Friday 4 May 2007

Choking Al Bore's horse

Al Bore lectured an audience the other day in New Orleans, where he declared without blinking that there is no legitimate scholarly alternative to his world view.

We know the man's a liar, but such an arrogant self-deluded liar? This is much like his self-declared "science is settled" pseudo-consensus about global warming, a non-existent totem upon which he's been insisting on since 1992! No legitimate scholarly alternative to his world view? Really!? As Walter Block, Economics Professor at New Orleans' Loyola University says, "I could send them a biblio that could choke a horse."

The Commons Blog for example has a full bibliography of scholarly writing that would gore anyone with his anti-everything world-view.

And here for instance [pdf] is a full twenty-pages of scholarly books, articles and writings put together by the Political Economy Research Center in which every line is opposed to The Goracle's anti-human world view.

Then there's the whole Austrian Economics Environment Study Guide (just updated), more scholarly than you could poke a ponga at, and just the sort of resource that everyone opposed to The Bore's world view should be eating up -- and just full of references, all of them to writing that would give Al apoplexy.

Or there's all the Ayn Rand Institute's many, many exposés of the anti-human philosophy behind Big (and getting Bigger) Al, and all diametrically opposed to his shit-eating, we're-all-gonna-die world-view.

And that's just getting started!

What about all those legitimate, scholarly climate sceptics who've shown there's more hot air in Al's film (and in his house) than you would need to flood the whole planet?!

Marlo Lewis's Skeptic's Guide to 'An Inconvenient Truth' for example.

Or all those scientists who appeared willingly in 'The Great Global Warming Swindle,' many of whom can be found in this series in Canada's National Post.

Or the many pro-environment pro-liberty enviro-blogs that exist, including: For just a starter on all the literature available that describes and supports a fully worked out pro-environment pro-liberty view, just to scratch the surface here, what about this short list largely put together by Walter Block himself:
  • Thomas Sowell on the great British documentary "Global Warming Swindle".
  • The Julian Simon-Paul Ehrlich bet. It can be found at:
  • The definitive refutation of the IPCC's infamous hockey stick. [PDF]
  • 'Climate of Fear', By Richard Lindzen
  • Anderson, Terry L., and Leal, Donald R. 1991. Free Market Environmentalism, San Francisco: Pacific Research Institute
  • Anderson, Terry L., and Hill, Peter J. 1981. "Property Rights as a Common Pool Resource," in Bureaucracy vs. Environment: The Environmental Costs of Bureaucratic Governance, John Baden and Richard L. Stroup, eds., Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press
  • Block, Walter, "Population Growth: Is it a problem?", in Resolving Global Problems into the 21st century: How Can Science Help? Proceedings of the Fourth National Conference of Canadian Pugwash, Ottawa: CSP Publications, 1989, pp. 30-61.
  • Block, Walter, "Dumping on the Economy: Why Artificial Prices Encourage Waste," in Journal of Pricing Management, Vol. 14, No. 2, Spring 1991, 21-26.
  • Block, Walter, "Resource Misallocation, Externalities and Environmentalism in the U.S. and Canada," Proceedings of the 24th Pacific Northwest Regional Economic Conference, 1990, 91-94
  • Block, Walter and Roy Whitehead. 1999. "The Unintended Consequences of Environmental Justice," Forensic Science International, Vol. 100, Nos. 1 and 2, March, pp. 57-67
  • Block, Walter. 1998. "Environmentalism and Freedom: The Case for Private Property Rights," Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 17, No. 6, December, pp. 1887-1899
  • Block, Walter. 1990. "Environmental Problems, Private Property Rights Solutions," in Economics and the Environment: A Reconciliation, Walter Block, ed., Vancouver: The Fraser Institute, pp. 281-332
  • Brubaker, Elizabeth. 1995. Property Rights in the Defence of Nature Toronto, Ontario: Earthscan Publications Ltd.
  • Cato, Leigh, ed., 1995, The Business of Ecology, Allen & Unwin
  • DiLorenzo, Thomas. 1990. "Does Capitalism Cause Pollution?," St. Louis, Washington University: Center for the Study of American Business, Contemporary Issues Series 38.
  • Dolan, Edwin, "Controlling Acid Rain," in Economics and the Environment: A Reconciliation, Walter Block, ed., Vancouver: The Fraser Institute, 1990.
  • Hoppe, Hans-Hermann. 1993. The Economics and Ethics of Private Property: Studies in Political Economy and Philosophy, Boston: Kluwer
  • Horwitz, Morton J.. 1977. The Transformation of American Law: 1780-1860, Cambridge: Harvard University Press
  • Lomborg, Bjorn. 2004. The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press
  • Machan, Tibor, 2004, Putting Humans First: Why We Are Nature's Favorite, Rowman & Littlefield
  • McGee, Robert, and Block, Walter, "Pollution Trading Permits as a Form of Market Socialism, and the Search for a Real Market Solution to Environmental Pollution," in Fordham University Law and Environmental Journal, Vol. VI, No. 1, Fall 1994, pp. 51-77
  • Moore, Thomas Gale, 1991, Central Planning USA-Style: The Case Against Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards, Stanford: Hoover Institution
  • Rathje, William L., "Rubbish!," Atlantic Monthly, December 1989, pp. 99-109.
  • Rand, Ayn, rev. 1998, The Anti-Industrial Revolution: Return of the Primitive, Signet
  • Ray, Dixie Lee, 1990, Trashing the Planet, Washington D.C.: Regnery Gateway
  • Reisman, George, 1996, "Natural Resources & the Environment," in Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics, Jameson Books, Ottawa, Illinois, pp. 63-122.
  • Rothbard, Murray N. 1982. "Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution," [pdf] in Cato Journal, Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring; reprinted in Economics and the Environment: A Reconciliation, Walter Block, ed., Vancouver: The Fraser Institute, 1990
  • Simon, Julian. 1981. The Ultimate Resource, Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press
  • Singer, S. Fred & Avery, Dennis, 2007, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years, Rowman & Littlefield
  • Stroup, Richard L. 2003. Eco-nomics: What everyone should know about economics and the environment. Washington D.C.: the Cato Institute
  • Stroup, Richard L., and John C. Goodman, et. al. 1991. Progressive Environmentalism: A Pro-Human, Pro-Science, Pro-Free Enterprise Agenda for Change, Dallas, TX: National Center for Policy Analysis, Task Force Report
  • Stroup, Richard. 1988. "Buying misery with federal land," in Public Choice, Vol. 57, pp. 69-77
  • Stroup, Richard L., and Baden, John A., "Endowment Areas: A Clearing in the Policy Wilderness," in Cato Journal, 2 Winter 1982, pp. 691-708
How does that horse look?

2 comments:

Greg said...

Good post. I appreciate the time taken to compile.

leelion said...

and from me, ta for the links, good reading