A Free-Market Energy Blog

“In Climate Debate, Exaggeration Is a Pitfall” (NYT article revisited)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 8, 2020

“In a paper being published in the March-April [2009] edition of the journal Environment, Matthew C. Nisbet … said Mr. Gore’s approach, focusing on language of crisis and catastrophe, could actually be serving the other side in the fight … ‘as global-warming alarmism….'” – Andrew Revkin, NYT (2009).

“There has to be a lot of shrillness taken out of our language. In the environmental community, we have to be more humble. We can’t take the attitude that we have all the answers.” – Fred Krupp, Environmental Defense Fund (2011).

A backlash against climate alarmism is evident. Witness the interest in Michael Shellenberger’s Apocalypse Never, building on his argument presented at Forbes seven months ago, Why Climate Alarmism Hurts Us All.

Bjorn Lomborg’s new book, False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet,” also a best seller, demotes the climate scare at just the time the other side wants panic.…

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George Will on Climate Alarmism (2009 op-ed reads well today)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 7, 2020

“An unstated premise of eco-pessimism is that environmental conditions are, or recently were, optimal. The proclaimed faith of eco-pessimists is weirdly optimistic: These optimal conditions must and can be preserved or restored if government will make us minimize our carbon footprints and if government will ‘remake’ the economy.” (George Will, 2009)

Climate alarmism is now in its 4th decade. It can be dated, at least, to James Hansen’s congressional testimony in mid-1988, which inspired the New York Times to report on the front page:

If the current pace of the buildup of these gases continues, the effect is likely to be a warming of 3 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit from the year 2025 to 2050…. The rise in global temperature is predicted to cause a thermal expansion of the oceans and to melt glaciers and polar ice, thus causing sea levels to rise by one to four feet by the middle of the next century.

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Climate Thought Police Are At the Door

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 6, 2020

This post merely reproduces the open letter from climate alarmists to Facebook. This action, be assured, is a beginning, not the end. Expect more censorship alongside heavy-handed government intervention in the Malthusian’s last stand.

Facebook Must Stop the Spread of Climate Misinformation

An open letter to Helle Thorning-Schmidt and Facebook’s Oversight Board

July 1, 2020

To: Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Facebook Oversight Board

Cc: Mark Zuckerberg, Afia Asantewaa Asare-Kyei, Evelyn Aswad, Endy Bayuni, Catalina Botero-Marino, Katherine Chen, Nighat Dad, Jamal Greene, Pamela Karlan, Tawakkol Karman, Maina Kiai, Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Ronaldo Lemos, Michael McConnell, Julie Owono, Emi Palmor, Alan Rusbridger, András Sajó, Nicolas Suzor, Nick Clegg


Ms. Thorning-Schmidt,

In the four years you served Denmark as Prime Minister, you saw the effects of CO2 on climate change first hand. You made this dire challenge central to your tenure; you took action and asked other leaders to do the same.…

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Happy 4th: Drive, Grill, Celebrate (CO2 happiness)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 3, 2020
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Remembering Adam Smith this July 4th (Part 2)

By Richard Ebeling -- July 2, 2020
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Remembering Adam Smith this July 4th (Part I)

By Richard Ebeling -- July 1, 2020
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‘The Increasing Sustainability of Conventional Energy’ (1999 analysis for 2020)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 30, 2020
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Anti-Humanism: Book Review of ‘The End of Nature’ by Bill McKibben

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 29, 2020
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Censorship for Climate Alarm: Dessler Joins Mann in Intellectual Cowardice

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 25, 2020
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Joanna Szurmak Interview: Extending the Julian Simon Worldview (Part II: Population Bombed!)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 24, 2020
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