Environment

A water drop and ripples

The thing I’m not getting about the climate protesters in Boston…

By Justin Katz | September 21, 2022 |

… is how true believers come to the conclusion that the way to advocate for the environment is to cause an event that leads to thousands of people sitting in idling cars.

A water drop and ripples

Just to head off the inevitable commentary…

By Justin Katz | September 5, 2022 |

… if you see people citing the strange flash flooding in the Providence area and Rt. 95 as evidence of “climate change,” ask them whether the blame mightn’t more reasonably land on government officials’ poor management of the infrastructure under their authority.

A woman dances around a fire

Just a little shift in perspective goes a long way on climate change fear.

By Justin Katz | August 5, 2022 |

An underappreciated risk laps at the legs of our advanced knowledge.  When people didn’t know why things were happening in the world around them or how to predict change, they just dealt with them.  They invested some energy in a relationship with gods in the hope of exerting some control on their environments, but mostly,…

Cooling towers at Brayton Point

Energy and the environment are not separate stories.

By Justin Katz | August 3, 2022 |

When discussing public policy, responsible politicians, journalists, and members of the public should never separate the issues of energy and the environment.  They are a single, nuanced, and extremely complicated issue.  Absent this imperative, Democrat Governor Dan McKee feels free to brag about his environmental policy thus … “Over last 16 months my administration has…

Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse

Whitehouse wants a dictator in the White House.

By Justin Katz | July 22, 2022 |

Actually, it’s worse than that.  Rhode Island Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse wants an American dictator who actively harms our country for the benefit of foreign countries that are mostly hostile to us.  Objectively, the malice or mania necessary for a privileged American to make such declarations as the Wall Street Journal describes is something of…

Man in a suit walking

They’ll pull us into a social credit system if they can.

By Justin Katz | May 13, 2022 |

A free people ought to reject some policies completely on principle, no matter what the practical arguments for them might be in the moment.  The Chinese Communists’ social credit system is one such policy, whereby the government leverages its power to grant rewards or impose demerits in order to control the population. The American spirit…

A man fuels his car

Biden’s ethanol fuel proposal makes no sense.

By Justin Katz | April 14, 2022 |

Sometimes when you’re busy and check in on the news, it seems nothing makes sense, so let me make sure I’ve got a complete picture, here. Immediately upon entering office, Joe Biden took deliberate steps that were certain to drive up the cost of fuel (restricting drilling, canceling a North American fuel pipeline, etc.), and…

Plastic shopping bags

Do you get the sense our legislators have completely disconnected from reality?

By Justin Katz | April 8, 2022 |

Somehow, I’d hoped that a silver lining of the pandemic would be a little more wariness among lawmakers about tripping over unforeseen circumstances.  But we’re back to normal, now, in ways good and bad, so the state Senate has returned to the pressing business of forbidding Rhode Island stores from offering customers the option of plastic…

Interactive art at the RI Dept. of Labor

Are we allowed to point out obvious truths about Putin, RI labor unions, progressives, and energy?

By Justin Katz | March 3, 2022 |

I don’t want to make too much of this, but sometimes we have to put the obvious on the table.  Otherwise, we’re apt to wander off in dense forests of complexity because we reject the ability to see in an open field. Journalistic writer Michael Shellenberger makes the so-obvious-it’s-easy-to-ignore point that the West’s throttling down…

A water drop and ripples

The United States is hobbling itself and its economy when it comes to energy.

By Justin Katz | February 28, 2022 |

As an emboldened Vladimir Putin causes mayhem on the global stage, it’s important to remember how much our own government is harming the prospects of the United States, as if deliberately humbling our country to bring us down: Upcoming federal oil and gas lease sales will be delayed as the Interior Department figures out how…