{"id":253914,"date":"2023-04-21T12:07:34","date_gmt":"2023-04-21T10:07:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=253914"},"modified":"2023-04-21T12:07:44","modified_gmt":"2023-04-21T10:07:44","slug":"resourceful-earth-day-fred-smith-on-julian-simon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=253914","title":{"rendered":"Resourceful Earth Day: Fred Smith on Julian Simon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From\u00a0Master Resource<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Robert Bradley Jr.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ed. Note<\/strong>: April 22nd (tomorrow) has been celebrated since 1970 as Earth Day. However, this day needs an update by the simple addition of one word: Resourceful Earth Day. Human ingenuity has proven in the last 53 years that optimist\/realist Julian Simon was right and the neo-Malthusians were wrong on the human condition and its prospects. This suggestion, and tribute to Simon, by the founder and longtime head of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), Fred Smith, remains as relevant as when it was published in 1999.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

April 22, once associated with the optimism of revolutionary Marxism (as the birthday of Lenin) and then with the pessimism of modern Malthusianism (environmentalist\u2019s Earth Day since 1970), merits redemption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new label, Resourceful Earth Day<\/em>, is appropriate as we enter the 21st century, a title selected to honor mankind\u2019s increasing ability to solve environmental as well as economic problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This title, of course, is inspired by the late Julian Simon, author of \u201cThe Resourceful Earth,\u201d who combated with passion and power those who viewed man as the cancer of this planet and his future as bleak and austere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Resourceful Earth Day also signals a hope more appropriate to spring, marking a return to a positive view of man\u2019s role on this planet. Indeed the old Marxists, convinced that they would dominate the future, optimistically favored economic and technological change. The forces of change, they believed, would move man toward heaven here on Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That optimistic element has disappeared. The environmental establishment has grown increasingly gloomy, convinced that the Earth is suffering from the \u201cTerrible Toos\u201d \u2014 too many people, too much consumption, too great a reliance on technology which is understood too little. Earth Day has become a day of atonement for man\u2019s criminal assault on our planet. That pessimism reflects, in part, their realization that history is no longer on their side; thus, change is no longer in their interest. Stasis must be the order of the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With attacks on things like biotechnology, automobiles, suburban opportunity and trade, they now seek only, as Aaron Wildavsky noted, \u201can egalitarian society based on rejection of economic growth in favor of a smaller population eating lower on the food chain, consuming a lot less, and sharing a much lower level of resources much more equally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Had God not expelled man from the Garden of Eden, so the story goes, the \u201cgreens\u201d certainly would have. And, indeed, their ideal land use is \u201cwilderness,\u201d defined as an area from which man is excluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simon was a wonderful critic of all this foolishness. He investigated and refuted the gloomy projections that Western Civilization was a failure, that our civilization was non-sustainable and doomed to inevitable decline as the planet\u2019s finite resources were depleted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the finite nature of the Earth\u2019s material resources pose no great problem, he argued, because the Earth\u2019s most precious resource is infinite and organic. It is its people, contributing to  the ever-growing stock of useful human knowledge. When people have been free to apply their intellect, they have always found ways to meet needs and answer crises, and always will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simon pointed out that, while people are born with stomachs, they are born with brains and hands as well. The latter allow them to create far more than they consume. People, after all, are not ciphers, which helps explain how the growth in the world\u2019s food supply has outstripped the growth in the world\u2019s population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problems of famine, overpopulation, poverty and disease are resolvable. In fact, they have been resolved in the United States and other places where human ingenuity is free to solve them. The calamity criers of the green movement predicted great disasters afflicting the planet by the year 2000. The Carter administration\u2019s Global 2000 Report forecast global calamity, and Paul Ehrlich claimed on the \u201cJohnny Carson Show,\u201d \u201cIf I were a gambler, I would bet even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately for the eco-catastrophists, as we approach their due date for disaster, the planet is in increasingly good shape. This point was recently conceded by America\u2019s arch-druid. \u201cNot only do we have the healthiest economy in a generation,\u201d said Vice President Al Gore, \u201cwe also have the cleanest environment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this Resourceful Earth Day, we may hope that Gore and his fellow foot soldiers in the environmental brigades will ponder these points and rethink the wisdom of the current policy of placing all one\u2019s faith in federal political solutions. The greens\u2019 constant calls for massive government controls, forced population limits, harsh curbs on economic activity, and a curtailing of technology threaten to produce exactly the results that such actions seek to avoid \u2014a world of ecological and economic disaster. On this April 22, let us commit to both a freer and a cleaner world; they go together after all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On this Resourceful Earth Day, we may hope that Gore and his fellow foot soldiers in the environmental brigades will ponder these points and rethink the wisdom of the current policy of placing all one\u2019s faith in federal political solutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":253916,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818792,691818796,691818795,691818798,691818794,691818793,691818797],"class_list":{"0":"post-253914","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-earth-day","9":"tag-malthusianism","10":"tag-marxism","11":"tag-paul-ehrlich","12":"tag-resourceful-earth-day","13":"tag-vice-president-al-gore","14":"tag-western-civilization","16":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/087518.jpg?fit=2200%2C2200&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-143o","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":440993,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=440993","url_meta":{"origin":253914,"position":0},"title":"Resourceful Earth Day: Fred Smith on Julian Simon","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"23\/04\/2026","format":false,"excerpt":"In his 1999 piece (often tied to a Wall Street Journal op-ed or CEI-related commentary around Earth Day 2000), Fred Smith proposed renaming April 22 \"Resourceful Earth Day\" explicitly to celebrate Simon's vision:\u201cThe problems of famine, overpopulation, poverty, and disease are resolvable. 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