Bret Stephens’ Climate Conversion: Utterly Unconvincing

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 8, 2022 4 Comments

“Learning is a process, not a destination. Bret Stephens should reconsider his reconsideration to educate his readers on the benefits of CO2 enrichment and positive weather/climate trends (including global lukewarming). And do it in such a way that instead of trying to fire him, the alarmists have to answer (not duck) the hard questions about their position.”

The intellectual case against climate alarmism and forced energy transformation has always been strong. Recent events have made this case stronger with more data contradicting climate model projections. The statistics of extreme weather events and global (luke)warming are hard to ignore. In addition, the “fat tail” of worst-case, extreme warming have been scaled back in the mainstream literature. All this is good news and an antidote for ‘climate anxiety’.

Given all this (isn’t this typical of neo-Malthusian scares?),…

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A Typical Exchange with a Climate Alarmist/Forced Energy Transformationist

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 25, 2022 No Comments

“The superior case for dense mineral energies economically and environmentally should inspire a rethink. And climate policy is in shambles heading into COP 27.”

“What is really fishy is that those that admit to ‘climate anxiety’ do not have any appetite to seriously entertain the case for CO2/climate optimism, aka energy freedom for the masses. And they see no evil in the eco-sins of wind, solar, and batteries….”

I actively engage in (and occasionally share) debates on LinkedIn against climate alarmists/forced energy transformationists. I sometimes feel like a teacher presenting a suite of arguments that have been cursorily dismissed. The good news is that there are a lot of readers in the middle who see what is going on. A number now join me in what is a two-sided debate at LinkedIn.…

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Record Coal Demotes ‘Net Zero’

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 22, 2022 No Comments

“The pledges to reach net zero emissions made by many countries, including China and India, should have very strong implications for coal – but these are not yet visible in our near-term forecast, reflecting the major gap between ambitions and action.” (International Energy Agency, below)

The father of energy economics made it official back in 1865. “Coal, in truth, stands not beside but entirely above all other commodities,” wrote William Stanley Jevons:

It is the material energy of the country—the universal aid—the factor in everything we do. With coal almost any feat is possible or easy; without it we are thrown back into the laborious poverty of early times.

Another writer of the day added:

Coal is everything to us. Without coal, our factories will become idle, our foundries and workshops be still as the grave; the locomotive will rust in the shed, and the rail be buried in the weeds.

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False Alarm: Today–and Back in the 1970s

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- January 15, 2022 No Comments

“There’s a long and sad history of efforts by industries and interest groups to reshape the discussion of climate science and undercut the overwhelming evidence that greenhouse gases produced by humans are leading us to global catastrophe.”

– John Schwartz, “How the Riot Ties In with Climate Disinformation.” New York Times, January 13, 2021.

With the election and transfer of power to Biden/Harris, it is climate alarmism galore. The Gods gave us the Pandemic, the landed US hurricanes, and the California wildfires for a reason–to win an election. And the Powers in the sky gave us the Capital riot to help cement the policy momentum of the ‘existential threat.’

Back to the Times‘ Schwartz. “For those of us who cover climate change for a living,” he states,

the blatant lies about election fraud that fed the mob [of January 6, 2021] felt very familiar.

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Climate Retreat: Thomas Friedman on COP26 (energy density, anyone?)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- November 17, 2021 1 Comment Continue Reading

More ‘Cancel Culture’ from Texas A&M Climatologists (Gunnar Schade joins Andrew Dessler)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 7, 2021 No Comments Continue Reading

Mineral Energy and Progress: A Consensus View

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 2, 2021 1 Comment Continue Reading

On Energy Messaging

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 9, 2021 5 Comments Continue Reading

Energy Books: Some Observations

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 17, 2021 No Comments Continue Reading

Mises on Resources: Short, Sweet, Definitive

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 6, 2021 2 Comments Continue Reading