“… knowledge is truly the mother of all resources.”

– Erich Zimmermann, World Resources and Industries (1951), p. 10.

The new year presents an opportunity to step back and appreciate the driver of progress in the free economy: the liberated, liberating entrepreneur. The change-makers of the market drive the creation and usage of resources, as well documented by the oil and gas extraction revolution of the last decade or more.

But a largely invisible, ongoing application in the U.S. and elsewhere deserves more attention. Instead of futile and wasteful (government) mitigation policy, the positive approach to climate policy is human ingenuity to anticipate, mitigate, or just capitalize on changing weather patterns, aka climate change.

Increasing ‘depletable’ resources is a paradigmatic example of what Julian Simon called “the ultimate resource,” human ingenuity.…

“Please note: Desert Report editors have retracted ‘The Silent Menace’ articles from both the June and September issues; our forthcoming December issue will cover the reasons why.” When the retraction took place during the second week of September, they hadn’t found an official excuse yet that they were comfortable publishing as an explanation….

… the formerly controversial topic of potential infrasound hazards associated with industrial wind turbines had been demonstrated by enough prestigious studies to be harmful beyond any level of doubt. As an environmental tribunal in Ontario, Canada officially explained, the issue was no longer one that questioned the harm but had evolved into a question of the degree of harm that industrial wind turbine–generated infrasound causes.

One of Murphy’s Laws states, “No good deed goes unpunished.” Along those lines, after working without any compensation for months to uncover the most revealing, current scholarly studies, and thought-provoking news reports on the known health hazards associated with infrasound from industrial wind turbines, a two-part series of articles that was written at the Sierra Club’s request was suddenly retracted from one of their club’s magazines.…

[Editor note: A ‘clarification and apology’ associated with this post is here. The author failed to note that Andrew Dessler also stated, “I debate in the peer-reviewed literature.”]

“Doesn’t the wholesale reordering of our society demand at least a little bit of public debate? We think so.” (Heartland Institute)

“In a public debate, advocates can use all kinds of rhetorical tricks, as well as outright lies, to advance their cause. There’s no way to counter them in that forum.” (Andrew Dessler)

“All of the noise right now from the climate change denial machine, the bots & trolls, the calls for fake “debates,” etc. Ignore it all. Deniers are desperate for oxygen in a mainstream media environment that is thankfully is no longer giving it to them. Report.

“Discoveries, like resources, may well be infinite: the more we discover, the more we are able to discover.” (Julian Simon, The Ultimate Resource 2, p. 82)

“The world is not ‘a bundle of hay’ but a living growing complex of matter and energy, a process rather than a thing.” ( Erich Zimmermann, World Resources and Industries, 1951, p. 815.

What explains the happy fact (really the miracle of man) that the more we discover, the more we find out if left to discover? Instead of mineral depletion, we have mineral expansion–turning the Malthusian predicament on its head. And instead of weather/climate doom, we have successful adaptation in wealthy (as in healthy) free economies.

Labor Day has passed, a day that could be renamed Energy Day for the saved labor that modern energy has transferred to machines and appliances.…