” … there are still numerous economic and societal barriers to rapid decarbonization.”

“And it is not like wind and solar come free of environmental concerns. The sheer size of wind and solar installations needed to underpin our electricity system is significant.”

“… lower income households will bear the largest relative burdens of the higher energy costs that are likely as a result of climate policies. While there are ways of mitigating these unequal impacts, they require difficult trade-offs.”

– Daniel Raimi and Alan Krupnick, “Decarbonization: It Ain’t That Easy, RFF Blog Post, April 20, 2018.

A recent blog post by Daniel Raimi and Alan Krupnick of Resources for the Future (RFF) is unusual, even remarkable, given the institutional history of their organization. For RFF in recent decades has gone Left, way Left, for the cause of climate alarmism/forced energy transformation (see here). …

“Substituting CO2 taxation for existing levies is not the tax debate from the conservative/free market side. The debate is about the flat tax versus a consumption tax as fundamental tax reform. And, hypothetically, if Malthusian decarbonization were to come about, what would be revenue-neutral?”

“In Neeley’s defense, he switched sides assuming that Obama energy policy would continue at the federal level. That way, he could argue [in his lucrative new position] that a CO2 tax was the least worst policy compared to cap-and-trade and existing command-and-control (still a weak argument). But Trump won, and the tide went out… [leaving] Neeley exposed an energy/climate progressive (statist).”

“The conservative/libertarian position is to not price or otherwise regulate carbon dioxide. Eliminate intervention, do not introduce it. Reject Mathusianism’s ultimately anti-humanistic, deep-ecology worldview.”

In “Confessions of a former Carbon Tax Skeptic,” Josiah Neeley of the pretend free-market R Street Institute, pens his latest case for supporting a federal tax on carbon dioxide (CO2).…

“I have long been noted for ability to call turning points for industry: this suicide is one. Current industry support of EPA will create massive political backlash such as never seen before in US. ‘My early death by fossil fuel reflects what we are doing to ourselves.’ D. Buckel”

The above tweet by Amy Myers Jaffe (@AmyJaffeenergy) on 8:31 am – April 16th should live in infamy.

First, the author claims superior knowledge and prediction, not exactly a talking point for the Malthusians who have long predicted a (premature) end to the fossil-fuel-driven, growing energy sector. Peak oil demand is her new mantra, replacing her old fears of Peak Oil and “geopolitical peak oil.”

Second, Jaffe wildly predicts that the Trump Administration’s consumer-first, taxpayer-first, entrepreneur-first/crony-last energy policy is setting itself up for a massive reversal.…

[Editor note: This exchange at the R-Street Institute website (no longer visible) is posted here and here.]

“From the Club of Rome to the present–with scientific models and articles in Science magazine from the ‘consensus’–the verdict has been wrong, wrong, wrong, and trending wrong. And this is before even considering (non-libertarian) public policy of taxes, tariffs, equity adjustments, private/public cronyism, etc.”

So why have neo-Malthusian natural scientists been so incorrect for so long? We have nearly a half-century of (falsified) doom-and-gloom.

Josiah Neeley of R-Street, once a critic of climate alarmism and wind power (see yesterday), is now desperately trying to make a case to libertarians and conservatives that the climate is in crisis and a carbon tax (and all the global government that goes with it) is necessary.…