Yesterday’s post presented a series of quotations on why a global agreement to ration the most utilitarian of energies–oil, gas, and coal–was doomed to failure. Today, Part II provides a series of quotations on the moral dilemma and economic distortions of trying to do so.

From this the question arises: what if the resources and spirit dedicated to the futile, misdirected climate crusade went instead to the truly noble cause of promoting capitalism and industrialization for the 1.3 billion living in statist poverty?

It is time to change minds one at a time to the heroic task of promoting human freedom to advance prosperity at home and abroad–an inspiration for many of us going in 2013.

More quotations follow on the pernicious wealth effects and all-pain/no-gain aspects of carbon rationing as envisioned by the Kyoto Protocol.…

“If we face the facts courageously, we shall see that a large area has been left open for the exercise of our initiative.”

The holiday season is not only a time to count our blessings, but also to imagine (or perhaps simply recognize) an ever-improving future for ourselves and the broader society. To that end, we can be thankful that the theories of doom-and-gloom are wrong, and the disastrous predictions drawn from those theories bear no resemblance to reality.

Being both a great fan of the 19th century classical-liberal political economist Frederic Bastiat and a critic of neo-Malthusianism, I was surprised to discover recently that Bastiat devoted an entire chapter of his work “Economic Harmonies” to Malthus’s theory on population. As Master Resource readers probably know, it was Malthus’s theory on population that prompted historian Thomas Carlyle to refer to economics as “the dismal science.”…

“We created a way of raising standards of living that we can’t possibly pass on to our children. It has to collapse, unless adults stand up and say, ‘This is a Ponzi scheme. We have not generated real wealth, and we are destroying a livable climate.’”

– Joe Romm, quoted in Thomas Friedman, Is the Inflection Point Near?, New York Times, March 7, 2009.

“Is there any more single-minded, simple pleasure than viewing with alarm? At times it is even better than sex.”

—Kenneth Boulding (1970), p. 160. [1]

Are free-market optimists the dumb ones who jump off tall buildings and report that everything is fine, even breezy, on the way down? Or are those who fear, rant, and make this analogy bungee-jumping with reality?

The optimists have been jumping off buildings ever since Robert Thomas Malthus’s An Essay on Population was published in 1798–and not hitting the ground.…

“Unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue … the prospects of freedom are indeed dark.”

– F. A. Hayek (1949), Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (1967).

MasterResource is a free market energy blog covering green jobs, climate-change policies, mineral-resource availability, and other political economy issues. Much of our analysis gets back to a realistic view of consumer-driven markets versus  government intervention (and business cronyism behind much government intervention). And that gets to critical thinkers whose timeless contributions have shaped modern arguments about freedom versus coercion.

World views and critical thinking skills are formed early. Thus it is incumbent upon our high schools–public and private–to fairly present competing ideas so that students can appreciate contrast and better understand the “middle” of the debate.…