A friend wrote me today asking what I thought about President Donald Trump's recent steps to impose new or higher tariffs on some imports. He appreciated my response, so I thought readers here might appreciate it as well. The justification of import tariffs as protecting domestic employment is an age-old fallacy rooted in what Frederic Bastiat called the problem of the things that are seen and the things that are not seen. Imports threaten domestic employment only if the total cost of the … [Read more...]
Cornwall Alliance Statement on EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s Resignation
On July 5, President Donald Trump announced the resignation of Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt. The Cornwall Alliance was pleased to support Mr. Pruitt’s nomination in 2017, and we have valued his service to the American people since then. He has brought to the EPA, which in past years frequently overstretched the statutory limits of its authority, a strong commitment to our Constitutional order. Mr. Pruitt has honored the separation of powers and worked … [Read more...]
How Do Hard Data and Computer Climate Models’ Dire Predictions Compare?
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman explained “the key to science” this way: In general we look for a new law by the following process. First we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience, compare it directly with observation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. In that simple statement is … [Read more...]
Defending Scott Pruitt from Scurrilous Journalists and Politicians
Last year, the Cornwall Alliance produced an open letter supporting Scott Pruitt's nomination to become EPA Administrator. We rested our judgment on the facts that As Oklahoma Attorney General Pruitt had demonstrated his legal expertise in successful litigation to require corporations—including the energy corporations so prominent in his state’s economy—to abide by environmental laws and regulations. He had publicly expressed his conviction that the EPA’s role is not to create law through … [Read more...]
History 1, Hansen 0
In 1988, James Hansen confidently predicted that the world would be about 1 degree Celsius warmer today than it was then. Actually, he offered three scenarios: A, "business as usual," with rapidly rising carbon dioxide emissions, which would bring that 1 degree; B, "most plausible," with emissions remaining constant at 1988 levels, which would make the world 0.7 degree warmer today; and C, with emissions rising from 1988 to 2000 and then stabilizing, which would make the world about 0.3 … [Read more...]
A Humorous and Devastating Critique of Green Economics
Just a brief note to recommend the reading of Tim Worstall's Chasing Rainbows: How the Green Agenda Defeats Its Aims. For fullest enjoyment, understand from the start that you must imagine its whole text being said aloud by an Englishman in a tone riddled with sarcasm. Think of Fawlty Towers or some such. Worstall, a Fellow of the Adam Smith Institute, is an economist and businessman. His "Introduction" actually teaches some basic economic principles, such as comparative advantage and the … [Read more...]
Should Government Take Steps to Curb Acquisitiveness?
Recently when I posted an item to Facebook that applauded America's growing economy under President Donald Trump, a friend challenged the notion that economic growth is a good thing. He and I have discussed the subject various times. He thinks that for countries already as wealthy as the United States growth is bad because it entails depleting resources and doesn't actually enhance human well being or happiness. I have responded to both ideas in my chapter refuting the idea that "Capitalism Is … [Read more...]
Pope Francis Is Wrong. Climate Craziness, Not Climate Change, Threatens to ‘Destroy Civilization’
At a conference at the Vatican Saturday, Pope Francis told oil executives "climate change" could "destroy civilization." The Pope's warning ensues from his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si', in which he called climate change "a global problem with grave implications" and "one of the principal challenges facing humanity." He warned that it would most gravely impact the poor, many of whom "live in areas particularly affected by phenomena related to warming, and their means of subsistence are largely … [Read more...]
Ah, the Complexities of Liberal Environmentalism!
Laugh? Scream? Cry? What's the proper reaction to a letter from liberal Democratic Senators Charles Schumer (NY), Maria Cantwell (WA), Ed Markey (MA), and Robert Menendez (NJ) to President Donald Trump decrying the harm rising gasoline prices does to American families. (It's always about the family, you know! Whatever a "family" might be.) All four Senators have supported raising federal taxes on gasoline as a way to fight global warming by reducing consumption. The tax increase would, of … [Read more...]
Keeping People in the Dark is Easy—Just Keep Them in the Dark
It's long been clear that electricity, by putting enormous power at the fingertips of billions of ordinary people, has been crucial to their conquest of poverty. Just now, though, a short article by energy journalist Robert Bryce turned a new light on for me: Electricity is crucial to keeping people free, too. Why? Because information and its rapid, unrestricted sharing feed freedom. And electricity facilitates that rapid sharing of information---through telephones, radio, television, the … [Read more...]
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