‘Shrillness’ of greens contributed to failure in Washington — EDF chief ‘ (2011 article rings true today)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 16, 2020 2 Comments

“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.” – Fred Krupp (EDF), 2011.

Thirty something years apace, what can anti-CO2 activists claim for their efforts? Answer: not much, except for an incalculable amount of resources wasted to travel and politick around the globe.

Consider this bottom line. In 1988, the year the global warming alarm started, the global market share of carbon-based energies was 88 percent. Today, it is just a bit diminished at 85 percent. Total usage of natural gas, coal, and oil in this period increased by two-thirds, with CO2 emissions rising 61 percent. Fossil fuels–dense, mineral energies–rock!

With this in mid, consider the article below from Greenwire (E&E News), dated April 5, 2011, by Colin Sullivan.…

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Electric Vehicles: Old Market Competitor

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 14, 2020 No Comments

“No electric car since 1902, regardless of battery or drive train, had been able to compete effectively against its contemporary internal combustion counterpart.” (– David Kirsch, The Electric Vehicle and The Burden of History. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2000, p. 203.)

“When government tries to pick losers and winners, it typically picks losers. Why? Because in a free market, consumers pick winners to leave the losers for government.” (- Robert Bradley, Jr. Electric Car Verdict: Another Government-Subsidized Bust, September 26, 2012.

How many times has it been stated that electric vehicles are ” a new technology.” Such was the thesis of a 2017 Think Progress article, “A Koch Front Group is Putting out Misleading Attack Ads on Electric Vehicles.”

If only journalists such as Samantha Page knew energy history.…

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‘The Increasing Sustainability of Conventional Energy’ (1999 analysis for 2020)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 30, 2020 8 Comments

“The Petroleum Economist’s headline for 1998 projects, ‘Ever Greater Use of New Technology,” will also characterize future years, decades, centuries, and millennia under market conditions. If the ‘ultimate resource’ of human ingenuity is allowed free rein, energy in its many and changing forms will be more plentiful and affordable for future generations than it is now, although never ‘too cheap to meter’ as was once forecast for nuclear power.” (Bradley, 1999: 40)

From time to time, MasterResource dips into the history vault to demonstrate how well the free-market, human ingenuity worldview has stood the test of time. Julian Simon Lives!, in other words.

Twenty-one years ago, I published a Cato Policy Analysis, The Increasing Sustainability of Conventional Energy (No. 341: April 22, 1999). It was 51 pages with 250 references.…

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Joanna Szurmak Interview: Extending the Julian Simon Worldview (Part II: Population Bombed!)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 24, 2020 7 Comments

This completes our two-part review (Part I here) of the development and worldview of Joanna Szurmak, whose work with Pierre Desrochers is at the forefront of classical-liberal scholarship in sustainable development.

Q. And the shorter pieces led to something bigger—a book, Population Bombed!

A. Yes. Since Julian Simon’s influence and inspiration was in our minds, in late 2017 we realized that Simon’s nemesis, Paul Ehrlich, was approaching the 50th anniversary of his bestseller, The Population Bomb (1968). This slim book—really a collection of Ehrlich’s lecture notes that his wife and life-long collaborator Anne Ehrlich stitched together into a narrative—became a manifesto to population-control activists around the world.

Like Simon, we disagreed with both the premises and the arguments of those who Pierre likes to call the “population bombers.” But we had been noticing an upsurge in calls to impose controls on world population in the name of environmental health and climate justice.

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GE: Contra-Capitalism’s Toll (lightbulb unit sold)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 15, 2020 5 Comments Continue Reading

Heart of Hawaii: Oil Powers Oahu’s Sustainable Energy Program

By David Shormann -- June 10, 2020 6 Comments Continue Reading

LEEDCO Update: Offshore Lake Erie (Ohio) Project In Trouble in Year 11

By Sherri Lange and Suzanne Albright -- June 9, 2020 15 Comments Continue Reading

Big Wind Throws in the Towel in Lapeer County, Michigan (grassroots environmentalism prevails)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 3, 2020 6 Comments Continue Reading

Energy & Environmental Newsletter: June 2, 2020

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Andrew Dessler: Climate Alarmist as Energy Expert (Part II)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 28, 2020 12 Comments Continue Reading