{"id":440993,"date":"2026-04-23T01:07:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T08:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=440993"},"modified":"2026-04-23T01:07:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T08:07:11","slug":"resourceful-earth-day-fred-smith-on-julian-simon-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=440993","title":{"rendered":"Resourceful Earth Day: Fred Smith on Julian Simon"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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

\u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith critiqued the shift in Earth Day from any early optimism toward a gloomy “day of atonement” focused on humanity as a “cancer” on the planet. He highlighted the environmental movement’s embrace of the “Terrible Toos”: too many people, too much consumption, too much reliance on poorly understood technology. This led to calls for stasis, population control, reduced growth, and “wilderness” that excludes human activity\u2014contrasting sharply with Simon’s view that free people continuously improve both the economy and the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith critiqued the shift in Earth Day from any early optimism toward a gloomy “day of atonement” focused on humanity as a “cancer” on the planet. He highlighted the environmental movement’s embrace of the “Terrible Toos”: too many people, too much consumption, too much reliance on poorly understood technology. This led to calls for stasis, population control, reduced growth, and “wilderness” that excludes human activity\u2014contrasting sharply with Simon’s view that free people continuously improve both the economy and the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

From The Master Resource<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Editor\u2019s Note<\/strong>: Today has been celebrated since 1970 as Earth Day. With the Progressive Left all but abandoning its significance, the opportunity is to rebrand April 22nd as Resourceful Earth Day<\/em>. Human ingenuity, despite Statism, has proven optimist\/realist Julian Simon correct, as noted by CEI founder and longtime head Fred Smith in this 1999 tribute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\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 (environmentalism\u2019s Earth Day since 1970), merits redemption. 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 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<\/em> and organic<\/em>. 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 Johnny Carson Show, \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\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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. In fact, they have been resolved in the United States and other places where human ingenuity is free to solve them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":440994,"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":[691830688,691842463,691842464,691819573,691842466,691827854,691842465,691818794],"class_list":{"0":"post-440993","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-doomsday-predictions","9":"tag-earth-day-1970","10":"tag-modern-malthusianism","11":"tag-overpopulation","12":"tag-pollution-crises","13":"tag-progressive-left","14":"tag-resource-exhaustion","15":"tag-resourceful-earth-day","17":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0-Resourceful-Earth-Day-Fred-Smith-on-Julian-Simon.jpg?fit=784%2C1168&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1QIN","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":253914,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=253914","url_meta":{"origin":440993,"position":0},"title":"Resourceful Earth Day: Fred Smith on Julian Simon","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"21\/04\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"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.","rel":"","context":"In \"Earth Day\"","block_context":{"text":"Earth Day","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=earth-day"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/087518.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/087518.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/087518.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/087518.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/087518.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":281537,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=281537","url_meta":{"origin":440993,"position":1},"title":"Julian Simon Memorial Award 2023: Comments of David Simon","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"02\/10\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0From \u00a0Master Resource By David Simon This past February marked 25 years since my father\u2019s death.\u00a0 In 2001, CEI began awarding the\u00a0Julian Simon Memorial Award.\u00a0My family deeply appreciates not only that CEI established this award, but also that CEI now has continued this award for 23 years. 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