This Earth Day we heard various commentators bemoan the growth in population, consumption, and carbon emissions driven by fossil fueled technologies. Once again we are told that this is unsustainable, that we are running out of resources, prices are inevitably headed up, and, worse, such consumption reduces  both environmetal and human well-being. In this worldview, industrialization and economic development were fashioned in the Devil’s crucible, and that de-industrialization and de-development will be our saviour.

I have started a series of posts at Master Resources that compares the above Neo-Malthusian view of industrialization, economic growth, and technological change against empirical data on human well-being from the age of industrialization.  The first post revisits the bet made in 1980 by Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich on the direction of commodity prices, and examines long term trends in the prices and affordability of various commodities.  Specifically,  for metals, I look at trends going back to 1800, while for food I examine trends from 1900 onward. Parts II and III will compare long term trends in population, consumption, economic development, and carbon emissions against trends in human well-being for the world (from 1750 onward) and the United States (from 1900 onward). Finally, Part IV will provide an explanation as to why empirical data is at odds with the Neo-Malthusian worldview.

Part I, which examines the Simon-Ehrlich Bet in the context of long term trends in the prices and affordability of various commodities, is here.

Return of the Neo-Malthusians is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

A conversation with documentarian Robert Stone regarding Earth Day is featured today in The New York Times’s “Dot Earth” online column.  In the course of his conversation with the Times’s Andrew Revkin, Mr. Stone — who is quite alarmed about our reliance on foreign oil — asks:  “How many Americans know that we send about $800 billion to the Middle East every year for oil?”

Hopefully, not many. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. spent $95.4 billion on crude oil imports from OPEC sources in 2009.  But not all OPEC members are from the Middle East.  That $95.4 billion includes dollars spent on oil originating from Algeria ($6.3 billion), Angola ($9 billion), Ecuador ($3.4 billion), Nigeria ($17.7 billion), and Venezuela ($23.4 billion) – none of which are in the Middle East.  Subtract out that oil and we arrive at $35.6 billion spent on Middle Eastern crude oil (a figure rounded from the original nominal counts.  I have used the customs value – that is, the estimated value — of the oil being imported rather than the figures that include additional costs for insurance and transportation because money being spent on insurance and shipping goes to third parties that are not for the most part located in the Middle East.  But if one wants to use those slightly higher figures, it won’t change the numbers very much at all).

For what it’s worth, the total amount of dollars Americans sent abroad for crude oil from all sources was $188.5 billion last year.

Even if the figure were $800 billion, so what?  No one is forcing refineries to buy crude oil from foreign suppliers.  They presumably believe that the oil at issue is more valuable than the money that must be offered to secure said oil and that oil from other sources is more expensive than oil from the Middle East. Hence, they buy. This is by definition a wealth creating transaction for American business enterprises. Foreign trade, Mr. Stone, is a good thing.

The implicit claim, of course, is that there are negative externalities associated with foreign oil consumption. This, however, is faith masquerading as fact (an argument also well made by Cato adjunct scholar Richard Gordon).

Regardless, Mr. Stone overstates the alleged problem by orders of magnitude.

Oil Import Make Believe is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Today is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, a time to highlight and discuss ways to work toward a cleaner planet. Cato’s energy and environment research promotes policies that would help protect the environment without sacrificing economic liberty, goals that are mutually supporting, not mutually exclusive.

• Why we should thank capitalism for environmental gains: “It is businessmen — not bureaucrats or environmental activists — who deserve most of the credit for the environmental gains over the past century and who represent the best hope for a Greener tomorrow.”

• Finding the right balance: “Today, America’s environment is cleaner—and Earth Day has indeed helped ensure that. …We should renew our promise to keep the environment clean—without adding to human misery or stalling improvements in the human condition.”

• Want clean air? Try this.

• Is high-speed rail really an environmentally friendly alternative to driving and air travel? “Planners have predicted that a proposed line in Florida would use more energy and emit more of some pollutants than all of the cars it would take off the road.”

Earth Day Links is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

• David Rittgers speaks out on the O’Reilly Factor about the government’s policy on torture.

• At National Review online, Patrick Michaels weighs in on Earth Day.

• Will Wilkinson warns of problems with Obama’s budget on Marketplace.

• Richard Rahn explains why the current tax system needs to be overhauled and replaced in The Washington Times.

• In Wednesday’s Cato Daily Podcast, Swaminathan Aiyar discusses the future of the dollar.

New at Cato is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

From today’s Washington Post:

In another sign that the Department of Agriculture is embracing sustainable food, the agency today will unveil expanded plans for a People’s Garden that will include the entire six-acre grounds of the Whitten Building, the department’s neoclassic marble headquarters on the Mall.

The plans, to be announced at the agency’s Earth Day celebrations, include a 1,300-square-foot organic vegetable garden — slightly larger than the one at the White House — as well as ornamental flower gardens and bioswales, or mini-wetlands designed to reduce pollution and surface water runoff.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to find out exactly what a “bioswale” is, and why I should pay for one in our new “People’s Garden.”

I Swear I’m Not Making This Up is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog