Remembering Julian Simon (1932–1998)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 8, 2010 9 Comments

Editor note: Julian Simon is a primary inspiration for this free-market energy blog, the name of which comes from his characterization of energy as the master resource.

Twelve years ago today came the shocking news: Julian Simon, age 65, had died of heart failure after his regular morning workout in Chevy Chase, Maryland. He had undiagnosed heart disease.

Just two months before, I had visited extensively with Simon when he came Houston to give what would be his last major address, titled: “More People, Greater Wealth, Expanded Resources, Cleaner Environment.” A full house of 200 heard Simon that day, and one in attendance, free-market entrepreneur Gordon Cain, was so impressed that he mailed Simon an unsolicited $25,000 check for research.

Simon invited me to coauthor an energy paper with him for a conference he was planning.…

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Mining the Master Resource

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 11, 2025 No Comments

Editor’s Note: Master Resource’s founder and editor, Rob Bradley, is currently struggling with the aftermath of torrential flooding in the Texas Hill Country. Until he can return to work, he has asked me to post “classic” MR entries. This 2008 essay by Bradley about Malthusianism, resourceship, and the ultimate resource surely qualifies. — Roger Donway, Managing Editor.

In 1972, just two years after the first Earth Day, a team of scholars from MIT published a 200-page book called The Limits to Growth. Using the emerging instrument of computer models, they created a worldwide stir by suggesting that science had now put numbers to a few self-evident truths. Non-renewable resources are fixed; the consumption of such resources must eventually end; any civilization based on such consumption must collapse. New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis called the work “likely to be one of the most important documents of our age” (January 28, 1972).…

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Alarmism Now – and Then (Modern Malthusianism in its 6th Decade)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 9, 2024 No Comments

“Many people think that the threat of ‘global warming’ arose only towards the end of the twentieth century…. Climate change, either natural or anthropogenic, has been discussed from the classical age onwards, evolving from the expected benefits of climate engineering to today’s fear of global disaster.”

– Hans von Storch and Nico Stehr, “Climate Change in Perspective,” Nature, June 8, 2000, p. 615

It is all gloom, what Michael Mann cautioned against as “doomism.”[1] Such alarm has been the mainstream narrative—and wrong—since the 1960s. And warnings about how exaggeration can backfire (New York Times: “In Climate Debate, Exaggeration Is a Pitfall“) have been thrown to the wind in the futile, costly pursuit of Net Zero.

This post presents the climate alarm quotations of today with the quotations from Paul Ehrlich and the Club of Rome in the late 1960s/early 1970s for historical perspective.…

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Getting Cato Back on Track (End flirtation with statist climate/energy policy please!)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- January 22, 2024 No Comments

“The late economist Julian Simon offers a cautionary tale for both climate scientists and economists…. His views have stood the test of time relatively well. But he also had strong views on topics that he was not an expert — climate change being a particular example — and on that topic his views have not fared well…. Simon was wrong about global warming….”

Cleaning Up Our Mess

On climate change, what is our obligation to future generations? Spring 2022 • Regulation By David Levine

This article starts with Greta Thunberg, assumes a negative externality of untold proportion, and ends with the assertion that Julian Simon being wrong on climate change because “he was not an expert.”

And the article pretends to be objective, fair, and impartial.

Things have gotten intellectually sick at the Cato Institute.…

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“The Techno-Optimist Manifesto” (Marc Andreessen in the energy debate)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 20, 2023 1 Comment Continue Reading

What Has Been the Role of Petroleum in Human Progress? (Part IV)

By Julián Salazar Velásquez -- January 27, 2023 No Comments Continue Reading

Biden’s Virtue-Signaling: The Costs of Climate Policy

By David Simon -- June 13, 2022 1 Comment Continue Reading

Energy and Environmental Review: September 20, 2021

By -- September 20, 2021 No Comments Continue Reading

Energy Books: Some Observations

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 17, 2021 No Comments Continue Reading

Encountering–and Overcoming–Libertarian Critics

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- January 11, 2021 5 Comments Continue Reading