The production of goods and services requires scarce inputs like labor and natural resources. Achieving prosperity in a world of scarcity requires careful use of inputs. What then should we think about people working to stop production?
Energy writer Robert Bryce labels this, appropriately, the “anti-industry industry.” In 2021, 25 leading non-profit organizations (or NGOs) opposed to climate change and hydrocarbons had $4.5 billion in revenues. The industry “employs thousands of lawyers, strategists, pollsters, and fund raisers.” These individuals use their talent and training to devise strategies to stop modern industrial production.
Industry leaders include the Environmental Defense Fund, the World Resources Institute, Climate Works Foundation, and the Natural Resources Defense Fund, each with 2021 revenue over $400 million. Mr. Bryce includes older, smaller budget groups like the Sierra Club and Greenpeace.
Much of the funding comes from billionaires and the heirs of billionaires. Supporters include Jeff Bezos, Laurene Powell Jobs, Michael Bloomberg, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Wealthy donors back other progressive NGOs, including George and Alexander Soros.
The groups deploy many tools against industry. Legislation, obviously, but regulation crafts the details with less public scrutiny. Litigation is aggressively employed, including the citizen lawsuit provisions of laws and “sue and settle” cases against the EPA. The industry staffs government commissions making and enforcing rules. And NGOs fund much of mainstream news organizations’ climate reporting.
The National Environmental Policy Act’s costly, lengthy, and frequently litigated environmental impact studies are indispensable. The impact study for Micron’s $100 billion semiconductor facility in upstate New York took two years and ran 20,000 pages. But just as Micron broke ground on a complex that will employ 9,000, the NGO Jobs to Move America sued to halt construction because the impact study was “unnecessarily rushed.”
Climate change litigation illustrates the depth of the anti-industry efforts. To lay the groundwork, groups spent millions on weather attribution research linking individual storms to climate change. Researchers were supported to publish computer models to be used as evidence.
The attribution claims, like Hurricane Helene was 2.5 times more likely due to climate change, are bogus. An impact of this magnitude would be apparent in historical weather records.
The lawsuits are now in court. Earlier this year, litigation proponents inserted a chapter on climate change in the 4th edition of the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence used by Federal judges to decide the admissibility of evidence. The industry is instructing judges how to rule on their lawsuits.
What do we do about the industry? I would like to see it just disappear. Scarce resources should not be used to try to prevent commerce.
Except that these NGOs engage in speech, research, advocacy, and litigation. People must be free to undertake all these actions, even if promoting causes I oppose. Preventing people from arguing for ideas and causes is pure authoritarianism. No leader should be trusted with the power to silence critics.
I also find George Soros backed district attorneys refusing to prosecute criminals an outrage. But strategists for progressive criminal justice reform NGOs recognized elected prosecutors’ significant discretion over charging accused criminals. Modest campaign contributions in low-profile elections could achieve their desired change.
The First Amendment requires meeting arguments with arguments. The enlightened rationalism of the American Experiment trusts citizens to listen to arguments and correctly judge who speaks the truth.
Trump economic advisor Kevin Hassett made headlines in February criticizing research by Federal Reserve economists on the Liberation Day tariffs. Allowing the government to censor critical research is unacceptable.
Dr. Hassett’s comments, however, reflect frustration with the current situation. Because universities have long skewed left, a massive disparity in research capacity exists between the left and right. Every unrefuted research study from the progressive left can move the public policy needle. The traditional rules ensure further progressive policy drift, which many conservatives refuse to accept.
In liberal democracy, people can advocate for their preferred policies. Many environmentalists want degrowth or a decline in our living standards. Using scarce resources debating industrial society is wasteful but seemingly unavoidable.
Daniel Sutter is the Charles G. Koch Professor of Economics with the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy at Troy University. The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of Troy University.
