The Population Bomb and Peak Oil Nonsense

In 1968, Paul Ehrlich published The Population Bomb, which argued that mankind was facing a demographic catastrophe with the rate of population growth quickly outstripping growth in the supply of food and other resources.Such arguments are continually advanced by those who believe that governmental action is required to save the world from this inevitable Armageddon. Most economists recognize that, left alone, free markets will ultimately provide more resources.
In 1980 Ehrlich entered into a famous wager with one of them, Julian Simon, in which he chose five commodity metals that he believed would increase in price. All five commodities that were selected as the basis for the wager continued to trend downward during the wager period. Ehrlich, naturally, complained that he was just "unlucky" in his picks and timing. Mankind was still facing a scarcity of resources that would inevitably cause prices to rise and choke off economic growth. The data, however, suggests that Ehrlich was not just unlucky, but that he was betting against the natural actions of markets to create more supply whenever prices rise.
Such evidence does not deter Ehrlich's successors from arguing that we have, for example, reached "Peak Oil" production that necessitates massive investment in solar panels and windmills. This is just more nonsense. Oil is not in short supply at current prices and oil capacity is growing worldwide. The shale oil boom in the US will be replicated around the world (China appears to be the first country to follow). The full deployment of the world’s oil and other commodity potential depends only on price, technology, and government getting out of the way.