Debating Greenpeace on "Green Energy"

By Alex Epstein -- October 25, 2011

On Thursday, October 13, 2011, I participated in a debate (on behalf of my Center for Industrial Progress) against a Greenpeace representative on the topic, “Green Energy: Economic Savior or Economic Suicide?” Sponsored by CFACT, the event took place at the University of Texas at Austin, and was streamed on the Web. (The full debate will be produced professionally for general release, but for now a 90% complete version of the Livestream is available here. Also, my talk at Texas A&M on the same subject is available here.)

The debate covered a wide range of topics, including:

The economics of solar and wind.
The “green” opposition to nuclear power.
A free-market, individual rights approach to pollution.
Free-markets vs. central planning in energy.
The true meaning of “green energy.”

Five Climate Questions for Richard Muller (Temperature findings begin, not end, the real debate)

By Kenneth P. Green -- October 24, 2011

In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, The Case Against Global-Warming Skepticism, California Berkeley physicist Richard A. Muller describes the results from a recent re-examination of climate records and declares the debate is finally, really, truly over.

Skepticism, Muller explains, may have been warranted before (how generous of him!), but now that the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project folks have worked over the temperature data again, there’s no more cause for skepticism about whether or not the globe has warmed.

Warming Red Herring–and Five Real Questions

Muller is right about the globe warming, but his framing of the debate is a red herring: arguments over climate change are not about whether one accepts or “denies” that the climate has warmed in recent years.

In fact, as I’ve been explaining to some colleagues and friends today, the proponents of urgent action on climate change like to conflate five separate questions into one question in order to tag their opponents as being “unscientific,” “deniers,” “flat-earthers,” etc.…

MasterResource: 3Q-2011 Activity Report (million moment reached)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 21, 2011

MasterResource, the free market energy blog, surpassed a million views last month. While not a megablog by any means, ours is a high quality, in-depth, one-post-per-day contribution to the current energy debate–and a resource for the historical record (our extensive index stands at 365).

Since its beginning in late 2008, MasterResource has published approximately 875 posts from 110 different authors. Comments from our loyal, sophisticated readership add substance to many of the in-depth posts. And we have achieved critical mass; Google an energy-policy-related term and MasterResource, and usually something will come up.

MasterResource has covered a variety of energy issues on the state, federal, and even international level. But our most active area has been the growing backlash against industrial wind turbines. MasterResource is a leading voice for citizens, environmentalists, and small-government advocates who have united against this intrusive, wildly uneconomic, government-enabled energy form.…