A libertarian solution to global warming

[StrangeLoop]

Let us assume that man-made global warming is real (and, to be frank, I do believe it is).

I would favor a carbon tax; whether or not you Austrians believe in negative externalities, it’s clear that if pollutants are becoming incredibly detrimental to the stability of our global weather patterns, then carbon emissions have obviously not been properly priced!

[Jon_Irenicus]

Let us assume that man-made global warming is real (and, to be frank, I do believe it is).

Based on?

I would favor a carbon tax; whether or not you Austrians believe in negative externalities, it’s clear that if pollutants are becoming incredibly detrimental to the stability of our global weather patterns, then carbon emissions have obviously not been properly priced!

And where should the government set this tax?

[Caley_McKibbin]

I don’t. But if the arbitration industry would come to accept proof that, say, our atmosphere can disperse 5 million tons of CO2 per year, than any emission above that would be aggression. Now, in order not to punish anyone more heavily that others, we’d distribute quotas for 5 million tons of emission evenly ( say quaotas for 0.7 gramns of emision for every earthling) and then let the market decide how those rights would be distributed. So I don’t see this as a particularly arbitrary solution. Its actually as voluntary as it gets, under the assumed circumstances.

This is why I was talking about marginal factoring of climate change. This does not follow from first-come libertarian law theory, nor de facto law theory for that matter. The people on the critical margin are the only ones that can be justly held. The only theory that says that everyone is equally responsible for anything is the communist one. When you switch from the idea of injunction against everyone to permission quotas, the matter is changing from stopping transgression to doling privilege. A pollution quota is a privilege to pollute. It’s like license to kill rather than stopping killers. That has nothing to do with libertarianism.

Anyway… the first step to reducing air pollution would be abolishing zoning.

[StrangeLoop]

@Jon Irenicus

And where should the government set this tax?

Since a market is nonexistent, there can be no perfect solution (hence the need for a Pigouvian tax); however, I do believe a $0.00 tax (as it stands) is one of our worst options. At best, we need to have a trial-and-error process, and I would recommend starting low.

[Jon_Irenicus]

The biggest problem with a tax is that you risk penalising people who have already homestead emmissions in the atmosphere for what is essentially a non-criminal activity. I think taxation is the worst of all possible options, including doing nothing, especially since the money will not go to compensate the damaged.

[Caley_McKibbin]

A tax is also a privilege to pollute.

[krazy_kaju]

I quote Rothbard:

why should social costs be minimized? Or, why should externalities be internalized? The answers are scarcely self-evident, and yet the questions have never been satisfactorily addressed, let alone answered. And there is an important corollary question: even given the goal of minimizing costs, for the sake of argument, should this goal be held as an absolute or should it be subordinated, and to what degree, to other goals? And what reasons can be given for any answer?

In the first place, to say that social costs should be minimized, or that external costs should be internalized, is not a technical or a value-free position. The very intrusion of the word should, the very leap to a policy position, necessarily converts this into an ethical stand, which requires, at the very least, an ethical justification.

And second, even if, for the sake of argument, we consent to a goal of minimized social costs, the economist still must wrestle with the problem: how absolute should this commitment be? To say that minimized social costs must be absolute, or at least the highest-valued goal, is to fall into the same position that the cost-benefit economists scorn when it is taken by ethicists: namely, to consider equity or rights heedless of cost-benefit analysis. And what is their justification for such absolutism?

