failure: Kyoto Protocol to Paris Accord. End the futile, wasteful anti-CO2 crusade.
McCann: Here’s why we can’t let this rest: https://mcubedecon.com/2025/10/15/modern-climate-change-is-now-18-times-faster-than-historic-global-warming-mass-extinction-events/
Bradley: So tired, so wrong. Malthusian studies are garbage in-garbage out. Statism is the problem, not CO2 enrichment.
McCann: Please show how its wrong. This is no more “Malthusian” than the air pollution studies of the 1960s that has led to much improved air quality across the county and even the world. Even Churchill agreed in the 1950s that coal burning needed to end in London because of the consequences. Hardly a “Malthusian” enthusiast.
Bradley: Traditional air pollution (and water pollution) was not ‘Malthusian’. In fact, the Malthusians that believed that technology could not give us clean air and water.
CO2 is not a pollutant–and was never considered one until the ‘running out of oil and gas’ fallacy flamed out.
McCann: Huh? Polluting the environment is one of the consumptive uses that Malthusians, including the ones you’ve cited, considered a threat. Most criteria pollutants weren’t considered pollutants until we figure out how they were harming the environment. GHGs (of which CO2 is but one) are a similar pollutant, just identified as we better understood what drives climatic change.
Bradley: But CO2 is still not a criteria pollutant–that is the point. The real pollutants do not need ‘Malthusians’ but common sense to address, just as has been done. The Malthusians, in fact, said what was done could not be done!
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[1] Richard McCann’s bio reads:
I co-founded M.Cubed, an economic and policy consulting firm specializing in energy, climate change, environmental and water issues. In almost three decades of consulting, I have built numerous relationships across the legislative field as well as with energy, water and environmental regulators…. I have worked for a wide variety of clientele–“all four corners of the policy street.” These include private industry associations representing agriculture, and property management firms to non-profit environmental groups to governmental agencies.
Among the fields that I work in, I foresee that the energy industry in particular is standing at an auspicious moment. The industry’s path can lead towards a revolution as momentous as automobiles and household appliances in the 1900s, television in the 1950s, and personal computers and telecommunications in the 1980s. The direction of this path will depend as much on political and regulatory decisions as technological innovations. Those decisions will determine “ownership” of customers as well as cost responsibility for required infrastructure….
… technological changes are necessary to achieve the emission reductions that lessen the risks from potential climate change. I am working on California’s energy and water policies, shaping the energy regulatory landscape for CCAs and DERs, and identifying financing sources and incentives for GSAs to recharge aquifers and upgrade flood protection….