Corporate policy makers entering the fray should be guided by two principles, both reflecting the balance of evidence at the intersection of climate science and climate economics. First, mandatory GHG programs should be rejected in favor of voluntary approaches….  Second, voluntary actions by corporations should not go beyond win-win “no regrets” initiatives. Control practices that are uneconomic penalize either consumers or stockholders and politicize the issue of corporate responsibility.”

– Robert Bradley, “Climate Alarmism and Corporate Responsibility.” Electricity Journal, August/September 2000.

Upon the election of Donald Trump, the environmental Left redoubled its effort to politicize business on the climate issue. The subtitle to an early 2017 article in Yale Climate Connections, for example, “Business Leadership on Climate Seen as Key,” read: “With expectations of a much lower federal leadership role on controlling carbon emissions, key sectors of business community seen by some as maintaining momentum.”…

“Gore the Policy Apostle can utter statements that most colleagues would regard as wildly impolitic: calling for elimination of the internal combustion engine by 2020 or denouncing excessive consumerism in Western nations as evidence of a ‘dysfunctional civilization.’ Gore the Politician, say some of these people, is prone to brooding over the electoral risks of his beliefs.”

“… environmentalists note that the [Clinton/Gore] administration since [the Kyoto Protocol of 1997] has done little to build support for the treaty’s passage or to reduce U.S. emissions.”

 – John F. Harris and Ellen Nakashima, “Gore’s Greenness Fades,” Washington Post, February 28, 2000.

A niche of MasterResource is remembering the past to inform the present in energy/environmental policy debates. With a strong worldview and historical perspective, this emphasis is a rich vein to mine.…

“Under [Ken] Lay’s direction, Enron would restart the solar industry [in 1995], rescue the US wind industry [in 1997], and help legitimize the climate issue.”

“Enron saw green in green energy. Wind and solar as primary energies had new public policy rationales and powerful political constituencies. Specifically, global warming from fossil-fuel usage (via the enhanced greenhouse effect) was the new neo-Malthusian scare, and post–Gulf War concerns over energy security put petroleum on the defensive. Even more than this, renewables had public cachet for an energy company, particularly one that prized publicity and promoted a momentum stock.”

– Bradley, Enron Ascending: The Forgotten Years, pp. 530, 528, respectively.

Rent-seeking … strategic uses of government intervention…. corporativism. Many terms have described business lobbying within political capitalism where the political means replaces the economic means to financial success The result is bad profit, defined by classical-liberal entrepreneur Charles Koch as corporate income not created but politically obtained and thereby lost to the creators in the economic system.…

“There is very little substance to evaluate [in Robert Bradley’s piece]. Yes, one can find examples of when individual scientists or politicians have exaggerated the impacts of climate change. But to present those examples as if they are mainstream views, when they are not, is very misleading.”

 – Kyle Armour, Assistant Professor, University of Washington

“I also must ask my critics who profess to dislike scientific exaggeration. Where are you when the big names exaggerate to spew climate alarmism? Where is the real-time rebuttal to Al Gore, John Holdren, Paul Ehrlich, Joe Romm, Rajendra Pachauri, and many others?” (below)

I recently ran across a detailed rebuttal of an essay I wrote back in 2016 at Forbes.com, “Climate Exaggeration is Backfiring,” which received approximately 35,000 views. “Analysis of ‘Climate Exaggeration is Backfiring‘” at the website Climate Feedback was published right after my Forbes piece.…