A Free-Market Energy Blog

Health Effects of Wind Turbines: Testimony of Ben Johnson versus MidAmerican Energy (Madison County, Iowa)

By Sherri Lange -- August 23, 2019

“The annoyance of sight and the heard pulsating wind turbulence creates indirect adverse health effects. This combined with the direct effects of sleep disturbance may activate the body’s autonomic nervous system to increase sympathetic-mediated responses with endocrinological consequences.”

“Increasingly activated, risk factors that promote adverse cardiovascular consequences may then promote/facilitate/enhance cardiovascular disease – most easily named as hypertension, arteriosclerosis, ischemic heart disease and stroke.”

– Ben Johnson, Testimony before the Madison County Board of Health, Madison Country, Iowa.

Individuals and communities are collectively reporting the same NOCEBO effects, heart palpitations, ringing in the ears, dizziness, nausea, disorientation, sleep disorders, and other disorders from nearby industrial wind. There is no global conspiracy, there is only a mountain of data (data is when you have enough anecdotes) contradicting the narrative that such wind power is clean, safe and free.…

Continue Reading

Review of ‘Introduction to Modern Climate Change’ by Andrew Dessler (Part II: Physical Science)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 22, 2019

This continues my three-part review of Andrew Dessler’s primer on the physical science and political economy of climate change, Introduction to Modern Climate Change (2nd edition: 2016).

Part I, “Suggestions for More Interdisciplinary Scholarship, Less Advocacy,” brought attention to the uneven treatment of issues in science, economics, and public policy that tainted the primer. I questioned the Deep Ecology assumption of optimal nature, wherein, according to Dessler, “any change in climate, either warming or cooling, will result in overall negative outcomes for human society” (p. 146).

This seems exactly wrong in our interglacial period when climate-related fatalities have fallen dramatically and agricultural production has soared thanks to warmth but particularly to fossil-fueled capitalism. Incentives and wealth have proven more than a match for the vicissitudes of weather and climate. As Alex Epstein (The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, pp.…

Continue Reading

Dessler’s “Introduction to Modern Climate Change:” Suggestions for More Interdisciplinary Scholarship, Less Advocacy

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 21, 2019

“This is not an advocacy book…. (p. xi)

“[T]he single most important thing you can do is become politically active … and vote for politicians who support action on climate.” (p. 245)

In the Acknowledgements of Enron Ascending: The Forgotten Years (2018), I co-dedicated the book to a scholar and friend who crossed disciplines to advance our understanding of the real world. His intellectual trespassing benefited from diligence and fairness. I wrote: “Donald Lavoie taught me the value of scholarship in which opposing views are deeply understood, charitably interpreted, and thoroughly evaluated.”

This brings me to Andrew Dessler’s Introduction to Modern Climate Change (2nd edition: 2016, 3rd ed. in process). While this book is well organized, clearly written, and full of settled physical science, it fails the Lavoie Standard in the areas of unsettled climatology, history, and political economy.…

Continue Reading

Adaptation: Think about It (a ‘free-market jihadist’?)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 20, 2019
Continue Reading

‘America’s Energy Dominance and Manufacturing Revival’ (Trump Remarks, August 13, 2019)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 19, 2019
Continue Reading

Charles Koch vs. Crony Capitalism

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 15, 2019
Continue Reading

Renewable Energy: Second Thoughts (Moore/Gibbs documentary in the news)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 14, 2019
Continue Reading

Trump on Energy: August 1, 2019, Cincinnati Rally

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 13, 2019
Continue Reading

Energy & Environmental Newsletter: August 12, 2019

By -- August 12, 2019
Continue Reading

‘Sustainability’ Accounting: Subjectivism Compounded (political numbers pollution)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 8, 2019
Continue Reading