“We created a way of raising standards of living that we can’t possibly pass on to our children. It has to collapse, unless adults stand up and say, ‘This is a Ponzi scheme. We have not generated real wealth, and we are destroying a livable climate.’” (Joe Romm, quoted in Thomas Friedman, Is the Inflection Point Near?, New York Times, March 7, 2009)

“Is there any more single-minded, simple pleasure than viewing with alarm? At times it is even better than sex.” (Kenneth Boulding (1970), p. 160. [1]

Are free-market optimists the dumb ones who jump off tall buildings and report that everything is fine, even breezy, on the way down? Or are those who fear, rant, and make this analogy bungee-jumping with reality?

The optimists have been jumping off buildings ever since Robert Thomas Malthus’s An Essay on Population was published in 1798–and not hitting the ground.…

In his book (p. 178), Andrew Dessler defines adaptation as “responding to the negative impacts of climate change.” The proper definition is to anticipate and adapt to climate change, to capitalize on the positives and to mitigate the negatives.

This series on Andrew Dessler’s Introduction to Modern Climate Change has urged better and fairer treatment of the non-alarmist side of the climate debate for the author’s 3rd edition (in process).

Part I, “Suggestions for More Interdisciplinary Scholarship, Less Advocacy,” documented how this science text was an advocacy book and failed the scholarship standard of presenting opposing views fairly for consideration. Some contentious areas of debate were ignored and others caricatured. Professor Dessler is revealed to be a deep ecologist in that “when it comes to climate, change is bad.…

[Editor note: A ‘clarification and apology’ associated with this post is here. The author failed to note that Andrew Dessler also stated, “I debate in the peer-reviewed literature.”]

“Doesn’t the wholesale reordering of our society demand at least a little bit of public debate? We think so.” (Heartland Institute)

“In a public debate, advocates can use all kinds of rhetorical tricks, as well as outright lies, to advance their cause. There’s no way to counter them in that forum.” (Andrew Dessler)

“All of the noise right now from the climate change denial machine, the bots & trolls, the calls for fake “debates,” etc. Ignore it all. Deniers are desperate for oxygen in a mainstream media environment that is thankfully is no longer giving it to them. Report.

“Discoveries, like resources, may well be infinite: the more we discover, the more we are able to discover.” (Julian Simon, The Ultimate Resource 2, p. 82)

“The world is not ‘a bundle of hay’ but a living growing complex of matter and energy, a process rather than a thing.” ( Erich Zimmermann, World Resources and Industries, 1951, p. 815.

What explains the happy fact (really the miracle of man) that the more we discover, the more we find out if left to discover? Instead of mineral depletion, we have mineral expansion–turning the Malthusian predicament on its head. And instead of weather/climate doom, we have successful adaptation in wealthy (as in healthy) free economies.

Labor Day has passed, a day that could be renamed Energy Day for the saved labor that modern energy has transferred to machines and appliances.…