“The Trump folks seem to believe that anything that has Obama’s fingerprints on it, no matter how sensible, they’re going to rescind, revoke and demolish, and it makes no sense at all.”

“[The climate conundrum] is scary and I’m not sure we’re gonna be able to turn it around.”

– John Holdren, December 2017.

This is Part II of a transcribed interview with John Holdren, leader of the energy/climate Malthusian school, by Climate One. Yesterday’s post critically assessed Holdren’s views on federal energy research and development, the Paris withdrawal, and China’s energy policy. Today’s post looks at his views on most other issues in the “energy sustainability” debate.

Holdren quotations are below in red, followed by my rebuttal comments indented in black (subtitles added).

Technology Boom in Renewable Energies

“… there have been huge improvement in battery technology.…

“This is potentially a $3 trillion tax,” [C. Boyden] Gray said, “which is pretty steep in the best of times, and poison in the worst of times.”

“… in trying to assemble a majority to pass it, Mr. Waxman and Mr. Markey dished out a cornucopia of concessions and exemptions to coal companies, utilities, refiners, heavy industry and agribusinesses. The original simplicity was lost, replaced by a bazaar in which those with the most muscle got the best deals.”

– John Broder, ‘Cap and Trade’ Loses Its Standing as Energy Policy of Choice, New York Times, March 25, 2010.

The carbon tax is less a cat with nine lives than a dead cat with nine causes. Higher immediate energy prices for one. Border tariffs, equity adjustments, federal control, global government makes five.…

“Beyond rent-seeking, a corporation can engage in other behaviors long decried by classical liberals, behaviors that might be characterized as contra-capitalism.”

Cronyism … Rent-seeking … Regulatory capture … Special-interest politics … Strategic uses of government intervention … Many terms have described business lobbying within the up-for-grabs socioeconomic system of political capitalism where the political means replaces the economic means. [1] It results in what classical-liberal entrepreneur Charles Koch calls bad profit. [2]

But beyond rent-seeking, a corporation can engage in other behaviors long decried by classical liberals, behaviors that might be characterized as contra-capitalism. Importantly, the corporation might not recognize these behaviors as an explicit strategy (Enron did not; Tesla does not). These separable behaviors are complementary.  And now, with a term, what was implicit can become explicit for the public policy and corporate-governance debate.…

“I cannot recall a representative from a free-market think tank (Cato, CEI, IER, etc.) ever addressing the CERA throngs. This does not speak well for the organizers intellectually or as trusted consultants. Truth bats last in public policy.”

“Oil and gas are booming in the US as never before. It is time to not only expose the fallacies of Peak Oil and Energy Security, it is time to explode the neo-Malthusian exaggerations about fossil fuels and climate change.”

The 37th edition of Daniel Yergin’s CERAWeek (IHS-Markit) starts on Monday March 5th, concluding on Friday March 9th. Speaker slots fare full.

We are at a “tipping point” that demands “strategies for a new energy future,” declares the headline of the upcoming CERAWeek conference, the annual gathering of the energy industry in Houston, Texas.…