Third, even if we ignore these two problems, there is the grave fallacy in the very concept of “social cost,” or of cost as applied to more than one person. For one thing, if ends clash, and one man=s product is another man’s detriment, costs cannot be added up across these individuals. But second, and more deeply, costs, as Austrians have pointed out for a century, are subjective to the individual, and therefore can neither be measured quantitatively nor, a fortiori, can they be added or compared among individuals. But if costs, like utilities, are subjective, nonadditive, and noncomparable, then of course any concept of social costs, including transaction costs, becomes meaningless. And third, even within each individual, costs are not objective or observable by any external observer. For an individual’s cost is subjective and ephemeral; it appears only ex ante, at the moment before the individual makes a decision. The cost of any individual’s choice is his subjective estimate of the value ranking of the highest value foregone from making his choice. For each individual tries, in every choice, to pursue his highest-ranking end; he foregoes or sacrifices the other, lower-ranking, ends that he could have satisfied with the resources available. His cost is his second-highest ranking end, that is, the value of the highest ranking end that he has foregone to achieve a still more highly valued goal. The cost that he incurs in this decision, then, is only ex ante; as soon as his decision is made and the choice is exercised and his resource committed, the cost disappears. It becomes an historical cost, forever bygone. And since it is impossible for any external observer to explore, at a later date, or even at the same time, the internal mental processes of the actor, it is impossible for this observer to determine, even in principle, what the cost of any decision may have been.

http://mises.org/rothbard/efficiency.asp

The reason I post this is because the release of CO2 is ultimately a question of externalities. The above deals with externalities.

The costs associated with global warming are subjective, as are the benefits, thus we cannot make any reliable cost-benefit analysis regarding global warming or programs which attempt to prevent or slow global warming. Questions like “is there a libertarian solution to global warming” inherently contain a value-judgment, i.e. that global warming is bad. Well tell that to the coal miners, oil drillers, truckers, dairy farmers, etc. who earn a living doing things which greatly increase CO2 emissions. Because one cannot compare the utility of the coal miners to the disutility of (say) the residents of the Maldives, there cannot be any meaningful cost-benefit analysis regarding global warming.

Ultimately, questions regarding global warming or anthropogenic climate change require answers from the fields of ethics and justice, not economics. And it might just be me, but I don’t see where one finds an ethical justification for limiting how many times a person can breathe (you emit CO2 when you exhale).

[krazy_kaju]

So to answer Merlin directly: IF emitting CO2 were considered aggression, then a quota would be the wrong way of dealing with it. If someone has a right not to live in an environment with CO2, then the proper way of dealing with it would be that the aggressors would have to compensate the victims for their emissions of CO2. The problem here is that EVERYONE is an aggressor, including the victims. Furthermore, being an aggressor in this case is necessary to live (if you never exhale, you’ll die). Non-human beings and non-sentient beings are also aggressors. Even a Rothbardian natural rights system of ethics and justice cannot justify making emitting CO2 a crime - after all, a system of natural law is supposed to be the ethical system best suited for the survival of man, but no ethical system can be best suited for the survival of man if it holds the emission of CO2 to be immoral.

[Student]

it is probably telling that many of the responses to this thread have not so much revolved around explicit libertarian solutions to acc at all, but instead have focused speculating whether polluting ghgs can be considered an “agression” and whether or not you can “homestead the climate.”

if i were ruminating man, i would wonder outloud whether this wasn’t a perfect illustration of how rothbard’s reliance on an over simplified application of the coase theorem for solving all pollution related problems (assign property rights and the market will work it out one way or another) is far less attractive when you see it in action (how do we assign property rights to a global climate??? uh, well, we’ll homestead it!!! yah that’s the ticket).

of course, that’s not me. im really just a song and dance man. so i will leave you with this ambigious tune from the talking heads.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3t5nmgRVMs

“and as things fell apart, no one paid much attention.”

[krazy_kaju]

Student, you don’t seem to understand that economics is supposed to be a value-free science. As such, Rothbard’s “solutions” to problems of pollution and such weren’t based on economics, but on his ethical beliefs (natural law). The Coase Theorem, on the other hand, relies on the idea of “efficiency,” which requires the interpersonal comparison of utility (which is, btw, impossible). Thus, statements that imply that Rothbard relied on an “over simplified application of the coase theorem” are simply ignorant of the facts. If anything, Rothbard borrowed some of his ideas from the system of common law used in the United States and the UK, an organic system of law that has already dealt with these problems.

[Eugene]

krazy kaju, what do you suggest then. How in the an-cap world do we deal with it?

[Chyd3nius]

People would adjust to conditions of warming. In ancap technology develops faster than nowadays so it would be easier. Besides If quite sure that any kind of statist intervention can’t stop waming and emissions. They can’t calculate.

