Bite Me, Julian Simon

Hard for him to do, I realize, him being dead and all, but this reprehensible old reptile economist (redundant, I know) went everywhere on tv in the 80s telling people to ignore Limits to Growth and other warnings of the need to get smart about our environment. Just liberal doomsayers, everything's really peachy keen, he assured us. One of his favorites was how scarcity always brings forth new innovation so we never have to worry about finite resources. He famously won a bet with Paul Ehrlich (the other side's equivalent) on the price of copper after some time period (I forget when). Well, Ehrlich should have waited. The price of copper has now doubled due to its shortages, high enough now that less-than-bright lights are dying trying to steal it from power lines (we do appreciate your cleansing of the gene pool, fellas, RIP). Unfortunately, Simon kicked off before he could see it. It's not that what he said wasn't true sometimes. He just pushed dogma far past what history and experience support, like way too many economists. And gave support to too many obstacles to effective action against problems that are blossoming big time now. I'm sure he died thinking he'd left a proven legacy. In that, too, he was wrong, in ways beyond copper, as the revised Limits to Growth and others warn us yet again.