A Free-Market Energy Blog

Alarmism Now – and Then (Modern Malthusianism in its 6th Decade)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 9, 2024

“Many people think that the threat of ‘global warming’ arose only towards the end of the twentieth century…. Climate change, either natural or anthropogenic, has been discussed from the classical age onwards, evolving from the expected benefits of climate engineering to today’s fear of global disaster.”

– Hans von Storch and Nico Stehr, “Climate Change in Perspective,” Nature, June 8, 2000, p. 615

It is all gloom, what Michael Mann cautioned against as “doomism.”[1] Such alarm has been the mainstream narrative—and wrong—since the 1960s. And warnings about how exaggeration can backfire (New York Times: “In Climate Debate, Exaggeration Is a Pitfall“) have been thrown to the wind in the futile, costly pursuit of Net Zero.

This post presents the climate alarm quotations of today with the quotations from Paul Ehrlich and the Club of Rome in the late 1960s/early 1970s for historical perspective.…

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Alaska Energy Future Needs Informed Voters (gas, hydro under political assault)

By -- May 8, 2024

“We do not have a gas shortage problem; we have a gas contract renewal ‘problem’ that the incumbents on the board refuse to address.”

“How can a board member do both: support green unreliable energy and meet their fiduciary responsibilities of lowest cost, highest reliability, best service, and safety?”

Chugach Electric Association members face politicized, expensive, and unreliable power options that are certainly not the fault of rich, local resources that have proven their worth for many decades. Only inaction in the face of nefarious “green” can make it happen. Will Chugach members wake up to what economists call the concentrated benefit/diffuse cost problem?

Radical green politicization of electric co-op boards has been a long time in the making, specifically for the 90,000 members of Anchorage-area Chugach Electric Association (CEA).…

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Global Cooling and a New Ice Age: Never Forget (humility required in science, change)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 7, 2024

“A new ice age would flood the world’s coastal cities and further lower temperatures to build up new glaciers that could eventually cover huge areas.” (1971)

The warming alarmists dismiss the cooling alarmists of yesterday as fringe and ignorant. But some of the biggest names of the day back then would not take too kindly to the know-it-alls of today.

Alex Epstein has coined the term catastrophicism to describe the age-old Malthusian itch. Back in the 1970s, top scientists such as NASA’s S. I. Rasool, an atmospheric physicist at Columbia University, and Stephen Schneider of National Center for Atmospheric Research, were making headlines about future climate change–from people, not nature.

“Scientists have long debated whether man’s activity is actually heating or cooling the earth,” the Washington Post article below notes.

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Power Political Monopoly: Bottom Lines

By Jim Clarkson -- May 6, 2024
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Adaptation to Heat: Then and Now

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 3, 2024
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Permanent Subsidy? Industrial Wind’s PTC (14 Extensions)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 2, 2024
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PhD “Data/Climate Scientist” Can’t Provide Data on Extreme Weather Events

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 1, 2024
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Politico: Populist Backlash Against Climate Policy is Here

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 30, 2024
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Energy & Environmental Review: April 29, 2024

By -- April 29, 2024
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Great Lakes ‘Icebreaker’ Wind Project: Bury the Dead

By Sherri Lange -- April 26, 2024
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