Posted on 02/23/2008 7:34:14 AM PST by tang0r
1. The denial of global warming's existence, from the perspective of the free-market advocate, is foolish. If global warming indeed exists, the solution will be the same as the solution to other well-established negative environmental externalities - technological development toward cleaner, more efficient technology. If it doesn't exist, the market would still move in an identical fashion to combat the other (proven) environmental cancers. Technological development will answer the question of how much global warming is controlled by man, not Al Gore and his lame movies.
2. Hate development and want open space? Move to Africa. A hobby of rich idealists with greenish sympathies is to oppose human development for the sake of preserving undeveloped land. Undeveloped land, for those urban dwellers who don't know what that means, is land that hasn't been "spoiled" with streets, civil infrastructure, comfortable housing, and other modern conveniences. Interestingly enough, this development is still voraciously consumed by the very anti-development advocates around the world I just mentioned. They are, one assumes, fine with development and urban sprawl as long as they are the ones living on it.
(Excerpt) Read more at payyourairshare.org ...
The environmentalists want to destroy material civilization on the basis of a weather forecast.
This last sentence is foolish. If you assume the CO2 driven GW thesis is correct, the only solution is to shut down most low cost energy production that currently exists. This is NOT identical to the cure for, say, coal to gasoline conversion in a way that produces few pollutants in the process and that restores damage caused by strip mining (CO2 not being defined as a pollutant in this case).
Thus, the two solutions look VERY different. One continues to rely on fossil fuels until the market dictates otherwise. It is a continuation of the current system with careful control of environmental damage. The other solution is global socialism.
This is one of the three reasons the greenies love AGW so much: (1) The only solution to AGW is what they have wanted all along--a huge scaleback in the scope of modern civilization in a manner that damages the United States disproportionately; (2) The solution requires global socialism with them in charge; and (3) The actual damage is so far in the future that their hypothesis can neither be proved nor disproved before global socialism is installed. Once installed, it will never go away. So at that point the truth or lack of truth of the AGW hypothesis no longer matters.
Nice three step program. Step 1 = calculate (the external costs of pollution). Who calculates? Using what models? Naievete at it’s finest.
This has to be the stupidest f***ing thing I’ve ever read. Check out the three points on the side at the link, labelled “How to solve climate change in three easy steps.” Really?!? “Solve” climate change? As if we have some kind of control over that?
And the three steps are just as stupid: “1. Have scientists and economists calculate the social cost of greenhouse gas emissions.” Really? Which scientists? The UN bought-and-paid-for IPCC crowd? Using what methodology? And why are “scientists and economists” to be our new overlords?
2. “Charge the per-ton cost to all greenhouse gas emitters.” Again, accepting the idiotic liberal premise that tiny little humans crawling around on the gigantic planet are the reason it might be getting a little warmer. Pay no attention to the giant flaming ball of gas giving you sunburn.
3. “Spend the money to adapt to climate change and return the rest of the money to the people.” I’d just as soon spend my own money for my air conditioning, thanks. Just leave me the heck alone.
Why, on God’s “green” earth, is it considered “green” to lower our emissions of plant food (CO2)? CO2 is necessary for anything green to grow; it seems like it would be “green” to put out as much of it as possible.
Ecotards piss me off.
Politicians are simply another competing interest group in the market. (All of life is the market.) The difference is they win, temporarily, through coercion whereas the free market wins through encouragement. Naturally, coercion works only temporarily because human nature rebels.
True, I don’t agree with climate change (anthropogenic) being a major issue or trying to ‘solve’ it.
But the actual article was actually pretty good. It’s basically an environmental libertarian site.
Read through it and see the points it makes about how wealth helps SAVE the environment (as people are more concerned with trees, parks and wildlife once they have somewhere to live and not worried about whether or not they’re going to eat today)and other bits there.
Again, I have no interest in even pandering to anthropogenic global ‘warming’ or climate change. BUT, I don’t think market-based approaches to CONSERVATION (if we think environmentalism is too sullied to use) are a bad thing and conservatives should not be reflexively hostile to talk about the natural world.
His reasoning is excellent: Markets -—> Wealth -—> (ability to) Care for Environment.
One of the cleanest, most environmentally pristine, most gorgeous places on the planet is Switzerland, which, besides their stupendous landscape, has a long tradition of a market economy. Before the Protestant Reformation they were a dirt-poor people—you just can’t grow that much in the mountains—and feudalism isn’t exactly a free-market system.
It was so bad that one of the big social issues of Switzerland in the 1500s was how to eliminate mercenary-ism, as men could only provide for their families by hiring themselves out to fight other Europeans’ (constant) wars... Today the Pope’s “Swiss Guards” are a remnant of that era.
However since the Reformation, Switzerland became increasingly market oriented, and viola!, subsequently (over time) RICH. Banking and watches, besides tourism, are excellent businesses. Consequently, there is no more clean and pristine environment (even though densely populated, like the rest of Europe) than Switzerland today.
The “Confederation Helvetica” (Switzerland) is the best example that free-market prosperity-brings-environmental-care in the world today.
(every able bodied male citizen also has a machine-gun too....but that’s another story)
BUT, I don’t think market-based approaches to CONSERVATION (if we think environmentalism is too sullied to use) are a bad thing and conservatives should not be reflexively hostile to talk about the natural world.
I don't disagree with you, and I'm not "reflexively hostile" to talking about the natural world. But carbon dioxide has nothing whatsoever to do with conservation, and I am entirely hostile to the Warmist crowd.
In fact, one reason I am so hostile to the evil little communists is that they're distracting everyone from *real* environmental issues - it's not just that they think carbon dioxide is a pollutant (an absurd proposition in itself) - it's that they act like it's the *only* pollutant that matters.
I'll ask it again: can someone please explain to me how restricting carbon dioxide - which is essential for any plant life to exist - is somehow "green"? How "green" would the world be without it?
>>If it doesn’t exist, the market would still move in an identical fashion to combat the other (proven) environmental cancers.<<
Ack, if CO2 is not the dominant cause of global warming we will absolutely need a different course of action. Prior to this, perfect combustion yielding nothing but water and carbon dioxide was the holy grail - its why we have oxygen sensors and catalytic converters in cars.
If we now had to reduce CO2 that totally changes the ball game.
If human caused global warming is real there is only one solution. Nuclear power. Its the only tech that returns the energy invest by a factor of more than 100 and does not increase Co2.
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