Ed. Note: Joseph Bast, founder and head of the Heartland Institute from 1984 until 2017, wrote an open letter to NYT writer John Cushman (to no avail), titled “The best public policies will not be adopted if we allow the loudest and most alarmist voices in the debate to drown out the voices of reason.” It is reprinted below after Bast’s introduction at the time. A short conclusion describes Joe Bast’s multi-decade contributions to climate realism and sound energy policies.

In each of the past two years, John Cushman, an environment reporter for The New York Times, has written articles so atrociously one-sided and factually wrong that I felt compelled to write to him with friendly advice. Each time, I reprinted my letter in The Heartlander. And each time, John ignored me.…

Editor’s Note: This concludes a two-part series with real-world examples of anticipating and ameliorating extreme weather events, a challenge throughout human history. Today’s post was originally published at MR on May 21, 2015.

Yesterday’s post explained how market incentives can address environmental issues, including the believed-to-be negatives of climate change. Prices of inputs and outputs, utilizing resources even if they are subject to the tragedy of the commons, incorporate dynamic environmental changes. Markets, in other words, offer the potential for dynamic responses.

If climate change reduces the productivity of land for wheat production, for example, the price of land will be high relative to its productivity. This generates an incentive for wheat farmers to seek new places for wheat production where land prices are lower. Hence, the 2012 Bloomberg news headline, “Corn Belt Shifts North With Climate as Kansas Crop Dies.”…

This post excerpts energy and climate material from the Media Balance Newsletter, a free fortnightly published by physicist John Droz Jr., founder of the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions. The complete Newsletter for this post can be found here.

Greed Energy Economics:
*** Fact Check Team: Inflation Reduction Act may cost taxpayers trillions by 2050
*** Real Property Tax Law § 575-b Held Unconstitutional by New York Trial Court: What This Means for Assessment of Renewable Energy Projects
28 energy leaders call for eliminating IRA subsidies—even ones they benefit from
NY Gov Pushes New Energy Tax Past Next Election

Unreliables (General):
*** The Battery Backlash Is Real, It’s Global, And It’s Growing
*** Ireland’s Renewable Energy Targets for 2030 — A Reality Check
More Wind & Solar Projects Spiked.…

Editor note: The wealth of free-market capitalism creates a robust civil society, where nonprofits and foundations can support the causes of their choosing, many of which might not be viable otherwise. The problem is where philanthropy goes political against the free society and human betterment. Jane Shaw Stroup at her blog Jane Takes on History takes a look at good money going in negative directions, even violating original intent.

You’ve probably heard that Henry Ford II resigned from the board of the Ford Foundation because it had veered far away from its donor’s intent.  In his 1976 resignation letter, Ford (grandson of Henry Ford Sr.) wrote:

In effect, the foundation is a creature of capitalism—a statement that, I’m sure, would be shocking to many professional staff people in the field of philanthropy.