Italian economist and engineer Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) conjectured that for any population, income naturally follows a log-normal distribution. The normal, or Gaussian distribution ranges from negative to positive infinity with a central mean. Because logarithms are always positive, the log-normal distribution ranges from zero to positive infinity with a positive mean, consistent with there being no upper bound for the highest incomes. Pareto’s approximation describes the distribution of … [Read more...]
Cancel Mom’s Grocery Bag Misinformation
I don’t deliberately avoid organic foods or markets, but I don’t seek them out either. Claims that organic food tastes better or is more nutritious are not supported by evidence and certainly don’t justify the far higher prices. Mostly, I’m put off by assertions that organic food is pesticide-free, safer, and more planet-friendly. Those assertions are simply false advertising; deliberate misinformation.Mom’s Organic Market shopping bags provide an excellent example. They’re emblazoned with six … [Read more...]
Unlikely Source Throws Cold Water on Climate Catastrophism
The Biden administration wants America to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 50% by 2030 and achieve "net-zero" by 2050. Other advanced nations have similar goals. They all need a bucket of cold water in the face.The New York Times Company is as unlikely a source of that icy bucket as you can imagine. Call it Climate Alarmism Central.But last month, it dashed that bucket of cold water in the face of millions of climate alarmists. In New York Times Magazine it published an interview with Vaclav … [Read more...]
Recovering the Moral Foundations of Economics
Editor's note: This piece was originally published by the Acton Institute over a decade ago. Many years later, this piece still provides a poignant reflection on economics, socialism, environmentalism, and Christian ethics. During the summer of 1980, I met weekly for breakfast, prayer, and study with a minister friend of mine. A warm-hearted, intelligent man, Bob Hager kept challenging me to broaden my interest from the biblical studies, theology, and apologetics that were my great loves to … [Read more...]
Can Computer Models Predict Climate?
Editor’s note: This article builds on ideas Dr. Essex discussed with Dr. David Legates and me on From the Stacks, our livestream program, on March 15, 2022 (view here). Parts of it address highly technical issues of advanced mathematics, physics, and modeling that many readers will find difficult to grasp. Nonetheless, we encourage a thorough reading. Even without grasping the highly technical points, you’ll find its main points reasonably clear and persuasive and its conclusions both sound … [Read more...]
A ‘Plan B’ for addressing climate change and the energy transition
I have a new article published in the latest issue of International Affairs Forum. The topic of this issue is Climate Change and Energy. Mine is one of twenty papers. A range of topics are covered. My article is the least alarmed among them. You may recognize several of the authors, which include Don Wuebbles and Bill McKibben.Here is the text of my article:Climate change is increasingly being referred to as a crisis, emergency, existential threat, and most recently as ‘code red.’ Climate change … [Read more...]
Will Young Conservatives Embrace the Ideology of Climate Change?
I came of age politically in the age of William F. Buckley, Jr, and Ronald Reagan, which means I escaped being indoctrinated into the progressive ideology behind John Maynard Keynes’ economics and Rachel Carson’s environmentalism. So I was baffled by a recent article in World Magazine discussing how many of today’s young “conservatives” embrace the ideas I avoided 40 years ago.The article, Young Republicans embrace climate care, begins with a profile of the 24-year-old Andrew … [Read more...]
Federal District Court Enjoins Use Of The “Social Cost Of Carbon”
In the U.S. so far, efforts to enact legislation in Congress to “save the planet” by restricting fossil fuels and transforming our energy economy have gone almost entirely nowhere. President Obama’s big idea of “cap and trade” legislation died early in his first term and was never resurrected. President Biden’s “Green New Deal” has so far suffered a similar fate. If the Republicans retake even one house of Congress later this year, prospects for legislation on this subject may be dead for many … [Read more...]
Thinking Biblically about Earth Stewardship & the Conquest of Poverty in the Age of Climate Change
We have created an updated version of this page to reflect changes made for 2023. You can visit the new page here. … [Read more...]
As coal use surges, America finds it’s hard to unplug from carbon
So much for the myriad claims about going “beyond coal.” According to a new report from the Rhodium Group, U.S. coal consumption jumped by 17 percent last year compared to 2020 levels. That’s a huge increase, which Rhodium says was “largely driven by a run-up in natural gas prices.” Rather than burn gas, which averaged about $4.93 per million Btu last year — more than two times the price in 2020 — many electricity producers chose to burn coal instead.The surge in domestic coal use is … [Read more...]
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