[Ed. note: This post reprints Mr. Bradley’s recent Houston Chronicle editorial, Textbooks Fail to Teach Real-World Government, with documentation and slight elaboration. His intellectual-diversity project at the high school he graduated from and taught at is www.freekinkaid.org.]

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, in a much-debated column (“Sorry, kids. We ate it all” – October 16, 2013), made a surprising argument: A Vietnam War–type uprising by today’s youth could result from the federal government’s growing indebtedness and unsustainable social programs. He pointed to signs that the exploited will rise up against this intergenerational injustice in a way not seen since the 1960s. [1]

Having taught high school here in Houston, I know that today’s youth are eager to debate ideologically opposed viewpoints on major intellectual and political issues.…

“Greater energy consumption, higher economic growth, and more people are not increasing air pollution but reducing it in the world’s leading capitalist societies. More people mean more solutions …. What appears to be a paradox is really a Simon truism.”

– Robert Bradley, Julian Simon and the Triumph of Energy Sustainability, p. 85.

This concludes a two-part (Part I yesterday) look-back at the major points made in Rob Bradley’s 2000 primer on energy sustainability inspired by the worldview of Julian Simon.

Energy Affordability

“In terms of work-time pricing, conventional energy has become dramatically more affordable throughout this century … for electricity. The average U.S. worker needed over 20 minutes of labor to purchase a gallon of gasoline in the 1920s. In the 1990s a less polluting, higher performing, and more taxed gallon of gasoline cost a worker close to 6 minutes on average.…

“Innovation does not appear to be a depleting resource but an expanding, open-ended one. Instead of encountering diminishing returns, new advances appear to be expanding the horizon of new possibilities.”

– Robert Bradley, Julian Simon and the Triumph of Energy Sustainability, p. 40.

A  decade ago, I worked for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) as Director of the Energy, Environment, Natural Resources, and Agriculture Task Force.  Energy was a critical part of this area for state legislatures, covering such issues as

• Global warming issues such as the Kyoto Protocol, carbon pricing schemes (cap-and-trade, etc.) in light of the precautionary principle;
• Oil and natural gas affordability for  domestic industry (U.S. manufacturers were going overseas for cheaper labor and fuel); and
• Gasoline taxes

ALEC was a free-market resource for state legislators. My task force’s crucial energy work had been done by Ross Bell and Chris Doss before me, and Dan Simmons and Todd Wynn came after me.…

 “I have no idea who Jim Wiegand is, but the Master Resource website is highly questionable….”

“Jim: My apologies. I was overreacting…. Perhaps you would be better served if you avoided that [MasterResource] crowd.”

So said Elliott Negin, Director of News & Commentary at the Union of Concerned Scientists, several days ago in the comments section of his Huffington Post  piece, Wind Energy Threat to Birds Is Overblown.”

Mr. Negin is a serial user of the argumentum ad hominem. The Free Dictionary defines ad hominem as: “Appealing to personal considerations rather than to logic or reason: Debaters should avoid ad hominem arguments that question their opponents’ motives.”

In his piece, Negin takes on journalist and scholar Robert Bryce, whose exposés of politically correct renewable energy have clearly stuck a nerve with mainstream environmentalists whose embrace of industrial windpower is problematic.…