[Editor Note: Chip Knappenberger, a leading data-driven climate scientist, kindly consented to let MasterResource reprint his post from January 13, 2011, at this site, Global Warming Means More Big New York City Snowstorms? Not So Fast!, for its relevance to the current winter storm in the Northeast.  He is currently updating his analysis from five years ago.]

New Yorkers are digging out from another major snowfall [this mid-January 2011]. The 10 inches or so they got on Wednesday came less than 3 weeks after some 20 inches fell the day after Christmas.

And, odd as it may seem, some folks are linking big snows and big cold in the Big Apple to anthropogenic global warming.

But, a look back through more than 140 years of weather observations from New York’s Central Park shows little evidence to support such a contention.…

 “Some form of ecocatastrophe, if not thermonuclear war, seems almost certain to overtake us before the end of the [twentieth] century.”

– John Holdren and Paul Ehrlich[1]

Doom and gloom—and falsity—hallmarks the long career of John P. Holdren, neo-Malthusian and President Obama’s initial and still science advisor. Halloween Holdren has been quiet with the outlandish in recent years–he does not want to embarrass his boss–but his many quotations beginning in the 1970s, never disowned, remain for the record.

Today is a good time to refresh memories of the man who just might be the scariest presidential advisor in U.S. history!

Read—but don’t be frightened. The sky-is-falling gloom of Holdren, his mentor Paul Ehrlich, and others is in intellectual and empirical trouble. From Julian Simon to Bjorn Lomborg to Indur Goklany to Matt Ridley to Marlo Lewis to Alex Epstein, the technological optimists have the upper hand in a debate that continues to rage.…

Open international borders create mutually beneficial trading relationships that promote peace and prosperity. Tariffs, quotas, and other forms of protectionism and nationalism create conflict and lower living standards for all.

In our imperfect world of state-owned energy companies, some being U.S. foes, the imperative is policy reform toward private property rights, market exchange, and the rule of law. This is the real sustainability issue, not the exaggerated issue of anthropogenic climate change from carbon-based energy usage.

Private ownership of the subsoil, and privately owned energy infrastructure otherwise, would create wealth compared to the current system of political elitism. Private, dispersed wealth, such as initially assigning mineral rights to surface owners, such as proposed by Guillermo Yeatts, whose views are summarized in my post, “‘Theft of the Subsoil’: Guillermo Yeatts on Latin/South America mineral-rights reform,” would increase personal power and civil society, while reducing state power.…

“The degree of trade integration between America and Europe is already fairly advanced…. In particular, the average level of tariffs is relatively low (around 3%). Therefore, unlike most previous and current discussions on trade treaties, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership will focus much more on non-tariff barriers where a protectionist rationale advances an environmentalist or health regulatory agenda.”

“Free trade can be good for the economy, and for the environment too.”

The United States and the European Union are in the process of negotiating a new free trade agreement, the so-called Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The treaty has the potential of delivering significant benefits to both parties, because of increased trade, lower barriers, and better labor specialization.

Energy may be a significant part of the deal: according to a leaked “non paper”, trade in energy commodities and technologies between the EU and the US would be freed from most of the burdensome red tape that, until now, has significantly hampered the possibility of achieving a greater integration among the two world’s largest economies.…