Occupation: Organized nature cultist

Thomas Sowell writing in Capitalism Magazine:

Organized nature cults go ballistic at the thought that we might drill for oil in some remote part of Alaska that 99 percent of Americans will never see, including 99 percent of the nature cultists.

Well Dr. Sowell, I don't actually see the fecal matter coming out of my anal sphincter either. Nice to know that with your head stuck up your hindrocketquarters, that you can get a front row seat on the action.

The proprietor of the BizzyBlog marvels at Thomas Sowell's publishing output, affectionately calling him "Four Hands". I suppose if I suffered from diarrhea of the keyboard, it would come out like this typical Sowell entry (Part 2 of his "prolific" output):

Back in 1960, a best-selling book titled "The Waste Makers" by Vance Packard showed that the known reserves of petroleum in the United States were only enough to last another 13 years at the current rate of usage. Yet, 13 years later, the United States had larger known reserves of petroleum than in 1960.

Actually, Packard got it about right! The USA hit peak production in 1970 -- three years under his prediction. We have never hit that level of production again. In the early 60's we wasted oil, effectively treating it like tap water, leading to a huge per-capita usage. In the 70's, we started a huge correction in reducing our use and well before that we started importing oil. If we extrapolated that usage from 1960, and had no imports, we would have soft-landed long ago, closer to 1973 than today's date.

And then Sowell produces this priceless gem:

When John Stuart Mill was a young man, he worried that we were running out of music, since there were only 8 notes and therefore there was only a finite amount of music possible. At that point Brahms and Tchaikovsky had not yet been born nor jazz created.

Now I finally understand! Highly educated scholars conflating rules of mathematical permutation with basic arithmetic (i.e. subtraction) may confuse the organized nature cultists into rejoining productive society. Why, if we can only rearrange the oil molecules into N factorial combinations, it may just last forever! We saved Alaska! G'night, John-Boy.



In reality, I may have to pull some all-nighters. At the rate at which these oil depletion skeptics seem to multiply, I will also need 4 hands and bone up on my permutation skills to keep them in check.