Ed. Note: The ideology of environmentalism has proven itself to be, by far, the most persuasive enemy of the Master Resource, energy. Pollution … Health Hazards … Species Extinction … Ecosystem Destruction … Resource Exhaustion … Global Cooling … Global Warming … Melting Glaciers … Rising Seas … Climate Change. Why do the enemies of energy industries seem always to fall back, in the end, on environmentalist themes for their strongest and most effective stands? Is there something deeply embedded in our Western culture that makes the philosophy of environmentalism the most influential instrument for opposition to the energy industry?

Today, Master Resource begins a six-part series analyzing the philosophic basis of environmentalism, its enmity to the technologies of instrumental reason (especially energy technology), as well as its incompatibility with the foundational individualist philosophy of the United States.…

“I don’t agree with many (any?) of [Alex Epstein’s] points in his response, and it is conspicuously lacking in arguments about climate itself.”  Tyler Cowen

“It’s sad that a guy as smart as Tyler not only 1) irresponsibly commented on a book he was not willing to read carefully, but also 2) refused to admit any wrongdoing whatsoever.” Alex Epstein

It was distributed on social media by the director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s loan programs office, Jigar Shah, described as “The man in charge of how the US spends $400bn to shift away from fossil fuels.” Shah forwarded Tyler Cowen’s post (at Marginal Revolution) critiquing Alex Epstein’s book, Fossil Future: Why Human Flourishing Requires Using More Oil, Gas, and Coal–Not Less.

A ‘classical liberal’ handing an intellectual gift to a DOE grifter?…

Ed Note: The erroneous, agenda-laden ExxonKnew narrative was again in evidence in last weekend’s WSJ News Exclusive, “Inside Exxon’s Strategy to Downplay Climate Change.” For other rebuttals involving the author, (see here).

“Exxon doesn’t ‘know’ anything. It’s a collection of people and just like any other organization with many people, there are many views and understandings on almost every topic imaginable. I worked with Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, and Libertarians.” – Glen Lyons, former employee (below)

A sober look at the “ExxonKnew” campaign reveals an anti-fossil-fuel agenda inspiring a myopic view of the company’s old investigations into carbon dioxide (CO2).

There are many corrections to this leaky narrative. First, note that the company assigned the CO2 studies to individuals with their own personal motivations and did not partake in studies on the offsets to CO2 (from sulfur dioxide) or the benefits of CO2 (plant growth and resiliency, global greening, warmer winters).…

Ed Note: This week is the 35th anniversary of the exaggerated climate alarm, which began with James Hansen’s June 1988 testimony before the Senate. Meanwhile, far-too-many scientists remain quiet about the climate model problem and psuedo-scientific attribution studies, while the campaigners link all extreme weather events to mankind’s consumption and energy habits.

“In a paper being published in the March-April [2009] edition of the journal Environment, Matthew C. Nisbet … said Mr. Gore’s approach, focusing on language of crisis and catastrophe, could actually be serving the other side in the fight … ‘as global-warming alarmism….’” – Andrew Revkin, NYT (2009).

“There has to be a lot of shrillness taken out of our language. In the environmental community, we have to be more humble. We can’t take the attitude that we have all the answers.”