Julian Simon’s The Economics of Population Growth (1977) was hailed as a “path-breaking work” that offered “a new paradigm in the Kuhnian sense” (Joseph Spengler, quoted in Simon, 2002: 256).
The overused term “paradigm” must be applied with caution, however, because few new ideas really create paradigms, and paradigms can be wrong. Also, contra Kuhn, there are examples of science cumulatively approaching the truth short of revolution (Weinberg). Still, Simon put together the parts of an alternative worldview that continues to penetrate its way into the scientific orthodoxy, particularly in economics (Bradley, 2000: 19–20).
Simon’s extraordinary science (in Kuhnian terms) reached two major conclusions:
(1) a growing population can improve virtually all environmental welfare indicators; and
(2) scarcity measures of mineral (“depletable”) resources are not qualitatively different from that of other economic goods.…
“The wind PTC is critical to President Obama’s recently finalized carbon regulation. One of the ‘building blocks’ used to determine state targets includes significant increased installation of renewable energy—especially wind…. Without taxpayer subsidies like the PTC, the President will be unable to achieve his arbitrary renewable energy target.”
It is time for Republicans and fiscally-minded Democrats to put up or shut up on the centerpiece of Obama energy policy: the Production Tax Credit (PTC). It is high time that cronyism be replaced by an energy policy that is taxpayer-neutral and government-neutral. Obama’s climate alarmism and world government plans can only benefit from a 10th extension of this grievous government subsidy to the Enrons and GEs of the world.
This week, the American Energy Alliance, Heritage Action for America, Club for Growth, and Americans for Prosperity sent a letter in stark opposition to the PTC to the House Ways and Means Committee.…
“The U.N.’s own report shows that aggressive emission cutbacks—even if achieved through an ‘efficient’ carbon tax—would probably cause more harm than good.” (p. 2)
“Libertarians and conservatives in particular should not simply trust the assurances from the advocates of a carbon tax, but should instead read the relevant literature themselves. In both theory and practice, a U.S. carbon tax remains a very dubious policy proposal.” (p. 36)
– Robert Murphy, Patrick Michaels, and Paul Knappenberger, “The Case Against a Carbon Tax,” Cato Working Paper No. 33, September 4, 2015.
Are opponents of pricing carbon dioxide (CO2) in general, and a U.S. carbon tax in particular, uninformed about the physical science of man-made climate change? Are opponents also in denial about market-failure economic analysis?
Hardly. Serious intellectual flaws exist in the case for CO2 pricing in the peer-reviewed literature, even the mainstream scientific literature.…