“The only person who can truly persuade you is yourself. You must turn the issues over in your mind at leisure, consider the many arguments, let them simmer, and after a long time turn your preferences into convictions.”

– Milton and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose (1979), p. xii.

I have fruitfully engaged in debates regarding energy and climate on social media, some on Facebook and most at LinkedIn. I comment on views I agree with to add insight. But I commonly engage with my intellectual foes, some of whom are quite confident they have the science on their side and share links to prove it.

I learn, while noting the areas of disagreement and why. I remain persuaded that the climate crusade is wasteful and futile–and wealth-is-health entrepreneurship is the way forward, whatever the weather and climate of the future.…

“Classical liberalism does not have a long resume in the history of energy thought. Prior to the 1970s energy crises, it was a backwater for free-market intellectuals, although the opportunity was there for both scholarship and political advocacy.”

I recently constructed a new home with a two-story library, ladders and all. On one side are my energy-related books; on the other, economics. Several thousand volumes are, for the first time, organized in one place. Better late than never as I am in my 66th year.

The energy books, many unearthed from storage, bring back a lot of memories. Some observations follow.

Classical liberalism (or the political term, libertarianism) does not have a long resume in the history of energy thought. Prior to the 1970s energy crises, it was a backwater for the free market intellectuals, although the opportunity was there for both scholarship and political advocacy.…

“The deposits of mineral substances and their exploitation are not characterized by features which would give a particular mark to human action dealing with them.”

I nominate the above 25 words for the shortest, sweetest statement of energy economics (really economics applied to mineral energies) in history. Properly understood, millions of words could have been spared trying to prove the opposite.

Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) was the greatest economist of his generation and, indeed, the 20th century. John Maynard Keynes got the accolades, but his theory did not stand the test of time. Milton Friedman, the counterweight to Keynes from the free-market-oriented side, had many contributions that were more quantitative than the much-more-difficult qualitative. And Friedman, the great educator, did not pen a systematic treatise on the corpus of his discipline as did Mises, expositing “an economics that should have been but never was.”…

“Since 2015, nearly 300 government entities from Vermont to Hawaii have moved to reject or restrict wind projects. Local governments are implementing a panoply of regulations to restrict the growth of wind projects including strict limits on noise, minimum setback distances, and even seeking licenses for heliports. A thorough review of the studies [has] documented the deleterious health impacts of noise from wind turbines.” (Robert Bryce, below)

MasterResource has followed the growing issue of negative health effects of industrial wind turbines. The latest was an update (March 18, 2021) from acoustical engineer Stephen Cooper regarding vibrations and infrasound (low frequency noise) from wind turbines on nearby residents.

Cooper, part of the wind power debate since his pioneering study of the Cape Bridgewater Wind Farm in southwest Victoria in Australia in 2014 (also see here), is a scientist to watch.…