When Forbes editor Steve Forbes calls a book “one of the most important … in decades defending capitalism,” it’s time to sit up and take notice. Rainer Zitelmann’s In Defense of Capitalism: Debunking the Myths (USA, Republic Book Publishers, March 2023) fully deserves Forbes’s praise. In 10 relatively short chapters constituting the first half of the book, Zitelmann conclusively debunks ten myths, e.g., that capitalism is responsible for hunger and poverty or for environmental … [Read more...]
Using Science To Further Government Objectives
“Scientists Discover Strong Correlation Between Trusting Government And Eating Paint Chips” read a recent headline in The Babylon Bee. The article went on to report that “trust in government also ranked high among gasoline sniffers, toad lickers, and oven cleaner huffers.” Although the article is ostensibly satirical, trusting government does seem a mite flaky these days, especially when combined with a trust in mainstream media reporting on science in the service of government. Image: … [Read more...]
Whale Death Confusion Abounds, and Some is Deliberate
Press coverage of the tragic whale deaths is a supreme study in confusion, especially the foolish attempts to somehow exonerate offshore wind development. Here are some prominent examples. The evergreen New York Times wins the race for worst coverage by claiming to explain the numerous recent whale deaths as due to online shopping. I am not making this up. Their headline promises an explanation: “Why 23 Dead Whales Have Washed Up on the East Coast Since December”. The primary reason … [Read more...]
California: Atmospheric River and Misguided Climate Fear
For more than three weeks earlier this year, California was pummeled by a series of storms arriving one after another from the Pacific Ocean. Torrential rains, mudslides, power outages, and floods plague state residents from north of San Francisco down to Los Angeles, four hundred miles to the south. Scientists attribute this event to an “atmospheric river” condition in the Pacific Ocean. Many also claim that this phenomenon is due to human-caused climate change. According to the National … [Read more...]
Achieving Net Zero
According to the clerics of the Green Cult, once we blow up our last coal mine, send all diesel engines to the wreckers, stop using concrete, reinvent sailing clippers, cover the grasslands with solar clutter and the hills with wind machines and then slaughter all of our cattle. . . global climate will become serene - not too warm, not too cold. Wild weather will cease, and there will be no more droughts, floods, cyclones or snow storms and no more plant and animal extinctions. But the … [Read more...]
The Rise of Totalitarian Science
The following is a guest article by John G. West. The following was originally published on January 31, 2022. In 2007, I published Darwin Day in America, a critical history of social Darwinism in the United States and, more broadly, an exploration of the abuse of science in American public policy in the last century-and-a-half. In 2015, I wrote a new chapter for the paperback edition, highlighting a worrisome trend. I warned: Our culture is witnessing the rise of … [Read more...]
The Dangers of the “One Health Joint Plan of Action”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a page on its website titled “One Health Basics.” There it defines “One Health” as “a collaborative, multisectoral, and transdisciplinary approach—working at the local, regional, national, and global levels—with the goal of achieving optimal health outcomes recognizing”—and here’s the crux—“the interconnection between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment.” On that page the CDC writes about the risk of disease … [Read more...]
California’s Deluge: Unprecedented? No. Missed Opportunity? Yes.
According to Dictionary.com, the term “atmospheric river” originated with scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology back in the 1990s. More recently, the term gained currency with climate-change advocates as a way of boosting their dodgy narrative. Lately, the mainstream media picked it up and applied it lavishly in accounts of the recent heavy rains in California. Image: Creative Commons under Unsplash The rain-making phenomenon, common around the globe, occurs … [Read more...]
Proposals For a Windfall Profits Tax Are Damaging Even If Never Enacted
In the wake of the midterm election results, President Biden has made it clear that “I’m not going to change,” in particular with respect to his view that “the oil companies are really doing the nation a real disservice.” Image: Creative Commons under Unsplash Accordingly, it is easy to predict a continuation of the incoherence of the Biden stance toward conventional energy: a policy environment reducing investment in future discovery, production, and ancillary capital … [Read more...]
India, China Emissions Make Mockery of Western Policies
Amidst the European energy crisis, it’s easy to miss other events that are of significance to the discussion about the climate-change movement. Among them are a series of setbacks to green policies in China and India. These countries — representing three billion people — have delayed the implementation of renewable energy commitments and aggressively increased the production and consumption of fossil fuels. At the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, Chinese and Indian leaders — … [Read more...]
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