“[Business columnist] Chris Tomlinson fails to mention fascist governance as another possibility whereby the means of production are ostensibly in private hands, but serve actively to implement government policy. Crony capitalism comes close to that model as larger corporations do a mating dance melding government funding with government policy, and shut out the less well funded and connected smaller commercial entities, while the hapless public gets taxed to fund the charade.”

Chris Tomlinson‘s columns in the Business section of the Houston Chronicle opine on broadly defined energy issues, especially those with a perceived impact on Houston. He is dismissive of the central role of mineral energies for today’s standard of living and refuses to question climate alarmism (the Dessler effect?). He sees government correction as automatic, as if there were not “government failure” in the quest to address “market failure.”…

“Better climate knowledge about natural versus anthropogenic forcing seems to be a decade away.”

“The civil level of discourse was a pleasure to observe. Statements of respect and appreciation often preceded the words ‘but I disagree’ followed by a mildly worded but sharp rebuttal.”

“Better climate knowledge about natural versus anthropogenic forcing seems to a decade away.” That was the major takeaway from a major 1999 climate conference in Houston, Texas as noted by Martin Cassidy of the Houston Geological Society, who  authored a conference summary, “Global Climate Change: Panel Agrees: ‘In 10 Years We Will Know‘.”

In fact, one of the conference participants, Gerald North, climatologist at Texas A&M, repeated this a decade after this conference. In his words:

In another decade of research we will have squared away a lot of our uncertainties about forced climate change.…

“With the boom of carbon-based energy in the US and globally, in fact, it is game-set-and-match Fossil Fuels given the logarithmic effect of GHG forcing.”

“I left the Rice University climate talk… hardly dissuaded from my prior conclusion that [Professor Dessler] is a deep ecologist engaging in half-truths for a cause. That he is not above ‘lawyering’ to present a black-and-white case for climate alarmism.”

Earlier this month,  I attended a lecture by the certain climate alarmist, Andrew Dessler, atmospheric scientist at Texas A&M University. In a recent Houston Chronicle op-ed,  “Why the Green New Deal Makes Me Hopeful About Climate Change,” Dessler stated:

If we don’t take action, unchecked greenhouse-gas emissions would lead to global-average warming over this century of 5 degrees Fahrenheit to 9 degrees Fahrenheit…. …

“If ‘some humans survive’ is the only thing we care about, then climate change is a non-issue. I think it’s certain that ‘some’ humans will survive almost any climate change. They may be living short, hard lives of poverty, but they’ll be alive.”

“Future humans, as they live in a climate dystopia: ‘I thought he cared about the environment’.”

“I find the path we’re on now — the rich world survives (if lucky), but abandons everyone else — to be morally problematic.”

Professor Andrew Dessler of Texas A&M is the alarmist’s alarmist. At a lunch some years ago, he remarked to me (and his more moderate colleague Gerald North) that humankind would have to live underground because of anthropogenic warming. And he stated that fossil fuels had made us slaves, a deep-ecology argument that has been ably turned around by Matt Ridley).…