David Owen continues to blame energy efficiency for the ills he ascribes to growth and wealth.

His misunderstandings of “rebound” in energy use were devastatingly rebutted when he published them in The New Yorker, and now he’s expanded them to book length. But his post in last week’s Wall Street Journal lucidly confirms that his big issue is much less with using energy efficiently than with the things people often choose to do with energy. In essence, he is echoing all major faith traditions’ warning against materialism—against what Ecclesiastes expressed as “He that hath silver shall not be satisfied with silver, nor he that hath abundance with increase; this is also vanity.”

Of course, the economic growth Owen