Comments on: Gregg Easterbrook still knows nothing about global warming — and less about clean energy.

By: shop

shop — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 13:35:08 +0000

In fact, thanks to publications like him Slate and “experts” like Easterbrook, the claims about a pending climate doomsday have been largely ignored

By: JCH

JCH — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 19:13:52 +0000

Wind and turbine went nowhere in the 1970s because of one reason: the election of Ronald Reagan.

My dad rented a building to a wind turbine company named Dakota Wind and Sun. They had a thriving business making windmills until the tax breaks were cancelled. The tax breaks were cancelled because the country went to the dumb side.

By: gaiasdaughter

gaiasdaughter — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 15:43:22 +0000

“Economic growth is needed to allow the world to afford environmental protection. At least for the next few decades, headlong resource consumption will be necessary to generate the capital that will pay for a clean-energy infrastructure.”

How rich does the world need to be to ‘afford environmental protection’? Is the U. S. rich enough now, or do we, too, need to ‘generate more capital’ before we can afford ‘a clean-energy infrastructure’? Does the world at large have to be richer than we are now before it can afford to act?

By: llewelly

llewelly — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 10:42:32 +0000

I know that because Friedman interviewed me and that entire discussion can be found on pages 187-189 if the book

‘if the book’ => ‘of the book’.

By: Pangolin

Pangolin — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 10:05:33 +0000

I’m betting that ” a panicked pullback from the present economic system” is far more likely than that guy thinks it is. At the rate the bad news is piling up the cookies are going to eventually stop showing up on the store shelves.

By: Mark Shapiro

Mark Shapiro — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 05:56:06 +0000

Rich: short answer – yes.

My much larger claim: Solving the energy problem correctly helps solve all the other problems that Easterbrook claims as priorities. Solving the energy problem wrong (or not at all) makes them worse.

By: john

john — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 04:44:30 +0000

Easterbrook is just another sophistic iconoclast who can’t even distinguish between trees and forests.

Several years ago, he wrote a piece for the Atlantic maintaining there were more forests in the US now than in the early 19th century.

He of course cherry picked the data, starting by taking the absolute nadir of tree cover in the US for the basis of his comparison. But worse, he compared massive tree plantations — monocultures — and immature second growth forests with virgin growth forests. Never mind the extreme differences in biodiversity. He was more interested in showing how he was in possession of counter-intuitive truths the rest of us couldn’t see.

In short, he’s a wise ass, but he’s not wise. And his Slate review reprises this whole cutsey routine. If it weren’t so destructive, his act would be risible.

By: Rich

Rich — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 01:51:03 +0000

Funny Easterbrook mentioned the lack of girls’ education. Friedberg’s chapter on petrodictators noted how our addiction to oil causes this to happen. Countries that get all their income from high priced oil due to our excess demand do not have to listen the “taxpayers” as they’re aren’t any. As Friedman put it “no taxation means no representation”. I wonder if this may be why there is so much corruption in Alaska.