“Humans aren’t rational…. How, then, can we combat misinformation when simply presenting the facts is no longer enough – and may even backfire?” – Nate Hagens (below)
Climate messaging is in turmoil. “Maybe the problem is not climate denial,” Gilad Regev observed:
Maybe it’s climate messaging. We’ve been attempting to scare or shame people into caring, and it’s not effective. Is it time to completely rethink how we talk about climate and sustainability? We’ve spent years trying to influence people through fear, data, and moral urgency. The results? Mixed.
Joe Romm in a comment dissed Regev, complaining about a huge, well-funded public disinformation campaign by Big Oil. (If only some of that mega-money was really flowing to think tanks such as IER or CEI or Heartland….)
Another Take
Enter Nate Hagens, Director of The Institute for the Study of Energy & Our Future (ISEOF).…
“[New York Governor] Hochul’s shift could become a blueprint for Democrats across the country as they desperately try to convince voters they’re aggressively tackling cost-of-living concerns — including energy bills — ahead of the midterm elections.” – Politico, March 7, 2026
Next time you hear that climate policies are affordable or that wind and solar save money, look out the window. What are consumers saying? What are politicians under affordability pressure saying? No quantity of studies or fearmongering about climate can refute what is happening in the real world. Energy prices, energy economics, matter.
NY Governor Kathy Hochul
Democrat politicians today are retreating from heady climate goals of the past. Consider this article in Politico, “‘Hurting peoples’ pocketbooks’: Hochul pushes to pare back landmark climate law.”
“The New York governor is pushing for changes to the state’s landmark climate law because of affordability concerns, reflecting a national clash between high energy prices and environmental goals,” Marie French reports, adding:
…It’s a major shift for Gov.
This reprint from a collection of essays at Julian Simon.com is published in connection with the recent death of Paul R. Ehrlich (1932–2026). This piece was finalized in Simon’s treatise, The Ultimate Resource 2 (1996), pp. 604–607. Simon’s relative politeness to his adversary is a tribute to open, honest, and respectful debate (versus the infamous Ehrlich approach).
“When you launch a space shuttle you don’t trot out the flat-earthers to be commentators. They’re outside the bounds of what ought to be discourse in the media. In the field of ecology, Simon is the absolute equivalent of the flat-earthers.” (Paul Ehrlich, quoted below)
For economy of treatment of the matter of attack rhetoric, let’s focus on just one critic, Paul Ehrlich, who has directed a great deal of colorful language in my direction (see also his comments in the Afternote to Chapter 15, and my interchange with him in Simon, 1990, Selection 43).…