Climate Conundrum: Revisiting a 2016 Discussion (when Hillary was going to win)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 3, 2019 1 Comment

“Despite mounting climate impacts and radio silence from politicians, media and other important players, the panelists were hopeful that climate change will soon earn the attention it deserves.” (World Resources Institute, 2016)

Just prior to the 2016 election (which Hillary was going to win, of course), a group of leading climate alarmists opined about why they were losing in the court of public opinion. “If Climate Change Is the Existential Crisis of Our Age, Why Isn’t it Getting More Attention?” by Sarah Parsons of World Resources Institute (October 28, 2016) is reprinted below (with yellow headings inserted). My final comment follows.

Sarah Parsons asks “What Gives” about the “existential crisis” that received very little attention in the Presidential election.

The evidence is everywhere. Drought dries up farmland from California to the Sahel.…

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Halloween: Neo-Malthusian Day

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 31, 2019 1 Comment

“We created a way of raising standards of living that we can’t possibly pass on to our children. It has to collapse, unless adults stand up and say, ‘This is a Ponzi scheme. We have not generated real wealth, and we are destroying a livable climate.’” (Joe Romm, quoted in Thomas Friedman, Is the Inflection Point Near?, New York Times, March 7, 2009)

“Is there any more single-minded, simple pleasure than viewing with alarm? At times it is even better than sex.” (Kenneth Boulding (1970), p. 160. [1]

Are free-market optimists the dumb ones who jump off tall buildings and report that everything is fine, even breezy, on the way down? Or are those who fear, rant, and make this analogy bungee-jumping with reality?

The optimists have been jumping off buildings ever since Robert Thomas Malthus’s An Essay on Population was published in 1798–and not hitting the ground.…

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Adaptation: Think about It (a ‘free-market jihadist’?)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 20, 2019 8 Comments

“With the very unique situation of CO2 (a global externality of positives and negatives), government mitigation is doomed to fail. Sooner or later, you will have to admit that politics failed, that fossil fuels were just too good given the alternatives of non-use, renewables, nuclear.” (Bradley to Dessler #1, August 3, 2019)

“We have not only market failure but also analytical failure (imperfect you, me, others) and government failure, which is magnified by 190 or so governments.” (Bradley to Dessler #2, August 3, 2019)

I have been critical of Texas A&M climatologist and Green New Dealer Andrew Dessler for some time now. He is far too certain about climate doom (“climate dystopia,” to use his term) and refuses to see the risks in climate policy, not only physical climate change.…

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Charles Koch vs. Crony Capitalism

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 15, 2019 No Comments

“Good profit can only result from creating value for the consumer. It is the manifestation of the entrepreneur’s respect for what the customer values.”

– Charles Koch, Good Profit (New York: Crown Business, 2015), p. 244.

Documents Shine New Light on Koch Brothers’ Early Efforts to Abolish the Department of Energy,” reads the headline of a new report about Charles and David Koch by Desmog Blog. This organization/site also announced a Koch Network Database,

a new resource library built by DeSmog to assist journalists, academic researchers, and the public to learn more about the backgrounds of individuals and organizations associated with billionaire fossil fuel industrialists Charles Koch and David Koch‘s free market approach to a broad spectrum of civic issues.

As just a compilation of individuals and groups and their purpose and work, “guilty as charged” would apply.…

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Summer Air Conditioning: Stay Comfortable! (conservation calls enable bad policy)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 23, 2019 No Comments Continue Reading

Martin Weitzman’s Dismal Theorem: Do “Fat Tails” Destroy Cost-Benefit Analysis?

By Robert Murphy -- June 3, 2019 1 Comment Continue Reading

Twinges of Climate Realism at the New York Times (Stephens, Douthat vs. the rest of the paper)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 7, 2019 4 Comments Continue Reading

Plan B to the Carbon Tax (NYT’s remarkable obituary article)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- January 28, 2019 3 Comments Continue Reading

CEI: Energy/Environmental Policy for the New Congress

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- January 23, 2019 3 Comments Continue Reading

“Why Greens are Turning Away from a Carbon Tax” (POLITICO documents a turning point)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 12, 2018 7 Comments Continue Reading