[Eugene]

My question assumes that ACC is absolutely catastrophic. So given that, how can the an-cap society combat it?

[krazy_kaju]

@Eugene

krazy kaju, what do you suggest then. How in the an-cap world do we deal with it?

How would we deal with it? Are you implying that it (meaning global warming) is a bad thing? By whose standards? Certainly not by people who:

• Choose to breathe.
• Own, operate, or work for coal, oil, or natural gas companies.
• Choose to be dairy farmers.

Facts are facts, and you cannot say that anthropogenic climate change is bad without some ethical justification.

As I posted earlier:

@krazy kaju

The idea that CO2 emissions will somehow be subject to property rights in a free market is a little absurd. The transaction costs for such a scheme are just way too high. The free market “solution” to global warming is having skyrocketting insurance premiums for areas which are likely to be flooded, thereby encouraging people in those areas to relocate.

In other words, if sea levels do continue to rise, people will relocate to areas that will not be flooded.

[EmperorNero]

@Student

it is probably telling that many of the responses to this thread have not so much revolved around explicit libertarian solutions to acc at all, but instead have focused speculating whether polluting ghgs can be considered an “agression” and whether or not you can “homestead the climate.”

if i were ruminating man, i would wonder outloud whether this wasn’t a perfect illustration of how rothbard’s reliance on an over simplified application of the coase theorem for solving all pollution related problems (assign property rights and the market will work it out one way or another) is far less attractive when you see it in action (how do we assign property rights to a global climate??? uh, well, we’ll homestead it!!! yah that’s the ticket).

Well, above I made the case that ACC is a completely artificial theory, that’s specifically designed to not be solvable in a free market, and that such a threat can’t really exist in reality. In other words, a climate problem that requires mitigation is nonsense. So it’s no problem that libertarianism can’t deal with it.

[Eugene]

Again, you ignore my initial assumption, which is that ACC is absolutely catastrophic and will cause massive earthquakes, tsunamies, floods that will kill hundreds of millions. What do we do in this case?

[liberty_student]

@Eugene

Again, you ignore my initial assumption, which is that ACC is absolutely catastrophic and will cause massive earthquakes, tsunamies, floods that will kill hundreds of millions. What do we do in this case?

Make popcorn.

[MJGreen]

@Eugene

My question assumes that ACC is absolutely catastrophic. So given that, how can the an-cap society combat it?

Well which question are you asking, exactly? How would a stateless society deal with the catastrophe brought on by previous CO2 emissions, or how would CO2 emissions be reduced in a stateless society so as to avoid future catastrophe? For the latter, I think there are many reasons why a stateless America would emit less carbon, though admittedly, a lot of the savings would be had from reducing the federal government to a smaller state. Should the choice be between a very limited regulatory state to a fully contractual society, it’s certainly possible there would be more CO2 emissions in the latter than in the former, especially in the short-run. But whatever savings are to be had in the statist society may be outweighed by some other costs, and I think in the long-run, the stateless society could do better.

If you’re asking the former question, I would answer n/a. In the face of such a catastrophe, civil society - if it continues to exist at all - would likely be subject to centralized states. If the state already exists, it would claim more control, particularly in its effort to maintain authority. If there is no state, the most powerful and willing interests would claim control. This process may or may not exacerbate the crisis, though again, there are reasons to think that the statist society may do a worse job in promoting the ‘public interest.’ (e.g. the politically connected use the existing statist institutions to save themselves at the expense of the masses)

[liberty_student]

@Eugene

Again, you ignore my initial assumption, which is that ACC is absolutely catastrophic and will cause massive earthquakes, tsunamies, floods that will kill hundreds of millions. What do we do in this case?

Sell iodine, survivalist magazines, dried food, flashlight batteries and blankets.

Don’t let some global calamity get in the way of making a profit!

[mikachusetts]

@krazy kaju

In other words, if sea levels do continue to rise, people will relocate to areas that will not be flooded.

I’m convinced that some people will let themselves drown just so they can cry “market failure!”