| Julian Lincoln Simon |
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Julian Lincoln Simon ( February 12 , 1932 – February 8 , 1998 ) was Professor of Business Administration at the University Of Maryland and a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute . He wrote many books and articles, mostly on Economic subjects. He is best known for his work on Population , Natural Resource s, and Immigration . His works are often quoted by Libertarians and have sometimes been described as Cornucopian . Thought His 1984 book '' The Resourceful Earth '' (co-authored by Herman Kahn ), is a criticism of the Conventional Wisdom of population growth and resource consumption and a direct response to the Global 2000 report. In it, Simon challenged the notion of a pending Malthusian Catastrophe —that an increase in population has negative economic consequences; that population is a drain on natural resources; and that we stand at risk of running out of resources through over-consumption. His critique was praised by Nobel Laureate economist Friedrich Hayek , but also attracted many critics, such as Paul R. Ehrlich and Albert Bartlett . Vision of the future Julian Simon wrote in a Policy report for the Cato Institute "We have in our Hand s now—actually in our Libraries —the technology to feed, clothe, and supply Energy to an ever-growing population for the next 7 billion years." {Link without Title} ''. He noted that when Albert Bartlett, a retired physicist of the University Of Colorado , tried to test Simon's statement on a desk Calculator , it flashed "Error", indicating that, multiplying steadily at 1 % per year for 7 billion years, the population would soon surpass his calculator's limit of 9.99×1099. Bartlett's calculation assumed Exponential Population Growth , with the population doubling every 43 years. However, the question may be mitigated, as birth rates are declining in many developed and developing countries. This decline has led United Nations organizations to predict that global population growth will actually level off somewhere between about 9 billion in 2050 and 11 billion in 2100 . Malthus ian theories, further, do not appear to apply to recent life in the modern world because global prices for food have been falling while population levels have been rising. Influence Simon was one of the founders of Free-market Environmentalism . An article profiling Julian Simon in Wired magazine inspired Bjørn Lomborg to write the book '' The Skeptical Environmentalist ''. Simon was also the first to suggest that Airline s should provide rewards for travelers to give up their seats on Overbooked flights (a practice popularly known as "bumping"), rather than arbitrarily taking certain passengers off the plane. Although the airline industry initally laughed at him, his plan was later implemented with resounding success. Simon was an omnivorous reader, and took some steps toward writing a memoir, ''A Life Against the Grain'', which was published by his wife after his death. Wager with Paul R. Ehrlich A Wager Between Julian Simon And Paul Ehrlich was made in 1980 over the Price of Metal s a Decade later; Simon had been challenging environmental scientists to the bet for some time. Ehrlich, John Harte and John Holdren selected a basket of five metals that they thought would rise in price with increasing scarcity and depletion. Simon won the bet, with all five metals dropping in price. Supporters of Ehrlich's position suggest that much of this price drop came because of an Oil spike driving prices up in 1980 and a Recession driving prices down in 1990 , pointing out that the price of the basket of metals actually rose from 1950 to 1975 . They also suggest that Ehrlich did not consider the prices of these metals to be critical indicators, and that Ehrlich took the bet with great reluctance. On the other hand, Ehrlich selected the metals to be used himself, and at the time of the bet called it an "astonishing offer" that he was accepting "before other greedy people jump in," hardly suggesting reluctance. A common claim laid against Simon is that none of the actual supplies of these metals increased during this time. However, supporters claim that, to the contrary, the results of the wager prove Simon's theories in a much more profound way than what might be commonly realized.
In all of these cases, better technology allowed for either more efficient use of existing resources, or replacement of those resources with something more abundant and less expensive, which is the gist of Simon's theories. Proposed second wager In 1995 , Simon issued a challenge for a second bet. Ehrlich refused, and proposed instead that they bet on a metric for human Welfare . Ehrlich offered Simon a set of 15 metrics over 10 years, victor to be determined by scientists chosen by the president of the National Academy Of Sciences in 2005. There was no meeting of minds, because Simon felt that too many of the metrics measured attributes of the world not directly related to human welfare, e.g. the amount of Nitrous Oxide in the Atmosphere . [http://www.overpopulation.com/faq/People/julian_simon.html For such indirect, supposedly bad indicators to be considered "bad", though, they would ultimately have to have some measureable detrimental effect on actual human welfare, and it's these actual measurements that Erlich refused to bet on. Education
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Books critical of Julian Simon
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