TT's Lost in Tokyo — by TokyoTom

Wow, what startling news.  Thanks for sharing it with us Rob.  Now perhaps you can catch your breath.

Rob Bradley trumpets an opinion poll that indicates that voters care more about more immediate and pressing issues than they do about distant problems like climate change that they can pass off to their children and others, queries in his headline “Global Warming Realism over Alarmism: Is the Public Leading?” and tells us:

Wow, what a victory for energy and climate realism in regard to an issue that future historians might consider to be the Malthusians’ last stand (am I too optimistic?).  …

What might such poll results mean at some of America’s top private foundations that have spent so much time and money hyping the climate issue, including the Pew Foundation itself? … 

Here’s hoping that these foundations demote climate alarmism in favor of meeting here-and-now human needs during these tough economic times. That would be a double win.

It’s hard to see on what basis Bradley sees the poll as particularly revealing, but it is interesting that he hopes that other private foundations – funded by wealthy individuals and firms that have different policy priorities than the individuals and firms that fund Rob’s own foundation, Institute for Energy Research (including, until recently, Exxon), and other foundations that Rob is associated with (Cato and CEI) – will change THEIR priorities to match HIS.  Not a bad idea, to be sure, but is Rob holding out any olive branches or otherwise trying to productive engage PEW or others?  Or is it just that his preferences (and those of the people/firms that fund him) are so obviously better, and ridicule works better than discourse?

Here’s to hoping that Rob Bradley (and foundations that he associates with) will explore ways to engage productively with the evil/idiotic climate alarmists/Malthusians, with the goal of meeting human energy AND environmental needs through better functioning markets. That would be a double win.

Oh, and here are the comments I left to Rob on his post:

No, Rob, the public trails. Not particularly a surprise for a long-term commons problem, especially when we’ve fallen into a depression.

Thank goodness, ‘cuz us Austrians never want to figure out how to address commons problems. At least not ones involving fossil fuels.