“Today, the libertarian Cato Institute releases its “Policy Handbook for the 104^th Congress,” a 39-essay proposal to dismantle the federal government…. The essay on energy was written by Cato camp follower Robert L. Bradley Jr. of Houston … president of his own energy think tank – well, OK, it’s small, more like a think bucket – called the Institute for Energy Research.”

How the energy debate has shifted in the last quarter-century–with the middle moving Left and the free market, classical liberal Right falling off the table. Today, the Green Party has been neutered by the Progressive (or Regressive, as Alex Epstein puts it) Left dictating the debate.

I was reminded of this upon encountering an old ‘Perspectives’ column from John H. Jennrich, the founder and editor of Natural Gas Week.…

Ed. note: This post excerpts energy and climate material from the Media Balance Newsletter, a fortnightly published by physicist John Droz Jr., founder of the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions. The complete MBN for this post can be found here.

Greed Energy Economics
*** The green agenda’s role in global inflation
*** Biden’s Most Preposterous Lie Is Too Much Even For The Washington Post
*** The great renewables ripoff
Ohio County Veto of Wind Project Shows It’s Time to End Federal Wind Subsidies
NY Governor Blames Utilities for Costs of State Climate Policies

Renewables (General)
*** Report: Deadly Summer Blackouts Inevitable As Renewables Struggle To Replace Reliable Energy
*** Beware: 100% green energy could destroy the planet
*** Short video: How Solar Cells And Wind Turbines Are Made
Wind and Solar Face Increasing Opposition Everywhere They Go!…

“Maybe instead of investigating the relatively high price [in early 2002] of gasoline, the government should check into its own regulatory and tax policies that artificially reduce supply and raise prices.”

This piece was written in first-quarter 2002 when environmental requirements were pushing reformulated gasoline prices higher, and the wellhead oil boom associated with hydraulic fractionation and horizontal drilling was a decade away.

Today, the war against oil from the Net Zero movement–now joined by the Russia/Ukraine conflict–has sent prices to historically high levels. Still, a mostly free market has wondrously overcome impediments to make a “depletable” mineral plentiful and affordable for hundreds of millions of Americans each day.

Let’s go back to the debate 20 years ago, when gasoline was sold for $1.50 per gallon (about $2.50 today)….

Crude oil prices are at a 6-month high. …

“World will ‘run out of food’ in 27 years, according to chilling doomsday prediction,” reads the headline in the Daily Star (UK). The article’s subtitle:

EXCLUSIVE: Scientists have issued a terrifying warning and have said the world could be left starving without any food in just over two decades, according to a chilling doomsday countdown

If the world doesn’t run out of food next year, as Sara Menker with Gro Intelligence warned back in 2017, scientists predict that we’ll run out in “exactly 27 years and 251 days left as of Sunday.” 

In 2050? The author of the Daily Star article, Sian Hewitt, quotes sociobiologist Edward Wilson:

By then, there will be almost 10 billion people on the planet and the food demand will have increased by 70% compared to what we needed in 2017.