A Free-Market Energy Blog

AWED Energy & Environmental Newsletter: 2/18/13

By -- February 18, 2013

The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy & environmental policies. Our basic position is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using real science.

Instead of a science-based approach, our energy and environmental policies are typically written by those who stand to economically or politically profit from them. As a result, anything genuinely science-based in these policies is usually inadvertent and accidental.

A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every 3± weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and environmental matters. We very much appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.

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An important, new, professionally made film about wind energy is Wind Rush.

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Free Market Environmentalism: Julian L. Simon Memorial Award Remarks

By Robert J. Smith -- February 15, 2013

“We appear to be on the Road to Serfdom, paved with green bricks rather than red bricks…. It is actually likely that the United States is now approaching State ownership of about 50 percent of all its land—a level of socialist land ownership unequalled in the world.”

It is a fabulous honor to receive the Julian Simon Memorial Award. Julian was one of the seminal thinkers of the 20th century—and one of the first to challenge the radical Greens’ attack on freedom and progress.

Simon demolished the limits to growth and the belief that human progress was bound in a Malthusian straitjacket, and limited by the known or presumably known physical supplies of natural resources. He argued that the ultimate resource was the limitless nature of man’s mind—his intelligence, innovation, discovery, and invention, constantly discovering and creating new resources where none had existed before.

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Energy Realism, Energy Optimism: Julian L. Simon Memorial Award Remarks

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 14, 2013

“I might add a prediction—that the hydrocarbon energy age could still be young, even quite young. The much-hyped emergence of a new renewable energy era by mid-century is less our energy future than our energy past…”

I am honored to receive the [2002] Julian Simon award tonight. My thanks go to the Simon family and the Competitive Enterprise Institute for having this annual award to recognize and encourage new contributions in the “sustainable development” field that Simon pioneered.

My appreciation also goes out to a number of groups within the classical liberal “structure of production” that have supported my intellectual development over the last quarter century, and in particular the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University, the Cato Institute, and the Atlas Economic Research Foundation.

Julian Simon was very interested in energy and energy-environmental issues.

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The Intellectual Victor: Julian L. Simon Memorial Award Remarks

By Matt Ridley -- February 13, 2013
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Julian Simon: A Pathbreaking, Heroic Scholar Remembered

By -- February 12, 2013
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Windpower Propaganda: At A School Near You?

By Sherri Lange -- February 11, 2013
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U.S. Energy Innovation (Part III: Federal Land Potential)

By Mary Hutzler -- February 8, 2013
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U.S. Energy Innovation (Part II: Coal Issues)

By Mary Hutzler -- February 7, 2013
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U.S. Energy Innovation (Part I: Expanding “Depletable” Resources)

By Mary Hutzler -- February 6, 2013
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DOE’s Chu’s Resignation Letter: Ten Questions

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 5, 2013
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