Two questions that you can ask environmentalists.

me

[grundle]

Environmentalists are always saying how concerned they are about the fact that the world is "running out of natural resources" and that "overfishing, overhunting, and poaching are causing species to become extinct."

Here are two questions that you can ask environmentalists. I have asked both of these questions to many environmentalists, and I have never gotten a single answer.

Question #1: "Consider the following 3 conditions for a natural resource: #1 The resource is privately owned. #2 The distribution of the resource is controlled by the private sector. #3 There are no government price caps on the price of the resource. Please name a single example of where the world ran out of this resource, or where there was ever a long term, chronic shortage of this resource."

Question #2: "Consider any animal that was privately owned, where the legal system offered strong protections of property rights, and it was legal for the owner to breed the animal, kill it, and sell it for a profit. Please name a single example where an animal, under these conditions, was overfished, overhunted, or poached to the point of becoming endangered or going extinct."

[Terry Kent]

A study by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), to be released on Tuesday, warns that the Earth's population will be forced to colonize two planets within 50 years if natural resources continue to be exploited at the current rate, according to a report out this week.

GOOD NEWS: THE SKY IS FALLING!
The World Wildlife Fund has fears
that we only have fifty years.
Then we will have to leave.
BUT, how bad can it be,
if we CAN go to new frontiers?

[Jhoffa_]

Nice try..

But what do you say when they cover their ears and scream "Rapist! Animal hater!" really, really loud at you?

[grundle]

I saw that article in two other threads. The doomsayers don't understand why the failed predictions of Paul Ehrlich, the Club of Rome, and others, failed to come true. The doomsayers don't understand economics. They don't understand the function of prices. They don't understand the benefits of private property rights. They don't understand that people actually create resources, such as by taking worthless sand, and turning it into computer chips worth trillions of dollars. They don't understand a concept as simple as farming. They don't know that desalination technology exists. They don't know that people plant trees. They continue to make these bogus predictions, because they don't understand why their past predictions failed to come true.

The doomsayers aren't actually interested in solving the problems. Because if they actually wanted to solve the problems, they would be in favor of private property rights, free market pricing, and capitalism. However, I have never met a single doomsayer who was in favor of any of those things. On the contrary, doomsayers hate those things. Doomsayers favor the very kinds of economic policies that caused Eastern Europe to become the worst polluted area that the world has ever had. Instead of urging third world countries to adopt first world legal systems, the doomsayers want first world countries to adopt thrid world legal systems. The doomsayers do not want to actually solve any problems. Instead, what the doomsayers really want is for the government to control everything, and to bring an end to private property rights.

[grundle]

"Nice try.."

Thanks.

"But what do you say when they cover their ears and scream "Rapist! Animal hater!" really, really loud at you?"

I wait until they have uncovered their ears, and I calmly say, "Your response shows that you are interested in emotion, not facts."

[Age of Reason]

>>"Consider any animal that was privately owned, where the legal system offered strong protections of property rights, and it was legal for the owner to breed the animal, kill it, and sell it for a profit. Please name a single example where an animal, under these conditions, was overfished, overhunted, or poached to the point of becoming endangered or going extinct."<<


http://home.nycap.rr.com/usele ss/headless_chicken/

[boris]

A comment and more questions:

Comment: The so-called "Natural Resources Defense Council" is nothing of the kind. A resource that cannot be used (exploited) is not a resource at all. Their aim is to prevent--for all time--the use of "resources". For them to be honest, the word 'resources' should not be in their name.

More questions:

1. Prove that the "ozone hole" is not natural.
2. Prove that it is not a million years old.
3. Prove that it is of any harm to anyone (except maybe penguins).
4. Why did Dr. Dobson (inventor of the instrument that measures ozone levels) measure some of the lowest levels in history in the mid-1950s--long before widespread use of chloroflurocarbons?
5. Why have computer predictions of "global warming" continued to become smaller as the models are 'refined'?
6. Why are such predictions not borne out by multiple independent measurements--such as weather balloon data and satellite measurements?
7. Are you aware that up to 2/3 of any putative "warming" may be caused by an ongoing increase in the output of the Sun?
8. Why has Triton (a moon of Neptune, located 1.7 billion miles further from the Sun than Earth) warmed by more than 10 degrees in the last decade? Too much traffic there?

