Editor note: This op-ed, published on April 21, 2000, in the Houston Chronicle, can be revisited to see how the arguments have held up for today. One unanticipated development was the BP Horizon oil spill of 2010, which resulted in a cumulative cost to BP of $61.8 billion. (One only wonders if the spill would have occurred if ‘beyond petroleum’ BP would have focused on real environmental and safety issues instead of global-warming greenwashing in the decade prior to its historic, infamous environmental mess.) The fundamental question remains: are fossil fuels more or less ‘sustainable’ today versus 16 years ago?
A great hue and cry is being heard this Earth Day about how our hydrocarbon-based energy economy is unsustainable. Air pollution is worsening, hydrocarbon resources are depleting and greenhouse gas emissions are destabilizing the planet, a chorus of individuals and groups contends.…
“The most powerful environmental policy is liberty, the central organizing principle of the American Republic and its people.”
– Republican Platform (below)
The Republican platform on the environment is factual and realistic. It focuses on real environmental issues and not the trumped up one of carbon dioxide (CO2) as a pollutant. It looks to science but also to political economy. “Science allows us to weigh the costs and benefits of a policy so that we can prudently deal with our resources,” the platform reads. “This is especially important when the causes and long-range effects of a phenomenon are uncertain.”
And better yet, also in reference to the global warming debate: “We must restore scientific integrity to our public research institutions and remove political incentives from publicly funded research.” Climate science researchers, it is time to go honest or go home.…
“A Trump Administration will focus on real environmental challenges, not phony ones …. We’ll solve real environmental problems in our communities like the need for clean and safe drinking water.”
– Donald Trump, “An America First Energy Plan.” May 26, 2016.
“Unlike the current Administration, we will not pick winners and losers in the energy marketplace. Instead, we will let the free market and the public’s preferences determine the industry outcomes.”
– Republican Platform (below)
Donald Trump is offering America a free-market energy vision. He has since this March. He did so again in his May 26th energy speech. Along the way, he has corrected his 2009 flirtation with climate alarmism/policy activism.
Trump has been endorsed by the free-market American Energy Alliance (the advocacy arm of the Institute for Energy Research, of which I am founder and CEO). …