We can only hope that Steven Koonin is right in predicting the demise of climate-change alarmism and its insidious war on fossil-fuel energy (“The ‘Climate Crisis’ Fades Out,” op-ed, June 11). Mr. Koonin rightly argues that “fossil fuels continue to provide about 80% of the world’s energy,” despite decades of subsidies and mandates for renewables.
Without a scalable, cost-effective energy substitute, the push to reach zero emissions by midcentury is nothing short of an economic suicide pact. When the decarbonization craze eventually fades into oblivion, it will join eugenics, the population-bomb fears, and the Y2K hysteria in the trash bin of junk-science history.
John DiChiara
DeLand, Fla.I was thrilled to read Mr. Koonin’s opinion on the fading of the climate bandwagon. This evolution of “global warming” to “climate change” with all the accompanying fear-mongering has left many in the U.S. worn out and numb. Hopefully, with our great American ingenuity, the country can entertain using nuclear energy again, which affords no increase in carbon dioxide.
Our biggest ships and all submarines use nuclear power. Why are Americans so worried about using this clean source of energy? If nuclear energy can be effectively and safely used on ships, housing thousands of sailors, certainly the Navy’s expertise could be used for our everyday energy needs.
Margaret Mastbrook
Williamsburg, Va.
Mr. Furman states, “The expectations-augmented Phillips curve has been the workhorse framework for thinking about inflation since Milton Friedman and Ned Phelps developed it 50 years ago.”
This attribution is misleading. Far from being a friend of the Phillips curve, Friedman, in his presidential address delivered to the American Economic Association in 1967, leveled a devastating blow to the curve. Along with Mr. Phelps, he showed that when expectations were incorporated into the Phillips curve framework, there was, in the long run, no permanent trade-off between inflation and unemployment.
With the Phillips curve out of the way, Friedman continued to ride his inflation workhorse: the quantity theory of money. That theory gave rise to Friedman’s famous quip, “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.”
Prof. Steve Hanke and John Greenwood
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore and London
Fiona Harrigan reports that “America’s mayors say the heartland needs immigrants.”
Here’s some good news, out of Texas, regarding school choice.
We have to recognize the consequences of these realities and start taking steps to secure America’s fiscal future. Leaders with vision should address these issues realistically and make the case to the public that they must either pay for the programs they want or agree to cut them.
Ian Miller tweets: (HT Jay Bhattacharya)
No one in the media cares that the Biden administration and a Pfizer board member worked together to influence Twitter to censor speech on COVID vaccines because they support censorship as long as it targets those they disagree with
