“Beto knows that climate change is the defining existential threat of our time.”
– O’Rourke Campaign Website
“All campaigns are to some degree an act of public manipulation,” Charles Blow stated recently in his New York Times column, “hopefully to the good, but often to the ill.” The Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke run for US Senate in Texas (against incumbent Republican Ted Cruz) has been a case study in public manipulation, elevating image over substance in a Red state.
The manipulation centers around the Spanish nickname “Beto” by a fourth-generation Irish American, followed by the pitch: fourth generation Texan … family man … civic minded … grass roots campaigner … consensus builder … No money from PACs.
His website evokes a politician for all parties and seasons:
…Beto is traveling to every part of Texas to meet with Texans in their communities.
“I have applied Simon’s framework to the issue of climate change, although my historical perspective allowed me to see more of the forest rather than obsess about a few trees. Try as I might, I just cannot ignore the unique and large-scale benefits brought to humanity by the ever increasing use of carbon fuels (e.g., from longer lives and better health to cleaner air and water, more abundant food and reforestation).”
Yesterday, Pierre Desrochers and Joanna Szurmak, summarized their new book, Population Bombed! Exploding the Link Between Overpopulation and Climate Change. Today, MasterResource is pleased to interview Professor Desrochers about his latest book.
Q. In his 1981 classic, The Ultimate Resource, Julian Simon decoupled population growth from resource depletion, rising pollution, food supply, and other popularly believed barriers to progress.…
“A carbon tax is not a fundamentally un-libertarian idea. Jonathan H. Adler, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law … has argued for the use of carbon taxes as part of a market-based approach to tackling climate change.”
– Eric Boehm, “The Republican Carbon Tax Bill Would Create Power Commission with Access to All Government Data.” Reason, July 24, 2018.
It was titled “A Conservative’s Approach to Combating Climate Change.” Published in The Atlantic (May 30, 2012), its author did an about face on his prior beliefs on climate alarm and the role of government policy (see his “‘Greenhouse Policy without Regrets'”).
The 1,800-word new view of Jonathan Adler did not so much refute as bypass his prior views on the nature of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and government energy policy.…