President Biden’s debate meltdown vividly demonstrated that cognitive and other skills decline with age. But a combination of demographic trends and federal fiscal irresponsibility make it imperative that America make better use of its senior citizens’ productive skills. Not all old people lose it like Mr. Biden. Henry Kissinger was writing important books well into his 90s, and Konrad Adenauer served ably as West Germany’s chancellor until he was 87. Several frequent contributors to these pages are older than Mr. Biden, including Lance Morrow (84), Phil Gramm (82), Joseph Epstein (87) and me (83).
The American population is aging rapidly. In the middle of the last century, there were almost eight working-age (16 to 65) Americans for everyone over 65. I estimate that by 2050 that ratio will shrink to 3 to 1. Hence the need for occupationally capable older citizens to work longer.
George Will rightly ridicules progressives for warning about the return of Comstockery. A slice:
Nevertheless, progressives now cry “aux barricades!” to repeal Comstock’s law. Their overheated fear is that a reelected Donald Trump, who has led a life free from any taint of Comstockery, might wield Comstock’s law to somehow ban abortion. Their anxiety might seem synthetic, but progressives really seem to think we should fear an insufficiency of fear.
George Leef isn’t much impressed with Derek Bok’s new book, Attacking the Elites.
There isn’t any doubt that more people, and hence more babies, are a boon for our lives and our economy. But that alone isn’t a good reason for government subsidies. And while raising kids is expensive, that’s no justification for a government tax break, either.
Reason‘s Emma Camp reports depressing, but not unsurprising, news from campus.
Nick Gillespie talks with the great Randy Barnett.
Bjorn Lomborg busts more climate-change myths. Two slices:
Whatever happened to polar bears? They used to be all climate campaigners could talk about, but now they’re essentially absent from headlines. Over the past 20 years, climate activists have elevated various stories of climate catastrophe, then quietly dropped them without apology when the opposing evidence becomes overwhelming. The only constant is the scare tactics.
Protesters used to dress up as polar bears. Al Gore’s 2006 film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” depicted a sad cartoon polar bear floating away to its death. The Washington Post warned in 2004 that the species could face extinction, and the World Wildlife Fund’s chief scientist claimed some polar bear populations would be unable to reproduce by 2012.
Then in the 2010s, campaigners stopped talking about them. After years of misrepresentation, it finally became impossible to ignore the mountain of evidence showing that the global polar-bear population has increased substantially. Whatever negative effect climate change had was swamped by the reduction in hunting of polar bears. The population has risen from around12,000 in the 1960s to about 26,000.
…..
Today, killer heat waves are the new climate horror story. In July President Biden claimed “extreme heat is the No. 1 weather-related killer in the United States.”
He is wrong by a factor of 25. While extreme heat kills nearly 6,000 Americans each year, cold kills 152,000, of which 12,000 die from extreme cold. Even including deaths from moderate heat, the toll comes to less than 10,000. Despite rising temperatures, age-standardized extreme-heat deaths have actually declined in the U.S. by almost 10% a decade and globally by even more, largely because the world is growing more prosperous. That allows more people to afford air-conditioners and other technology that protects them from the heat.
The petrified tone of heat-wave coverage twists policy illogically. Whether from heat or cold, the most sensible way to save people from temperature-related deaths would be to ensure access to cheap, reliable electricity. That way, it wouldn’t be only the rich who could afford to keep safe from blistering or frigid weather. Unfortunately, much of climate policy makes affordable energy all the harder to obtain.
When Reagan was in office (and I was much younger and an even more foolish man than I am today), I would never have predicted just how much I would now miss Reagan. (HT Ian Fillmore)
