A Free-Market Energy Blog

In Denial: Thomas Friedman's (Self) Limits to (Intellectual) Growth

By -- June 10, 2011

“[N]eo-Malthusians like [Paul] Gilding resemble hypochondriacs who insist that they are at death’s door and see every sniffle as confirmation that the end is near. Rather than launch massive programs to sterilize the population or make everyone vegetarians, we should hand them a tissue and tell them to get over it. Or, as the English philosopher Pete Townsend said, ‘This is no social crisis, just another tricky day for you’.”

– Michael Lynch on Thomas Friedman et al.

Thomas Friedman’s New York Times latest column–The Earth is Full–quotes environmental-entrepreneur Paul Gilding (author: The Great Disruption) about the rampant denial concerning the world crossing of “growth/climate/natural resources/population redlines all at once.”

So just about all of us do not see what is so obvious to these smartest-guys-in-the-environmental room. Really.…

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Lindzen-Choi 'Special Treatment': Is Peer Review Biased Against Nonalarmist Climate Science?

By Chip Knappenberger -- June 9, 2011
[Editor’s note: The following material was supplied to us by Dr. Richard Lindzen as an example of how research that counters climate-change alarm receives special treatment in the scientific publication process as compared with results that reinforce the consensus view. In this case, Lindzen’s submission to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences was subjected to unusual procedures and eventually rejected (in a rare move), only to be accepted for publication in the Asian Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences.
 
I, too, have firsthand knowledge about receiving special treatment. Ross McKitrick has documented similar experiences, as have John Christy and David Douglass and Roy Spencer, and I am sure others. The unfortunate side-effect of this differential treatment is that a self-generating consensus slows the forward progress of scientific knowledge—a situation well-described by Thomas Kuhn is his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
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Windpower: Environmentalists vs. Environmentalists (NIMBYism, precautionary principle vs. industrial wind)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 8, 2011

“The Municipality of Central Huron requests that the Province of Ontario declare a moratorium on all current and future projects for on-shore and off-shore development of wind-energy facilities until it has commissioned properly-designed independent third-party scientific research into the long-term effects, released the findings for public comment, and has incorporated those comments to enact science-based maximums for wind-facility emissions, and for electrical emission from all related electrical facilities, and can therefore guarantee to Council’s satisfaction that the health and well-being of the Municipality’s human and animal populations are protected from the direct and indirect negative effects of being in proximity to those IWT facilities.”

– Central Huron Council Resolution, adopted June 6, 2011

Two days ago, the Central Huron Council passed a resolution against wind-turbine business-as-usual, a victory for local advocacy groups such as Toronto Wind Action, Great Lakes Wind Truth (see their Facebook page), and Central Huron Against Wind Turbines.…

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Dear Sierra Club (Canada): I Resign Over Your Anti-Environmental Wind Support

By Jen Gilbert -- June 7, 2011
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Overestimating Wind Power Generation: From the UK to New York State

By -- June 6, 2011
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Big Bad Wolf Romm: "Climate on the Brink…." (Plea to temper 'shrillness' by EDF's Krupp ignored)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 3, 2011
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Federal Asset Privatization, Not a Higher Debt Ceiling (SPR a good place to begin)

By Robert Murphy -- June 2, 2011
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Energy for a Free Society: The 'American Energy Act' (Part II: Real World Reform)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 1, 2011
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California's Cap-and-Trade Illegality: CARB Rethink Necessary

By Tom Tanton -- May 31, 2011
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Wisdom from T. Boone against Rent-Seeking Pickens (remember when you said ….?)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 27, 2011
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