--Boris

[grundle]

Lions, tigers, elephants, and rhinoceri are in private zoos. A private farm wouldn't be very different.

[sawsalimb]

The other question I would have, is can any wild animal be consider under private control?

A good,and pertinent question-I'll try to answer this as best I can.

The animal,having legs and a brain,probably can't be realistically considered to be under private control-if things get too tough,the animal's brain can command the legs to move it to a nicer location.

Having said that,the control of the animal's habitat can certainly be controlled by private individuals. If the wild animal in question has economic value,then the habitat can be quite successfully managed to enhance the critters to stay,and in some cases move in.

The nearest example might be no farther than your back yard-the Purple Marten has long been a welcome guest in many North American back yards,thanks to their diet of mosquitos and other pests. People have been putting up Marten Houses(the white birdhouses with the green roofs) for as long as I can remember-the birds get a roof over their heads,the suburbanites get low cost pest control.

[sawsalimb]

"enhance",should have read,"entice".

[Sam Cree]

Whitetail deer were hunted nearly to extinction by 1900. After hunting seasons and bag limits were put in place (through the efforts of hunters, not "environmentalists") the population rebounded, today whitetails are plentiful.

I notice that commercial fishing efforts routinely threaten and decimate fish populations, when one species is no longer abundant, the fishermen, shortsightedly, turn their efforts to another species or another body of water.

I agree that if the fish populations in our waters were privately owned by the fishermen, they would be more concerned with long term business planning, but consigning ownership of wild fish populations to favored individuals strikes me as an example of the arbitrary rule that our country was founded to prevent.

[Right_Wing_Mole_In_Seattle]

"It is precisely those things which belong to 'the people' which have historically been despoiled- wild creatures, the air, and waterways being notable examples. This goes to the heart of why property rights are socially important in the first place. Property rights mean self-interested monitors. No owned creatures are in danger of extinction. No owned forests are in danger of being leveled. No one kills the goose that lays the golden egg when it is his goose."

- Thomas Sowell

[pfflier]

Another fact to confront enviro-whackos who deal in fear not science:

Extinction of species.

If you believe in Darwinism then every species must evolve and will eventually die out. Is it not inevitable that all species will become extinct anyway? The only logical answer is yes. The real question is when. And now is an acceptable answer for species that have failed to adapt.

[Mike Darancette]

but consigning ownership of wild fish populations to favored individuals strikes me as an example of the arbitrary rule that our country was founded to prevent.

In Europe you buy the rights to fish a certain stretch of river, this reduces pressure and hopefully keeps populations up. But I really wonder if this method produces fish populations any greater than heavily fished special rules catch and release rivers in the US.

[TheGrimReaper]

Possible additional question for the enviro-nazis:
Why is it that the largest and most devastating forest fires in the last 5 years have all been caused directly by, or exacerbated by, the U.S. Government?

(In other words, NOT by private citizens!)

[1tin_soldier]

"Your response shows that you are interested in emotion, not facts."

Nice! Can I use that?

[1tin_soldier]

If you believe in Darwinism then every species must evolve and will eventually die out. Is it not inevitable that all species will become extinct anyway? The only logical answer is yes. The real question is when. And now is an acceptable answer for species that have failed to adapt.

Could we apply that same answer to humans unable to adapt to the requirement of feeding themselves? Please?

[grundle]

"Nice!"

Thanks.

"Can I use that?"

Yes.

[grundle]

As usual, Thomas Sowell is correct.

Despite the benefits that come from property rights, the people who claim to care the most about the environment usually have a very strong hatred of property rights. Their real goal isn't to protect the environment. Their real goal is to have the government control people.