“To the extent that the Gulf’s recapture of the dominant share of the global oil market will make price increases more likely, the U.S. economy is at risk…. Since 1970 sharp increases in the price of oil have always been followed by economic recessions in the United States.”
– Charles Curtis and Joseph Romm, “Mideast Oil Forever?” The Atlantic Monthly, April 1996.
“This notion that the environmental movement — or any other major play in the media landscape — is pushing non-stop apocalyptic messages like a broken record is one I debunked ….”
– Joe Romm, “A Critique of the Broken-Record Counterfactual Message of the New York Times on Environmentalists and Scientists,” ThinkProgress, April 29, 2012.
Joe Romm, the climate-alarmist doyen of ThinkProgress (Center for American Progress), has long been subject to rebuttal at MasterResource.…
“WHEREAS all the major productive provinces of the World have been identified with the help of advanced technology and growing geological knowledge, it being now evident that discovery reached a peak in the 1960s, despite technological progress and a diligent search … NOW IT IS PROPOSED THAT … No country shall produce [or import] oil at above its present depletion rate.”
– Colin J. Campbell (2003), reprinted here
MasterResource has been a home for mineral-resource optimism from such luminaries as Julian Simon, Pierre Desrochers, and Michael Lynch. Perhaps the most profound statement on this subject is from a University of Houston economics professor, Thomas Degregori, himself a student of Erich Zimmermann’s functional theory of resources, who stated in back in 1987:
…If resources are not fixed but created, then the nature of the scarcity problem changes dramatically.
An outstanding energy/climate scholar/communicator of our time is Marlo Lewis, Jr., senior fellow of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). I am moved to high-five my friend as I read his recent post, “Climate Change, Fossil Fuels, and Human Well Being,” as well as an older one, “[DOE] Secretary Chu Crosses the Line; Should Resign (October 2009).
Human Improvement, CO2 Enrichment
Regarding Lewis’s recent post, consider his framing question.
Climate campaigners demand ever-greater government control over energy markets, resources, and infrastructure. Many believe the best thing governments can do with fossil energy is “keep it in the ground.” They claim fossil-fueled civilization is “unsustainable” and headed for a climate catastrophe. Are they correct?
And his answer:
…Since 1950, fossil fuel consumption increased by 550 percent, annual global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions increased by 500 percent, atmospheric CO2 concentrations increased by about one-third, and the world warmed about 0.65 degrees Celsius.