By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 28, 2016
“Since at least 1989, Mr. Lynch has made a career of poo-pooing any concept that oil supplies might be finite and that we might find production capability dropping as demand continues to rise…. [Oil supply] not an issue? Do you expect to be dead and gone in the next 4 to 8 years?”
– Charles Armentrout, “Lynch Poo-Poos Peak Oil,” LastTechAge, February 2, 2011.
It is entirely appropriate to recognize an intellectual victory, particularly when a confident, even arrogant, mainstream was overcome. In the case of Peak Oil, the victor is Michael C. Lynch, president of Strategic Energy and Economic Research, a Massachusetts-based consultancy.
Lynch has held a number of research positions at M.I.T. and was chief energy economist at DRI-WEFA. He currently blogs at forbes.com, and his publications have appeared in six languages, focusing on petroleum supply, energy forecasting, and energy policy.…
By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 19, 2016
“I wish Senator Whitehouse were here. Because what he is doing to the free speech of those companies and anyone associated with it is unconstitutional. And I think he should apologize or resign.”
“You violate the constitution, you resign. I thought that was the policy in the United States.”
– Alex Epstein. Testimony before the US Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. April 13, 2016.
“I’ll never forget this hearing. We have a philosopher who wants Senator Whitehouse to resign. Senator Whitehouse, who is working every day to stop carbon pollution and save lives.”
– Sen. Barbara Boxer [3]
I remember encountering Alex Epstein back in 2011. He was working at the Ayn Rand Institute–and full time on energy. Wow, I thought. Here was someone who could add a philosophical voice to the political economists arguing the macro issues of depletion, pollution, and climate change, and the micro issues of price controls, trade restrictions, access restrictions, etc.…
By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 18, 2016
Earlier today, the online subscription news service Greenwire published this item:
OBITUARY: Hurricane researcher-turned-climate denier dies at 86
William Gray, who pioneered hurricane forecasting tools as a professor at Colorado State University and voiced skepticism of climate change models, died Saturday.
The university said Gray, 86, died peacefully at home with his family.
Gray and his researchers were among the first to link the El Niño phenomenon to the formation of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea in their predictions.
“He consistently issued these forecasts for over 30 years, a track record unparalleled for university predictions,” said Phil Klotzbach, one of Gray’s researchers.
Gray, a Washington, D.C., native and alumnus of George Washington University, questioned the science of climate change in his later years.
“How can we trust climate forecasts 50 and 100 years into the future (that can’t be verified in our lifetime) when they are not able to make shorter seasonal or yearly forecasts that could be verified?”
…