A libertarian solution to global warming

[EmperorNero]

Welcome zx128k. You espouse the usual environmental socialist litany that the state is teaching in schools these days. I’m going to set the record straight because I think you probably never heard these arguments before. If you want to discuss this, I’ll be happy to elaborate on any of this. Just don’t post your “sources” and expect me to believe them.

@zx128k

Basically its to late to mitigate man made global warming, the market should have acted 25 years ago [1] and now its up to government but thats not to say that they will act. EmperorNero is right that the market itself cannot act in a way that would move us from a CO2 based economy to a steady state (low growth or zero growth) green economy that would have mitigated global warming.

I said no such thing. My point was that mitigation is scientific nonsense and physically impossible. Not just that market liberalism can’t do it, but that the state especially can’t do it, because the state is worse at doing everything. My argument was that a environmental problem that has to be mitigated can’t exist and was manufactured precisely for the purpose that it can’t be fixed by the market and requires statism.

@zx128k

The whole problem cannot be solved by a free market because there is more profit in remaining with the current system which has caused the problem.

Actually the market has caused a change towards less “CO2 based” fuel sources for hundreds of years. Humanity wen’t from burning hay to burning lumber to burning coal to burning petroleum, and now solar and nuclear. That has been happening because of free markets, not because of environmentalist busybodies. A green economy will happen because of free markets, socialism impedes that progress. The reason India and China are using more coal than the west is that they were socialist until recently. Looking at the empirical evidence would lead you to conclude that environmental socialism is counter-productive.

That we are relying on coal so much is the fault of the last generation of misguided environmental activists; the anti-nuclear energy movement. Without them we would already have a pretty low carbon energy economy.

@zx128k

Every other means of producing energy other than coal, oil or gas is more expensive, and requires government to tax or regulate so that other energy production methods can be profitable.

Business doesn’t care what energy source we use. It doesn’t save them any money, all costs would be passed on to the consumer. This is basic supply and demand economics. If anything, business likes the environmental movement because there’s a lot of profit in selling people more expensive “green” products. The oil and coal lobby love (and fund) the global warming movement, because it helps to cartelize their industry with cap and trade. All the big global warming people come from the oil lobby, including Al Gore.

@zx128k

Also there is alot of money invested in the current system as well, transport etc would have to be completely switched over to a new system if oil use was capped or taxed to much. The market has been actively fighting any changes away from coal, oil or gas. Sustainable energy is still way too expensive.

If something is too expensive, that means it requires resources that humanity doesn’t have. The problem isn’t coming up with enough money, humanity doesn’t have the resources for a green energy economy. The state can’t create resources out of thin air, only the free market creates resources. (And it has been the market that produced changes away from less clean fuel sources.) If the state expropriates resources to subsidize green energy, it merely impoverishes humanity to buy something that people don’t want and can’t afford yet. Some people rather have food on the table than feel-good green energy. That’s a luxury for the rich.

@zx128k

We have to change the whole world over to zero emissions or we may in future hit a tipping point [2] and a rapid climate shift will occur. We know in the past such events have occured but it is still very difficult to predict future ones. [3] It could be to late to do anything if we do see the passing of any critical thresholds. If a shift in climate did occur it would be impossible to change the climate back afterwards.

There’s no such thing as a environmental tipping point. The environment isn’t in some balance that we could ‘tip over’. Carbon dioxide levels have always been changing and were 18 times as high before. That didn’t seems to tip the balance. If such events have occurred, they were natural, so why wouldn’t this one be? If it’s natural it can’t be mitigated.

@zx128k

With World population forecast to be 9.2 billion people in the world of 2050 and staggering 11.4 billion, by the mid 2060s.

It was just a matter of time until you bring up world populations. Uhh, big numbers are scary. But so what? Big numbers just sound scary, humans have a hard time grasping them, they don’t do anything. Standards of living are going up for pretty much everyone. Make no mistake about it, the only thing that changed about population is that the numbers happened to reach a point where they sound scary. That’s just an artifact of the base ten numeral system.

@zx128k

Can we risk a large drop in carrying capacity, with biodiversity reduction in future?

I’ll risk that before I risk more statism, which was the leading cause of unnatural death in the last century.

@zx128k

What way do you see the free market fixing this problem without the government acting, regulations (voluntary ones have failed already), caps or taxes? Remember this is not a trick question, there is alot of evidence that the market is unsustainable in the long run and that the change to a sustainable economic system must take place at some point. Not everyone thinks we can fix the problem see [4].

Sustainability is a myth. There’s no such thing. All energy sources require human action to be replenished. Even solar panels have to be repaired.

@zx128k

It is more or less the academic position and the real world position we are in with most free market thinkers denying climate change is any problem and the science saying in a massive problem.

I was waiting for it… but you finally appealed to consensus. I shouldn’t have to tell you that science isn’t about consensus. “The science” does not say that climate change is manmade. A few scientists do, and they are controlled by politicians and oil lobbyists. The core of the climate change science is only produced and understood by a dozen or so people. Everybody else is put on a list that they agree with global warming. They have to sue to get off it, which most scientists don’t dare for fear of their jobs. That’s your consensus, a political fabrication.

Also, climate change is not a scientific theory. A scientific theory has to be falsifiable and verifiable. Climate change is neither.

@zx128k

Do people deny the negative impact of that of nuclear war, do they fail to reduce the number of warheads? Remember the US has eliminated over 13,000 nuclear weapons and thats over 80% of its deployed strategic warheads and 90% of non-strategic warheads.

Yet nuclear weapons would never have been developed if it wasn’t for 20th century statism. If we had a free market there wouldn’t be a problem in the first place.