Correspondence with the Editor-in-Chief of Scientific American
rom:
"John Rennie" <jrennie@sciam.com>
To:
<igoklany@erols.com>
Sent:
Monday, January 28, 2002 4:40 PM
Subject:
from Scientific American
Dear
Mssrs. Goklany, Taylor, and Adler:
Concerning
your letter to the editors, in which you assert: "...[the]
criticism,
namely, that no scholar if any takes seriously the notion that
the
world is running out of oil. Diligent readers of Scientific American
know
otherwise."
Really,
sirs. Either you are less diligent readers than you pretend or you
are
pulling my leg. The Colin Campbell article and others in Scientific
American
do _not_ state that the world is running out of oil. They say that
the
world is running out of _cheap_ oil, oil that can be obtained at any
prices
resembling those we see today. Campbell's article is quite emphatic
in
making this point, which is why its title is "The End of Cheap Oil,"
not
"The
End of Oil, Period."
The
distinction is important because, as should be obvious, there can be
oceans
of oil still inside the planet but if it costs too much to drain
them,
there will be an effective shortage of oil. If other energy sources
are
not sufficiently developed to take up the slack affordably (and in an
imperfect
world, market conditions alone can't guarantee that they will be),
then
the world can still face an energy crisis without running out of
energy.
This
is the distinction that the Scientific American articles made, that
explains
why no one serious thinks the issue rests on the world actually
running
out of energy, and that Lomborg confuses to his discredit.
Sincerely,
John
Rennie
--
John
Rennie, editor in chief
Scientific
American
415
Madison Ave.
New
York, NY 10017
tel:
212-451-8813
fax:
212-755-1976
jrennie@sciam.com
From:
Indur Goklany [igoklany@erols.com]
Sent:
Tuesday, January 29, 2002 6:30 PM
To:
John Rennie
Cc:
Jonathan H. Adler; Jerry Taylor
Subject:
Re: from Scientific American
Mr.
Rennie --
This
is really a distinction without a difference, as a perusal of the
scarcity
literature should make clear. The debate over whether we will "run
out"
of oil is not about whether oil will physically disappear, but rather
about
whether it will become too scarce to obtain at a reasonable price.
Contrary
to the impression created by the Holdren piece, this claim -- that
we
will run out of cheap oil -- is the focus of Lomborg's discussion of oil,
as
is clear from his opening paragraph in which he quotes an environmental
scenario
of "sticker shock at the gas pumps" and summarizes his argument as
follows
"There are good reasons to believe that we will not have dramatic
price
increases, and that we will actualyl be able to handle our future
energy
needs" (p. 119). That affordable oil -- not physical exhaustion of
supply
-- is his focus is clear throughout the discussion: "The question is
not
whether we leave a society for the coming generations with more or less
oil,
but whether we leave a society in which energy can be produced cheaply
or
expensively" (p. 120); "How should scarcity be measured? Even if we
were
to
run out of oil, this would not mean that oil was unavailable, only that
it
would be very, very expensive. If we want to examine whether oil is
getting
more and more scarce we have to look at whether oil is getting more
and
more expensive" (p.122).
In
conclusion, we were not "pulling your leg." Perhaps we should have
inserted
the adjective "cheap" in front of the word oil, but anyone familiar
with
the relevant literature (or of Lomborg's book) would know that this is
the
issue. We stand by our letter, and
hope that you see fit to publish it.
From:
John Rennie [mailto:jrennie@sciam.com]
Sent:
Wednesday, January 30, 2002 11:25 AM
To:
Indur Goklany
Cc:
Jonathan H. Adler; Jerry Taylor
Subject:
Re: from Scientific American
Mr.
Goklany,
I'm
afraid that your letter doesn't do anything except further illustrate
the
misleading tactics that Lomborg uses in his approach to energy. In
effect,
he sets up a straw man by saying that environmentalists claim we are
running
out of energy, whereas a study of the facts shows that we will never
run
out of energy. Then he says that the real issue is energy price, as
though
this were a novel point and not, in fact, precisely what the serious
environmentalist
scientists involved in this subject have been saying all
along.
In short, Lomborg brings the discussion back to price, but he shoots
down
actual scarcity as a way of (falsely) discrediting the
environmentalists.
Your
comment, moreover, that this is "really a distinction without a
difference"
mystifies me, because you then repeated precisely the
distinction
that I (and Mr. Holdren) made as though you were making a point.
If
it doesn't make a difference, why is Lomborg bringing it up? And if it is
his
point, why doesn't he acknowledge, as Holdren does, that no serious
scientist
believes the issue is really about literally running out of
energy?
--
John
Rennie, editor in chief
Scientific
American
415
Madison Ave.
New
York, NY 10017
tel:
212-451-8813
fax:
212-755-1976
jrennie@sciam.com
From:
Jerry Taylor [jtaylor@cato.org]
Sent:
Wednesday, January 30, 2002 12:24 PM
To:
John Rennie
Cc:
Jonathan H. Adler; Indur Goklany
Subject:
RE: from Scientific American
Mr.
Rennie:
The
straw man is not in the Lomborg book, but in the Holdren review
published
in your journal. Lomborg makes
clear that the argument he is
attacking
is the argument that we will see dramatic increases in energy
prices
due to increasing scarcity. He
notes this in the first paragraph
of
his
chapter, and throughout, as we noted before.
If in doubt, please read
that
chapter again; it's really not all that long.
The argument over
whether
society is "running out of oil" is an argument, as you say, about
whether
it will become so scarce as to drive up the price. Going into high
dungeon
about the occasional lack of the adjective "cheap" in the front of
the
noun "oil" is thus an example of studied obtuseness at best and
blatant
disingenuousness
at worst.
Moreover,
arguing that economically profitable energy is becoming more
plentiful,
not more scarce, does not falsely discredit anyone. It adds an
important
bit of evidence about economic scarcity trends. To contend that
long-term
trends in resource prices or profitably recoverable resource
stocks
is of minimal relevance to the question of future resource
availability
(and hence, price) is a curious position for an editor at
Scientific
American to take.
Mr.
Holdren, on the other hand, begins his piece by juxtaposing the debate
as
one over running out of oil versus
the environment's capacity to
withstand
the ecological impacts of energy use.
He claims the latter --
and
not increasing prices due to scarcity -- is the "mainstream
environmental
position." Moreover, Holdren
notes that among Lomborg's
targets
are "professional analysts . . . who have argued not that the world
is
running out of energy altogether but only that it might be running out of
cheap
oil." Exactly!
That is the position that Lomborg is attacking -- and
it
is the position that Scientific American has published. Hence our
letter.
--Jerry Taylor