“Policies that force use of more expensive, less reliable energy push costs throughout the economy and place the heaviest burden on the world’s poor and low-income citizens. We need all forms of energy to address global needs, and we must recognize the strengths and limitations of each choice. Advanced coal is the sustainable fuel at scale that can meet these needs.”
– Gregory Boyce, CEO, Peabody Energy, April 3, 2014.
Peabody Energy–“the world’s largest private-sector coal company and a global leader in sustainable mining and clean coal solutions … in more than 25 countries on six continents”—has started a good conversation. Lifting countless millions out of energy poverty into energy modernism is worth our best thinking and debate.
Peabody’s call to reduce energy inequality between the haves and have nots challenges the “Let them eat cake” conceit of so many energy statists/elitists. …
“As citizens, we need to call on our leaders to make thoughtful choices about where to site industrial-scale development and renewable energy projects, and to create a legacy for our national parks and to public lands everywhere.” – Mark Butler, “Saving the Mojave from the Solar Threat,” Los Angeles Times , March 25, 2014. “‘Soft’ energy sources are horribly land intensive…. The greenest possible strategy is to mine and to bury, to fly and to tunnel, to search high and low, where the life mostly isn’t, and to leave the edge, the space in the middle, living and green.” – Peter Huber, Hard Green; Saving the Environment from the Environmentalists (New York: Basic Books, 1999), pp. 107–108.
Hard-green energies (fossil fuels, uranium) have a major ecological advantage over politically-correct soft energy (wind, solar): less infrastructure requirement, including land. …
“Beware, the youth should also be told, of Climate Kings, Climate Queens, Climate Duces, and worse masquerading as infallible purveyors of truth. Climate Planning is the fatal conceit of Economic Planning on stilts.”
As has been well reported in the media, public opinion polls rate climate-change concerns at the bottom of environmental issues, not just issues in general (Gallup: 14 of 15, analyzed here). And the other side is getting increasingly desperate in their activism, which is even alarming climate alarmists.
One might argue that American adults are either misinformed, dumb, or ecologically uncaring. But a more rational explanation is that adults have heard both sides of the issue (ad nauseam) and reject climate alarmism. One way to interpret this is to understand that there are here-and-now real problems (the economy; budget deficits); energy prices matter (which means carbon rationing is a negative); global warming has flat-lined in the last decade (and more), contrary to predictions.…