Who Will be the Next Julian Simon? Earth 2010 in Need of a Response

As I sat down for breakfast this morning I turned on ABC Good Morning America to only hear that due to rising energy prices, rising food prices and drastic climate change that by the year 2010 life on earth will be a living hell.  The reporters insisted this was based on the best science available, and also that it was obvious that as population rose, and food became scarce that violence would increase so that kids will fear for their life.

But, they insisted, if we act now we can do something to change this outcome.  To help galvanize the effort ABC is starting a website which will host video interviews, scientific documents, and various activist agendas.

We are desperately in need of a Julian Simon type thinker to effectively counter these arguments.  It is important to stress that Simon was NOT a head in the sand, or blind optimist, thinker.  In reality, while Simon was an optimist, his optimism was grounded in an understanding of the world we live in, its tensions, and the creative potential of individuals to resolve conflicts between people and over resource use.  It is this creative potential of individuals to discover what is in their interest to discover, that is the ultimate resource in Simon's way of thinking.

There are several people working on the edge of Simon type research that I am aware of:

Bjorn Lumberg is one obvious choice given his stance on the environment.

Robin Hanson and/or Tom Bell would be other examples with their focus on the social epistemological relevance of "betting markets".

Bryan Caplan is another example with his current work on family size and child rearing.

Who would be your nominees to engage the argument, to offer alternative interpretations, and effectively counter the Earth 2010 claims?

Comments

[Steve Horwitz]

Indur Goklany at Cato is doing great stuff at the policy level.

[Bill Brown]

It's Earth 2100, incidentally. Not that that makes the claims any less absurd.

[Gabriel]

Huh... this looks like a job for an environmental or agriculture&applied economist. Just saying.

Also, it might be worth considering, at least for a second, that some of this scenario's elements might make sense. The fact that TFP rose in developed economies at around 2.5% per year, with large high frequency variance, for the la 50 years or so, is not a good reasons to simply assume that it will still do that. (A first order pass at things, I agree.)

[Flash Gordon]

I would not nominate Bjorn Lomborg to be the next Julian Simon even though I think he might come close. However, Lomborg is fully on board with the idea of human-caused global warming, he just thinks it isn't worth incurring the costs to do anything about it. If he has bought into the premise, how long can he resist the conclusion?

I await anxiously for the arrival of the next Julian Simon, whoever that may be. However, the sorts of doomsday claims being made shouldn't require anyone as astute as Julian Simon. The claims themselves are so ridiculous it would seem any ordinary person with a modicum of independent thinking would see them for what they are.

[Speedmaster]

I nominate Dr. Russ Roberts of George Mason University.

[Scott Erb]

Frankly, I'm somewhat concerned about the future for a variety of reasons. Rather than looking for someone to counter the argument, which seems to indicate simply assuming that argument is wrong, I think its more important to analyze the data and determine what alternate interpretations are available based on the data. Simply assuming a rosey future is no more rational than simply assuming a hellish one. Cassandra isn't always wrong!

[Steve Horwitz]

I don't know Scott. The Cassandras of environmental and economic doom HAVE been consistently wrong. Paul Ehrlich should be ashamed to even open his mouth anymore. Part of Pete's point was that there ARE reasons to believe that the future will be better than the past and that the worst scenarios of the doomsters are pure fantasy.

If I was to rely on past predictive accuracy, I'd be dismissing the Cassandras out of hand.