Question Earthority!

Guest editorial by Brian Holtz
Originally published at Libertarian Intelligence

I wouldn’t rely on only fashion and torts to police chemical assault, any more than I would rely only on them to police spousal assault. I don’t think the [Libertarian Party] has enough consensus to specify all the details of how the legal system should police chemical assault, but I will never agree with Platform language saying that torts and fashion are the only acceptable libertarian response to it. Even a Rothschilds-control-the-Fed government-planned-9/11 conspiracy enthusiast like Aaron Russo protested against having to run for President under the LP’s torts-only environmental plank.

If the Platform should say that private lawsuits should be the only response to chemical assault, why shouldn’t the Platform say that about all kinds of assault? Why not hold high the Rothbardian banner of private defense agencies? Why hide the lamp of liberty under a basket?

I just don’t agree that the LP Platform should enforce the narrow dogma that there is no such thing as what economists call market failure. Read the rest of this entry »

“Dear Pablo, I would like to use LED lighting to replace all my existing lighting. Over the long run, will I be reducing energy consumption and pollution, and even saving money?” (05/05/08)

“Gourmets in Chicago can order foie gras again after the city council on Wednesday repealed a two-year restaurant ban on a delicacy that critics say is produced at cruel expense to geese and ducks. The aldermen voted 37-6 to drop the ban on restaurants serving foie gras, an ordinance that had passed with a single dissenting vote in April 2006. The city had issued a few warnings to restaurants for flouting the ban and one defiant eatery was fined.” (05/15/08)

“Brazil has been accused of turning its back on its duty to protect the Amazon after the resignation of its award-winning Environment Minister fuelled fresh fears over the fate of the forest. The departure of Marina Silva, who admitted she was losing the battle to get green voices heard amidst the rush for economic development, has been greeted with dismay by conservationists. ‘She was the environment’s guardian angel,’ said Frank Guggenheim, executive director for Greenpeace in Brazil. ‘Now Brazil’s environment is orphaned.’ In a letter to President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, Ms Silva said that her efforts to protect the rainforest acknowledged as the ‘lungs of the planet’ were being thwarted by powerful business lobbies. ‘Your Excellency was a witness to the growing resistance found by our team in important sectors of the government and society,’ she wrote.” (05/15/08)

“A federal appeals court blocked the Bush administration’s plans today for logging three tracts in the northern Sierra and said the government has failed to justify a critical element in its plan for the forests — selling trees to lumber companies to pay for removing brush that increases the threat of fire. Preventing fires is important, ‘but are there no alternative ways of getting money to do the clearing?’asked the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The court said the U.S. Forest Service has not explored the obvious alternatives: finding the money elsewhere in its budget or asking Congress for more.” (05/14/08)

“Just how green should you feel driving the new Chevy Tahoe hybrid sport utility vehicle? The eight-passenger vehicle is plastered with “hybrid” labels. An automobile magazine panel that included the executive director of The Sierra Club named it the ‘Green Car of the Year.’ But the Tahoe gets only about 20 miles per gallon - not much better than the nonhybrid Honda Pilot SUV, which also seats eight. The celebrated Toyota Prius gets around 46 miles per gallon. ‘How a 6,000-pound behemoth can be the green car of the year is beyond me,’ said David Champion, director of Consumer Reports Auto Test Division. ‘It’s a marketing exercise rather than reality.’” (05/14/08)

“Homeowners near Egyptian Lacquer Manufacturing Co. say they’re prepared to take the paint manufacturer to federal court to sue them to clean up the pollution under their homes if action on the matter isn’t taken in the next three months. Environmental attorney Elizabeth Murphy says three homeowners she represents are worried about their health, families and homes because of the continued exposure to pollution flowing to Liberty Creek and the Harpeth River.” (05/14/08)

“On Monday, John McCain delivered a major talk on global warming. At a Danish wind-energy firm. In Portland, Oregon. Surely the irony of a South-Western Senator, who spends so much of his time on the Eastern Seaboard, giving a talk about carbon emissions in the North-West — at company owned by Danes (whose execs no doubt must periodically make trans-continental, trans-Atlantic trips) in the middle of a national tour/campaign — escapes no one. How much would America’s green-house gas emissions go down if Presidential candidates stopped frolicking about the country? Better yet, how much would ‘our’ green-house emissions go down if Presidential candidates stopped talking so much?” (05/15/08)

“In one TV commercial, Kool and the Gang warble their celebration of good times because coal, yes, coal, makes the party possible in America. In another, white and black, young and old, male and female, and even someone in a doctor’s green scrubs, stare into the camera and soulfully declare: ‘I believe’ American know-how will make coal clean and stop it from contributing to climate change. Not sold? Maybe you missed the newspaper ads and billboards warning that turning away from coal could mean blackouts, unemployment and higher electric bills. These messages and other variations on the coal-is-great theme are flooding the nation courtesy of the coal industry, coal-fueled utilities, railroads and related industries. The pro-coal marketing campaign — known by its tag line ‘Clean Coal’ — has kicked into high gear as prospects for new plants have turned bleak. Wall Street is tightening financing, leading to what one analyst told the Christian Science Monitor is a ‘de facto moratorium on coal power.’” (05/15/08)

“A sensible discussion of the polar bear requires acknowledging a simple fact: that the polar bear is merely a proxy for something else. The environmental pressure groups like the Center for Biological Diversity that have petitioned for the listing acknowledge that their reason for doing so is concern over global warming. The more warming, they argue, the less sea ice; the less sea ice, the fewer polar bears. So their hope was that the Endangered Species Act will give the federal government power to curtail sources of global warming — such as your car or air conditioning system.” (05/15/08)

“The climate-change issue has divided conservatives, with presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain leading the charge for a cap-and-trade energy-rationing scheme and Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe spearheading the opposition — which includes my group, Americans for Prosperity, and most movement conservatives. Building a consensus on the issue looks complicated, but it’s as simple as one word: taxes. We should build from the premise that climate policy must not be used as a cover for raising federal revenue.” (05/13/08)

“‘Why can’t we have them when they can?’ That, for the ‘nuclear have-nots,’ has long been the essence of what some call the nuclear double standard, what others call nuclear narcissism, what others still call America’s nuclear hypocrisy. The bitterness about that double standard has steadily intensified for almost exactly four decades now (the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, was signed on July 1, 1968, and came into force in 1970). Why? Because in the basic bargain of the NPT, the non-nuclear weapon states promised forever to forego nuclear weapons, in exchange for a pair of promises from the nuclear weapon states. First, the nuclear weapon states conceded — quite explicitly, in Article IV — that the non-nuclear weapon states possess an ‘inalienable right’ to develop ‘nuclear energy for peaceful purposes’ and even promised ‘to facilitate’ their efforts to do so. Second, the nuclear weapon states promised — quite explicitly, in Article VI, and reiterated quite explicitly at the NPT Review Conferences in 1995 and 2000 — to negotiate the complete elimination of their own nuclear arsenals, and eventually to deliver to the human race a nuclear-weapon-free world.” (05/15/08)