Ed. Note: The Cato Institute has long been an intellectual and advocacy force for climate realism (the global lukewarming school), as well as free-market energy policies in the face of climate alarmism. This post shares Cato’s work on both issues in this historic week of climate activism to, in President Biden’s words, “set America on a path of net-zero emissions economy by no later than 2050.”
This post will be updated with any new material from Cato on these subjects.
………………..
[Nothing on Earth Day] [!!]
[April 23rd: Electric Vehicles and the Biden Infrastructure Plan]
This post by Chris Edwards is just regular fare with little-to-nothing to do with the climate/energy transformation war raging outside of Cato’s windows.
The piece is also very shallow and politically correct, trying to make the argument that more government subsidies are not needed because electric vehicles (EVs) can now stand on their own….…
This reprint from a collection of essays at Julian Simon.com is published as an ode to Earth Day (tomorrow). This piece was finalized in Simon’s treatise, The Ultimate Resource 2 (1996), pp. 604–607. Simon’s relative politeness to his adversary is a tribute to open, honest, and respectful debate (versus the Paul R. Ehrlich approach).
“When you launch a space shuttle you don’t trot out the flat-earthers to be commentators. They’re outside the bounds of what ought to be discourse in the media. In the field of ecology, Simon is the absolute equivalent of the flat-earthers.” (Paul Ehrlich, quoted below)
For economy of treatment of the matter of attack rhetoric, let’s focus on just one critic, Paul Ehrlich, who has directed a great deal of colorful language in my direction (see also his comments in the Afternote to Chapter 15, and my interchange with him in Simon, 1990, Selection 43).…
“On the 11th anniversary of the BP blowout, the real takeaway is that oil companies that think they are ‘beyond petroleum’ are value destroyers for shareholders and for the environment.”
Every April commemorates BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill (April 10, 2010). To the anti-energy Left, Deepwater Horizon is the epitome of oil-gone-bad, coming some 21 years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. It was not supposed to happen again, but ….
The sad facts of Deepwater Horizon will forever remain. The multiple failures behind the accident are also well documented. But a paradox remains. Mighty BP, captained by John Browne, the leading “environmentalist” of the petroleum industry created the corporate culture that resulted in lax safety and environmental protocols. By saving about $5 million out of $100+ million in drilling costs, the company ended up paying out in excess of $60 billion.…