A Free-Market Energy Blog

Who Is Charles Koch? (Senator Reid vs. Mother Jones’s Daniel Schulman)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 29, 2014

“[Sen. Harry] Reid’s attacks have drawn cries of McCarthyism from around the political world, including MSNBC host Joe Scarborough and Mother Jones editor Daniel Schulman. And they’ve even created discomfort among liberal big-money donors and operatives, who worry the argument might expose them to charges of hypocrisy, while they also question the effectiveness of running against donors who won’t appear on any ballots.”

– Kenneth Vogel, “Behind Harry Reid’s War Against the Koch Brothers,”  POLITICO, July 7, 2014.

It was an all-too-familiar reframe: guilt by association (and in this case guilt from false/good association). At Climate Progress, Joe Romm breathlessly reported last month that “Bjorn Lomborg Is Part of the Koch Network—and Cashing In.” In Romm’s vitriolic words:

You know the T-shirt-wearing climate inactivist Lomborg (aka the Danish Delayer) from such recent gems as “Subsidizing renewables won’t stop global warming” and “What an increasingly wonderful world” and “The Poor Need Cheap Fossil Fuels” (seriously — or not).

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AWED Energy & Environmental Newsletter: July 28, 2014

By -- July 28, 2014

The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving energy & environmental policies. Our basic position is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science. It’s all spelled out at WiseEnergy.org, which has a wealth of energy and environmental resources.

A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every 3 weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and environmental matters. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.

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Greed Energy Economics:

Report: Renewables Subsidies Can Lead to Severe, Unintended Consequences

Wind and solar power are even more expensive than is commonly thought

Intermittent Renewables and Electricity Markets

German Utilities Bail Out Electric Grid from Wind’s Destruction

Green Hypocrisy: Billionaire Democrat Donor Made his money on Coal

Wind Turbine Fires 10x More Common Than Previously Thought

Climate Change Believers Waste More Electricity Than Everybody Else

Why relying on offshore wind will prove a costly error

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“More People, Greater Wealth, More Resources, Healthier Environment” (Part II: Julian Simon 1994 essay)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 25, 2014

“The most important benefit of population size and growth is the increase it brings to the stock of useful knowledge. Minds matter economically as much as, or more than, hands or mouths. Progress is limited largely by the availability of trained workers. The more people who enter our population by birth or immigration, the faster will be the rate of progress of our material and cultural civilization.”

Population and Progress

With respect to population growth: A dozen competent statistical studies, starting in 1967 with an analysis by Nobel prizewinner Simon Kuznets, agree that there is no negative statistical relationship between economic growth and population growth. There is strong reason to believe that more people have a positive effect in the long run.

Population growth does not lower the standard of living – all the evidence agrees.

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“More People, Greater Wealth, More Resources, Healthier Environment” (Part I: 1994 Julian Simon essay reprinted)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 24, 2014
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The Struggle to Mainstream Electric Vehicles

By -- July 23, 2014
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Editorializing for Wind in Ohio: A Rebuttal

By Thomas Stacy II -- July 22, 2014
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Zycher: Just the Facts, Mr. Steyer

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 21, 2014
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The Voice of Dead Eagles at Shiloh IV (Part III)

By Jim Wiegand -- July 18, 2014
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USFWS Special Agents: Speaking Truth to Wind Power re Shiloh IV (Part II)

By Jim Wiegand -- July 17, 2014
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Wind Power Slaughter: ex-USFWS Agent Speaks Out on Shiloh IV (California)

By Jim Wiegand -- July 16, 2014
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