“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 debate over a carbon tax is now not just one of theoretical speculation; proponents need to explain why the U.S. outcome would be different from what actually happened in Australia.”
“Wind power simply cannot be scaled up to replace traditional energy sources such as fossil fuels and nuclear power….Wind subsidies might make a few people rich, but they won’t make wind a free market success story.”
– Josiah Neeley (below)
Time is relentless when it comes to the advantages from mineral-energy density and disdavantages from wind and solar intermittency. Such energy reality creates a sharp divide between consumer-chosen free-market energy and government-directed political energy. Or more bluntly, voluntary choice and coerced choice.
And when it comes to the carbon tax, real-world politics bats last, evicerating any theoretical scheme to implement a (God-like) revenue-neutral, equity-adjusted, border-adjusted carbon-dioxide (CO2) tax.…