“Discoveries, like resources, may well be infinite: the more we discover, the more we are able to discover.” (Julian Simon, The Ultimate Resource 2, p. 82)

“The world is not ‘a bundle of hay’ but a living growing complex of matter and energy, a process rather than a thing.” ( Erich Zimmermann, World Resources and Industries, 1951, p. 815.

What explains the happy fact (really the miracle of man) that the more we discover, the more we find out if left to discover? Instead of mineral depletion, we have mineral expansion–turning the Malthusian predicament on its head. And instead of weather/climate doom, we have successful adaptation in wealthy (as in healthy) free economies.

Labor Day has passed, a day that could be renamed Energy Day for the saved labor that modern energy has transferred to machines and appliances.…

“Do you operate the ‘Institute of Energy Research’ out of your living room? What exactly entitles you to the evidently self-applied label of ‘energy expert’? … You appear to be a deputy adjunt miller, lacking both discernible qualifications in the real world and the ability to tell a good argument from a bad one.” (Holdren to Bradley, September 17, 2003)

Some 16 years ago, I put my book writing on hold to critically review the long written record of John P. Holdren, then (and now) a Professor of Environmental Policy at Harvard University. (He was President Obama’s science adviser between Harvard appointments, from 2009 until 2017.)

The result, “The Heated Energy Debate: Assessing John Holdren’s Attack on Bjorn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist,” was published by the Competitive Enterprise Institute in mid-2003.…

“[Bjorn] Lomborg’s performance careens far across the line that divides respectable (even if controversial science) from thoroughgoing and unrepentant incompetence…. He has needlessly muddled public understanding and wasted immense amounts of the time of capable people who have had to take on the task of rebutting him.”  – John Holdren (2003)

This April 1^st is a good time for skeptics of settled, high-sensitivity climate science to make amends. My apology goes to the distinguished John P. Holdren.

My comeuppance (below) reminds me of the episode of Dallas where J. R. Ewing befriends a pretty young secretary at a friend’s office. He talks her up, she bubbles.

At J.R.’s next visit, she bashfully asks if he would like to go to a party with her.

“Sorry honey,” he responded.…

“We are old climate veterans who have tried to do our part, in every way we know how, to keep our fossil-fuel addicted civilization from driving off a cliff. Are we tired? Sure. Discouraged? Absolutely. Pissed off? Yep. Sad? Call it broken-hearted.”

– Kathleen Dean Moore and SueEllen Campbell, Why We Won’t Quite the Climate Fight, Earth Island Journal, January 28, 2019.

“The admittedly ‘tired … discouraged … pissed off … broken-hearted’ deep ecologists can either live in gloom and despair or check their premises to entertain happiness…. Don’t quit–study. Consider Julian Simon’s The Ultimate Resource 2 for starters. And live joyfully.” (below)

It is a fossil-fuel world for as far as the eye can see. Abundant, affordable, and reliable, mineral energies are the ones that consumers voluntarily purchase.…