The Intellectual Roots of Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb (and the pre-prehistory of climate alarmism)

By Pierre Desrochers -- July 14, 2009 17 Comments

[Editor note: Pierre Desrochers, who guest posts with us for the first time, is Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Toronto.]

Paul Ehrlich’s best-seller The Population Bomb  turned 40 last year. The latest issue of the peer-reviewed (and somewhat iconoclastic) Electronic Journal of Sustainable Development is devoted to the book, its impact, and the validity of its main message. It features contributions by both Paul and Anne Ehrlich, who mostly stand by their original analysis, and some of their critics who challenge their basic premise and supportive evidence.

Despite a now widespread popular perception that The Population Bomb was a pioneering work, it originally drew little attention. In fact, it was just the latest in a long line of books, reports, essays and pamphlets on the population issue published in post-World War II America.…

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‘Planet of the Humans:’ A Progressive’s Lament

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- January 11, 2020 No Comments

The Grayzone is self-described as “an independent news and politics website dedicated to investigative journalism and analysis on war and empire.” While far Left, even socialistic, “The Grayzone is a totally independent journalistic initiative that does not take money from any government or government-backed group or individual.”

The article follows:

‘Green’ billionaires behind professional activist network that led suppression of ‘Planet of the Humans’ documentary

MAX BLUMENTHAL·BIG TECHNON-PROFIT INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX·SEPTEMBER 7, 2020

The Michael Moore-produced ‘Planet of the Humans’ faced a coordinated suppression campaign led by professional climate activists backed by the same ‘green’ billionaires, Wall Street investors, industry insiders and family foundations skewered in the film.

By Max Blumenthal

“We must take control of our environmental movement and our future from billionaires and their permanent war on Planet Earth.

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‘Oil, Gas, and Government: the U.S. Experience’ (introduction to a 1996 classic)

By Robert Murphy -- June 17, 2015 8 Comments

In 1979, Robert L. Bradley Jr. contracted with the Cato Institute to write a history of U.S. oil and gas regulation. Cato did not have an energy position yet in Washington, D.C. (that came a decade later) but was very interested in the subject. Indeed, with debilitating natural gas shortages in the winters of 1971/72 and 1976/77, and oil shortages during 1974 and 1979, the policy landscape was ripe for free-market energy analysis.

What began as an 18-month project turned into a four-year, six-months relentless research-and-writing effort. Finding a publisher for what would be a two volume, 2,000-page treatise proved difficult. Bradley revised the manuscript during the decade delay, although leaving the cut-off year at 1984. Rowman & Littlefield published the work in 1996 as Oil, Gas, and Government: The U.S.

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Milton Friedman Day (some energy quotations on the occasion of his 102nd birthday)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 31, 2014 1 Comment

“Economists may not know much. But we know one thing very well: how to produce surpluses and shortages. Do you want a surplus? Have the government legislate a minimum price that is above the price that would otherwise prevail…. Do you want a shortage? Have the government legislate a maximum price that is below the price that would otherwise prevail.”

       – Milton and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979), pp. 219.

“It is a mark of how far we have gone on the road to serfdom that government allocation and rationing of oil is the automatic response to the oil crisis.”

– Milton Friedman, “Why Some Prices Should Rise,” Newsweek, November 19, 1973.

Milton Friedman is best known for Monetarism, a school of economics that effectively challenged fiscal-side Keynesianism.

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Milton Friedman's 100th: Exploring His Wisdom for the Ages (Part II: Energy)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 2, 2012 5 Comments Continue Reading