Question Earthority!

Denial - “Global warming? Bah! Humbug! Just another excuse to make me keep my 1974 Oldsmobile in the garage!”

Anger — “Those damn greens! Can’t leave well enough alone, can they? Every time the stock market ticks up, they want to quibble about deforestation and sea level rises. Why should I care if the Ross Ice Shelf slides off of Antarctica? I sold the house in Pensacola years ago!”

Bargaining - “Alright, alright … let’s work this out. If I buy a Prius, will it shut you the hell up? Look, I just planted a mimosa in the front yard. That’s gotta be good for a degree or two, right?”

Depression - “Doomed. DOOMED! Why even bother? We had a good run, and when the aliens arrive they’ll see that we held out longer than Venus did before going under. I need a drink … a cold one.”

Acceptance - “You know, freedom has solved a lot of problems in the past. Now that I’m done denying the obvious, getting pissed off about it, trying to deal my way out of dealing with it, and having my little hissy, I’m thinking maybe we should move forward, ride this thing out. Let’s get out of the way and let the market do something about it.”

Amid continuing car problems, Tamara and I have been considering just going all out and purchasing a newer vehicle … and we have a hybrid in mind. We’ve borrowed a friend’s Toyota Prius a couple of times, and it seems to be a fine car.

Because we’ve been considering hybrids, it caught my attention when GM announced that it plans to introduce a “plug-in” hybrid in the near future. And within the announcement article, a particular claim caught my eye:

Environmentalists have become plug-in advocates, saying most motorists commute less than 50 miles to and from work each day and could do that on batteries alone without consuming any gas and without creating any emissions.

This is plainly incorrect.

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Are we running out of seafood?

Redefining Progress, the Ocean Project, and the Center for Sustainable Economy all think so. So, according to the Center for Individual Freedom, does a group which did a recent study published in Science magazine. I’ve only been able to find the Science article in abstract, but while the CFIF take on it seems to be somewhat hyperbolic, there’s little doubt that environmentalists are concerned about “overfishing” and its impact not only on human food supplies, but on ocean ecosystems as a whole.

It seems to me that this may be the perfect opportunity for geolibertarians to make their case for an international “resource extraction” regime that forces seafood “producers” to address the externalities produced by their activities. Read the rest of this entry »

Most left-leaning environmentalists probably see last night’s Democratic victories as a positive development with respect to the environment. As a libertarian environmentalist, so do I … but for very different reasons.

For those of you who’ve been locked in a trunk in Albania without your Blackberry or a portable TV, here’s what you missed: The Democrats took over the US House of Representatives, and look likely to emerge from the nail-biting Senate races with 50 or 51 Senate seats.

What does this mean for the environment? Read the rest of this entry »

In previous columns, I’ve advocated the use of “offsets” and other carbon sequestration methods, combined with the treatment of pollution as an actionable tort, to address global warming and other environmental concerns.

Unfortunately, in the move toward “market solutions,” there’s a lot of obfuscation and a lot of attempts to disguise governmental regulations — and subsidies — as those same “market solutions.” The most visible, or at least most easily uncovered, example of this is “carbon emissions trading.” Let’s look at the difference:

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Over on the Market Liberalism Yahoo! Group, I’ve been privileged to discuss a number of issues with libertarian luminaries including (but not limited to) Brian Holtz and Professor Fred E. Foldvary. One recent discussion (the relevant section starts right about here) has centered around the desirability of “externality taxes” versus other ways of addressing pollution, climate change and other environmental ills.

Three concise summaries of opinion (extracted from various messages in the thread):

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I apologize for the intermittence of recent updates — technical difficulties of a mysterious nature have been intermittently preventing me from posting. This week’s editorial is short and sweet. I could reduce it to one word: Winterize! But then it would be a headline, not an editorial, right?

Here in St. Louis, the leaves are starting to turn … and the first chill winds of autumn are beginning to blow. As I sit at my computer in front of the window providing the best view from the house, I can feel the draft. Time to hunt up some weather stripping.

As always, my concerns are of both the environmental and “practical” variety. Read the rest of this entry »

Take any environmental concern — pollution, global warming, whatever — and underlying it you’ll find the notion of “environmental equilibrium.” Simply stated, this is the idea that there’s some sort of “natural balance” toward which the overall environment is geared. Or, to put a finer point on it, the idea that the various components of an ecological system will, absent intervention by man, work together such that the system will remain in a perpetually viable state.

But what if this just isn’t the case? Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re an environmentalist — libertarian or otherwise — you know the expression. Over the last year or so, I’ve come to think of it as “the hurricane smirk.” It’s the expression those arguing against any environmentalist viewpoint get on their faces when they think they’ve just asked you a “gotcha” question. A question like “so, where are all those hurricanes the global warming snake oil salesmen predicted?”

It’s no secret that the inability of scientists to develop a successful predictive model, combined with the propensity of advocates to make predictions anyway — has been the Achille’s heel of arguments in favor of global warming. Environmentalists find themselves relying on the weak rede of “the precautionary principle” … and “just in case” does not strike most people as a good argument for actions which severely impact economic freedom or their control of their property.

On the other hand, there’s a point beyond which the skeptics doth protest too much. Read the rest of this entry »

A lot of libertarians seem to have a problem with the “reduce, re-use, recycle” paradigm, especially when it comes to the “reduce” part. Can’t blame’em. All too often “reduce” gets framed in Luddite terms, a la “we just need to learn to live with less,” even to the point where that seems like the end rather than the means.

Summer electric bills, however, cast “reduce” in a whole new light. Most of us like to keep the climate inside our homes at relatively comfortable temperature levels, and that can get expensive. Sure, one interpretation of “reduce” comes down to “just sweat and bear it.” But there are other, equally valid interpretations: Reduce your utility bill. Reduce your need for air conditioning. Reduce the temperature … wisely.

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