The alarmists’ attitude towards climate change will prove more harmful than beneficial in the long run.

Earth Day this year focused officially on the need to reduce plastic litter, a worthy and achievable goal. Nonetheless, much Earth Day activity concentrated on the alleged need to save the planet from climate change.

Climate-change alarmists have long called the current warming period “unprecedented” and “dangerous.” But is it?

Ironically, this Earth Day fell in the midst of one of the coldest Aprils in North American history. The severe winter of 2017–2018 has raised debates from two contrasting ends.

While some uninformed people claim it disproves global warming, climate alarmists claim it is just another evidence for global warming.

Deniers, Alarmists and Skeptics

Actual climate-change deniers—and they are very few—categorically deny the warming trend.…

“Models, models. Experts, experts. At every step of each Malthusian episode, the latest science is cited as proof of the alarmist position. The Club of Rome studies in the 1970s to Peak Oil studies of recent decades. And the latest climate-model averaging today.”

Why engage with an anonymous climate alarmist (see the exchange yesterday)?

First, ‘mafarmerga” presented serious arguments in the public domain–and identified himself as a professor with peer-review responsibilities in climate science. [Editor update: he has identified himself]

Second, I really like my arguments relative to the opposition. Isn’t it nice that intellectual trends, not only political ones, are going against this latest Malthusian scare? Good for mankind–good for the worldview of economic and political liberty.

Third, going toe-to-toe forces me to better consider opposing arguments and to revisit mine.…

[Editor note: This exchange at the R-Street Institute website (no longer visible) is posted here and here.]

“From the Club of Rome to the present–with scientific models and articles in Science magazine from the ‘consensus’–the verdict has been wrong, wrong, wrong, and trending wrong. And this is before even considering (non-libertarian) public policy of taxes, tariffs, equity adjustments, private/public cronyism, etc.”

So why have neo-Malthusian natural scientists been so incorrect for so long? We have nearly a half-century of (falsified) doom-and-gloom.

Josiah Neeley of R-Street, once a critic of climate alarmism and wind power (see yesterday), is now desperately trying to make a case to libertarians and conservatives that the climate is in crisis and a carbon tax (and all the global government that goes with it) is necessary.…

“The top-down approach by many [Peak Oil] analysts tends to ignore the explanatory variables behind oil supply trends. [They] merely extrapolate recent trends, especially if they are declining. Oil prices, fiscal regimes, and other factors that influence investment and supply trends are ignored….”

“While it is true that the success of any given wildcat cannot be predicted, you can forecast that discoveries will continue to occur and that a certain percentage of exploratory wells will find oil. And where the resource base has a history of exploration, the confidence about discoveries grows, especially in terms of the success rate.”

Abstract: The presumption that the inability to predict a given oil field discovery translates into an assumption of no discoveries is a primary factor behind neo-Malthusian pessimism about oil supply.  Given data for a basin, it can be safely assumed that a certain level of discoveries will continue.…