770: Nick Loris, part 1: A limited government free market approach to our environmental problems
Regular readers of my blog know I took a course, Conservatism 101, from the Leadership Institute, which led me to read conservative literature I hadn’t before: Edmund Burke, Frederic Bastiat, Friedrich Hayek, Russell Kirk, and more. This reading came after I started reading and watching Milton Friedman, Julian Simon, Ayn Rand, and current followers of their work like Marian Tupy, Gale Pooley, and Alex Epstein. I had blogged about them after reading their works too. I began seeing relevance of their work to sustainability that I don’t think even their fans appreciate.
At a social event, I met a woman who works at the Cato Institute. I told her of what I was learning and invited her to talk about it. She said sustainability and the environment weren’t her focus, but she could put me in touch with colleagues. She knew Nick Loris from when he worked at the Heritage Foundation. Now he works at C3 Solutions—the Conservative Coalition for Climate Solutions.
I invited him to talk about our approaches to the environment, both our historical journeys and our philosophical views. We talked about first-principles approaches from a limited government, free market view.
I haven’t heard conversations like this one on sustainability. You’ll hear genuine curiosity and learning.