Environmental protection and economic progress can and should be complementary. Innovation and deployment of naturally better technologies can enable us to be greener, wealthier, and happier.
But the politics of climate change can ruin the synergy. It becomes “environment” versus the economy. A case study is Ireland.
Ireland is a home to green politics, and, as in many other countries, the focus is on greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation policies. While green activism has grown both through formal green political parties,and through sympathetic factions working within formal institutional structures, more important still is the ability of greens to exert pressure through coalition politics, especially in parliaments. This can imbue green parties or green-party sympathizers with considerable power to “gate keep” and control agendas.…
Continue ReadingCambridge University economist Dr. Terry Barker told delegates at the recent Copenhagen climate conference that if the current economic downturn persists for several years, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions worldwide could drop by 40% to 50%, the Irish Times reports.
Dr. Barker, who is director of the Cambridge Center for Climate Research, said the Great Depression of the 1930s reduced global emissions by 35% because so many factories shut down, especially in the United States. He adds:…
Continue Reading[Note: Sunday posts at MasterResource will include best-of reposts from this blog, best-of posts or op-ed’s from other writers, and other general material.]
Robert Bryce is a straight shooter and exactly the type intellectual that is needed as a rethink slowly emerges from the current politicized energy fare. He himself has changed his mind on vital issues, just as Julian Simon and Bjorn Lomborg did before him. Indeed, as Bryce mentions in the op-ed to follow:…
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