“[Bjorn] Lomborg’s performance careens far across the line that divides respectable (even if controversial science) from thoroughgoing and unrepentant incompetence…. He has needlessly muddled public understanding and wasted immense amounts of the time of capable people who have had to take on the task of rebutting him.” – John Holdren (2003)
This April 1st is a good time for skeptics of settled, high-sensitivity climate science to make amends. My apology goes to the distinguished John P. Holdren.
My comeuppance (below) reminds me of the episode of Dallas where J. R. Ewing befriends a pretty young secretary at a friend’s office. He talks her up, she bubbles.
At J.R.’s next visit, she bashfully asks if he would like to go to a party with her.
“Sorry honey,” he responded.…
“Earth Hour not only coincides with Venezuela’s involuntary, chronic blackouts. It also joins this week’s complete, abject defeat of the Green New Deal. The 0 – 57 drubbing–with not a single Democrat voting “yes”–signals that self-made electricity blackouts will not be tolerated in the US.”
The joke goes: “What did the socialists use before candles.” The answer: electricity.
Such is true today in Venezuela, which is likely to encounter this Saturday’s Earth Hour (a turn-off-the-lights protest against modern living [1]) with an involuntary period of darkness. Atlas is shrugging under the Maduro regime, with electricity experts having fled to freer countries (a classic “brain drain”).
Venezuela is fiction-to-fact with Ayn Rand’s epic novel, Atlas Shrugged. But Rand in a previous book set up a fictional account of the fate of electricity in a dystopian world–what Earth Hour seems to long to bring about.…
Yesterday, Part I in this series presented the introduction, overview, and opening syllabus of Pierre Desrochers’ master course on energy. Part II today presents the all-importation section on carbon-based energies (oil, natural gas, coal).
Next week, Parts III will cover hydro, nuclear, biomass, and renewable energies, Part IV, will cover the readings for The Great Energy Debate.
Carbon Fuels
– Overview
Alex Epstein. 2015. “Why You Should Love Fossil Fuels.” PragerU (April 20).
GatesNotes. 2014. Bjorn Lomborg: Saving Lives with Fossil Fuels (June 25).
Oil Sands Action. 2016. “Life Without Oil and Petroleum Products? Not so simple…”
What If. 2018. “What If No More Oil?”
American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM). 2016. “Petrochemicals: The Building Blocks of Modern Life.”
Heritage Foundation. 2018. “Who Is Reducing Its Greenhouse Gas Emissions the Most?…