David Simon: “Let’s Be Serious, More C02 Isn’t Making the Earth ‘Uninhabitable'”

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 12, 2020 2 Comments

“Halloween is coming October 31st; there is no reason to normalize scares for the rest of the year.”

It is good to see David Simon in the climate sustainability debate. The son of Julian Simon (1932–1998), David is a clear voice contrasting hypothetical doom against real statistics. And it comes in the very year that John Holdren, former Obama science advisor and bitter foe of Julian, predicted as many as one billion climate deaths could occur.

MasterResource has previously highlighted David, a Chicago attorney writing as a fellow of the Washington-based Committee to Unleash Prosperity. Simon’s op-ed, “Paul Krugman Is a Global Warming Alarmist. Don’t Be Like Him” (January 16, 2020), had a zinger in the first of his six major points.

First, the earth’s temperature has been rising at a microscopically slow pace. NASA’s

Continue Reading

David Simon on Climate Alarmism (Julian Simon lives!)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 4, 2020 5 Comments

Julian Simon (1932–1998) died 22 years ago this week, just short of his 66th birthday, too young by today’s standards. But Simon Lives! moments are common, with the most recent being the President of the United States telling the world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos:

“[W]e must reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse. They are the heirs of yesterday’s foolish fortune-tellers — and I have them and you have them, and we all have them, and they want to see us do badly…. They predicted an overpopulation crisis in the 1960s, mass starvation in the ’70s, and an end of oil in the 1990s. These alarmists always demand the same thing: absolute power to dominate, transform, and control every aspect of our lives.”

Continue Reading

‘Deep Optimism Manifesto’ (David Siegel’s cure for ‘climate anxiety’)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 12, 2022 No Comments

David Siegel is a man with a message. His Deep Optimism Manifesto spells out a new approach to viewing the world that is at once realistic and optimistic. Written last year, its message is timeless and timely. His opening quotation comes from Julian Simon’s essay in The State of Humanity, p. 642.

I am writing this in response to the Ecomodernism manifesto. It’s a group of smart people doing very important work to help improve the future for humanity and nature.

I think if they looked more into the science of climate change and the economics of abundance, they would arrive at Deep Optimism, a term coined by Matt Ridley, the rational optimist.

People who understand the economics of abundance don’t apply enough critical thinking to understanding climate and the natural world (Hans RoslingBjorn LomborgPeter DiamandisTyler Cowen, Steven Pinker).…

Continue Reading

April 22: Julian Simon Day at Cato (with a special thanks to scholars Marian Tupy and Pierre Desrochers)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 22, 2019 1 Comment

It’s another great day in the history of humankind as the quest for betterment in markets outpaces, in most areas of the world, the drag of Statism.

Today is especially august at the Cato Institute where a conference convenes in honor of the late Julian Simon (1932–1997). Hosted by Marian Tupy of the HumanProgress project, the event will be livestreamed beginning at 11:00 am.

Here is the announcement:

Are we running out of resources? That’s been a hotly debated question since the publication of Paul Ehrlich’s book The Population Bomb in 1968. The Stanford University biologist warned that population growth would result in the exhaustion of resources and a global catastrophe. University of Maryland economist and Cato Institute’s Senior Fellow Julian Simon, in contrast, argued that humans would innovate their way out of resource shortages.…

Continue Reading

HumanProgress.org (Julian Simon Lives! at the Cato Institute)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 5, 2014 1 Comment Continue Reading

Peak-Oil Puff on Huff (David Hughes of the Post-Carbon Institute Tees Off)

By -- December 16, 2010 33 Comments Continue Reading

Here Comes Ingenuity! Offshore Drilling Will Be Better, Cleaner, Safer in the New Era (Julian Simon speaks to us today)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 11, 2010 8 Comments Continue Reading

Remembering Julian Simon (1932–1998)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 8, 2010 9 Comments Continue Reading

What Has Been the Role of Petroleum in Human Progress? (Part IV)

By Julián Salazar Velásquez -- January 27, 2023 No Comments Continue Reading

Biden’s Virtue-Signaling: The Costs of Climate Policy

By David Simon -- June 13, 2022 1 Comment Continue Reading