When asked about Paul Ehrlich receiving the MacArthur Genius Award, Julian Simon replied: “MacArthur! I can’t even get a McDonald’s!” Added Ed Regis in a Simon profile in Wired:
This did not discourage him. Doomslaying was a thankless task, but it had to be done, like taking out the garbage: it had to be carted to the dump today even if there’d be another big pile of it tomorrow.
Enter the latest neo-Malthusian award winner, Seth Borenstein, the blatantly biased climate reporter/alarmist, who is a recipient of this year’s (2026) Hall of Fame honorees as chosen by the Society of Professional Journalists, Washington, D.C. Chapter, “honoring the best journalism produced in the District of Columbia and metropolitan Maryland and Virginia.”
…A science writer covering climate change, its impacts and related politics.
“Following a pattern in other places like California and the UK, this solar boom has brought crime along with it. But here the trend is turbocharged by more remote expanses and entrenched organized crime….”
Solar power as grid electricity has many strikes against it, which is why outsized government favor is required.
It is dilute, requiring large infrastructure to concentrate it into useful energy. It is intermittent, with cloudy days and nights working against it. It is dispersed, creating spawl that ecologists once condemned, and transmission costly. It is unsightly and a blight to neighbors, lowering property values. It is fragile, with hailstorms and hurricanes promising wreckage.
Add to these another downside: thieving. As told by Antonia Mufarech in “Solar Thieves” [Bloomberg’s Green Daily (May 7, 2026)].…
“The magical thinkers defending wind, solar, batteries, and EVs encounter immediate, blistering pushback from general observers who follow the pro-con arguments. ‘The EV guy’ could hardly respond to the flood of criticisms toward his half-baked arguments.”
“This is incredible!” explained “the EV Guy” Steve Hutchings on social media (April 21, 2026). He stated in “Just how wasteful is fuel?”:
…Most people think about what happens inside the engine… But the real waste starts LONG before the fuel even reaches your car. To make just 1 litre of petrol:
Around 1,700-3,400 kJ (0.5-0.95 kWh) is used just to get oil out the ground. Then another 3,400-6,800 kJ (0.95-1.9 kWh) is used to refine it into usable fuel. That’s 5,100-10,200 kJ (1.4-2.8 kWh) gone before you’ve even driven a single mile. That same energy, just to make the fuel, could be used to drive an EV 6-12 miles.