WALTER RUSSELL MEAD ON THE NEW OIL REVOLUTION: Has Gaia Betrayed The Greens?

Gaia, that treacherous slut, has made so much oil and gas that her faithful acolytes today cannot protect her from the consequences of her own folly. . . .

Again, for people who base their claim to world leadership on their superior understanding of the dynamics of complex systems, greens prove over and over again that they are surprisingly naive and crude in their ability to model and to shape the behavior of the political and economic systems they seek to control. If their understanding of the future of the earth’s climate is anything like as wish-driven, fact-averse and intellectually crude as their approach to international affairs, democratic politics and the energy market, the greens are in trouble indeed. And as I’ve written in the past, the contrast between green claims to understand climate and to be able to manage the largest and most complex set of policy changes ever undertaken, and the evident incompetence of greens at managing small (Solyndra) and large (Kyoto, EU cap and trade, global climate treaty) political projects today has more to do with climate skepticism than greens have yet understood. Many people aren’t rejecting science; they are rejecting green claims of policy competence. In doing so, they are entirely justified by the record.

Nevertheless, the future of the environment is not nearly as dim as greens think. Despairing environmentalists like McKibben and Monbiot are as wrong about what the new era of abundance means as green energy analysts were about how much oil the planet had. . . . The newly bright oil and gas future means that we aren’t entering a new Age of Coal. For this, every green on the planet should give thanks.

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