“… to a significant extent man commands as well the very destiny of this planet where he lives, and the destiny of all life upon it.”

“In order to have both environmental quality and an improving standard of living, we will need to develop new clean energy sources and to learn to use energy more efficiently.”

– President Richard Nixon (February 8, 1972)

Government grows with emergencies, real or imagined. There have been wartime emergencies, such as World War II. And there have been Malthusian ’emergencies’–as in resource exhaustion in the 1970s and climate change today.

Forty-nine years ago today, amid a natural gas shortage (from long-standing price controls), and with tightening oil markets (from his price controls), President Nixon gave a “Special Message to Congress Outlining the 1972 Environmental Program.”…

“People are looking for simple problems with simple solutions, and they thought that climate change was a simple problem.”

“Thinking that we can control the climate is misguided hubris.”

– Judith Curry (below)

Part I yesterday shared climatologist Judith Curry’s most recent thoughts about the politicization of climate science, climate models (and regional applications from the same), and climate sensitivity. Today’s concluding post shares her thoughts on related public policy issues.

The excerpts below come from her recent interview with Christopher Balkaran at his Strong and Free Podcast.

Public Policy & Energy Reality

“… people are looking for simple problems with simple solutions, and they thought that climate change was a simple problem, sort of like the ozone hole. Stop emitting chloroflourocarbons – stop the ozone hole; stop emitting CO2 – stop the global warming.”…

It was Thomas Edison who brought us electricity, not the Sierra Club. It was the Wright brothers who got us off the ground, not the Federal Aviation Administration. It was Henry Ford who ended the isolation of millions of Americans by making the automobile affordable, not Ralph Nader. Those who have helped the poor the most [were] … those who found ways to make industry more productive and distribution more efficient, so that the poor of today can afford things that the affluent of yesterday could only dream about.

The New York Times’ long-standing motto, “All the News That’s Fit to Print” should be changed to reflect today’s reality: “Manufacturing News to Fit an Ideology.

Born a black in poverty during the early Great Depression. A Marxist at Harvard University and beyond.…

The father of global warming alarm, James Hansen, has been very good about speaking truth to power in many aspects of the climate debate. But his message is changing now that his earlier warnings and deadlines have come and gone.

December 2021

The climate crisis cannot be solved in a decade, but it can be solved during your lifetime.  This next decade, the fourth decade since the 1992 Framework Convention, is crucial for getting the climate story pointed in the right direction.  This must be done in the context of fixing the urgent political crisis.  If we do not fix the problem of political polarization, there is a danger that the climate situation really could go haywire.

At a November 13, 2021, rally (entire speech here), he stated some notable things worth commenting on.…