” … we have to acknowledge that property rights in climate *cannot* be defined fully and we thus have to find some shared institution for governing the climate commons and managing emissions.” (Kiesling)
“One can think humans are causing the planet to warm but logically and humanely conclude that we should do nothing about it.” (Horwitz)
Lynne Kiesling is an electricity specialist who describes herself as working in the classical liberal tradition. Problem is, she refuses to define what classical liberalism or a free market is in regard to electricity. She instead endorses central government planning for the wholesale grid, among other Statist proposals. [1] In so doing, she ignores how the traditions she espouses argue against her positions (Hayek on central planning, Coase on transaction costs, Public Choice on politicization, etc.).…
Continue ReadingEd. Note: For posts at MasterResource on the comments of Julian Simon award recipients, see the appendix below.
This past February marked 25 years since my father’s death. In 2001, CEI began awarding the Julian Simon Memorial Award. My family deeply appreciates not only that CEI established this award, but also that CEI now has continued this award for 23 years.
The first award went to my father’s long-time collaborator, Stephen Moore. Steve, by the way, now leads the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. I hope you all subscribe to the Committee’s excellent and free Hotline.
This year’s award recipients, Marian Tupy and Gale Pooley, began working together a few years ago on a very ambitious project that last year reached an apex with the publication of their book, Superabundance.…
Continue Reading“The popular climate discussion … looks at man as a destructive force for climate livability … because we use fossil fuels. In fact, the truth is the exact opposite; we don’t take a safe climate and make it dangerous; we take a dangerous climate and make it safe. High-energy civilization, not climate, is the driver of climate livability.”
– Alex Epstein, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels (2014), pp. 126–127.
Physical climate change in terms of human welfare defines the debate between the alarmists and skeptics. And a good way to begin that debate is to put climate livability and nature in proper context. The quotation above does just that, tearing away the deep ecology notion that nature is benign, optimal, and fragile.
There is one graphic, one data series, that makes Epstein’s point — and puts the climate alarmists and forced energy transformationists on their heels.…
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