Is there a viable libertarian solution to the problem of man-made global warming?
“Viable solutions” don’t include appeals to critics of AGW. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that it is real.
They don’t include cursory cost-benefit calculations either; let’s make this about the protection of property affected by AGW, which, by libertarian standards, rules supreme over such considerations.
I think you’ll first need to establish proof of this “man-made global warming”.
Uh oh looks like you’re crowdsourcing information from the blogsphere here. 
SA’s D&D is a riot dude, you basically need to write out a huge block of text to get through to anyone. For a while I’ve wanted to write a pretty large FAQ or something so you don’t have to keep knocking down the strawmen and answering the same questions.
I’m working on getting together some responses to Helsing’s questions about food safety and such. The problem with that topic is that the most egregious situations were occuring before modern medical science and food chemistry were well understood or disseminated. Job number one there is to get some information on the actual rates of food adulteration versus the perception that most food was posion. I’m trying to find some information on that, I’ve seen some information in the past but don’t have any links currently. Debating in D&D is pretty low on my priorities right now, unfortunately.
Not to derail this thread, but yes, anthropogenic climate change is a real thing, the question is how severe/negative it will be. Furthermore in the forum Spharion is debating, climate science denial is basically a non-starter and will get him laughed off the stage.
Sonata Arctica’s Depth & Development?
Salvation Army’s Dungeons & Dragons?
Socialist Alliance’s Death & Dismemberment?
SomethingAwful, Debate & Discussion subforum.
I thought we were talking about “man-made global warming”. 
Ha, this is nice. I didn’t realize you were also present on mises.org, LogisticEarth, though I guess the probability was rather high.
To clarify, I’m currently engaged in a debate on Something Awful forums about the merits of libertarianism. I was getting into trouble on externality questions, so I performed a tactical retreat with the caveat that I would be “crowdsourcing information from the libertarian blogosphere” on the issue. This is part of my attempts at doing so.
Here’s a link to the thread if anyone is interested. My posts (same nick) start on page 86.
Are you trying to pull the whole “they switched ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change’ because things weren’t getting warmer” schtick? Because that’s a childish arguement that belongs on brain dead talk radio, and has no basis in reality. If you want to help Spherion you should argue from the position that human activity is influencing climate systems. End the derail about whether or not it’s anthropogenic, pretend it’s a hypothetical if you have to.
No. By design, the global warming scam is a problem that cant be solved in the market. That is its purpose. It was made up because it requires state intervention. When every excuse for national socialism was refuted by history, instead of admitting defeat, the socialists simply invented one that cant be refuted, because its not a falsifiable theory to begin with. Of course it is an inconsistent theory that makes no sense, so assuming it is real is like assuming that claims of unaided flight are real.
Yeah, I’ve been around SA for a while, it’s good to debate on there, and at least read the threads if you only have time to lurk. If you make an effort to stick around though it’s going to be like fighting the tide, because you’re going to have everybody asking you about their pet issue with libertarianism. If you read through the thread you’ll see the same questions coming up again and again. Food safety, environmental regulation, the 1907 panic that the one guy keeps bringing up every ten pages or so.
As long as you don’t blow up like 80% of the other libertarians that show up on there, you’ll be ok. It’s absurd because inevitably someone who’s in over his head and has too much time on his hands comes in and makes an ass out of himself. I’ll try and send anything I find your way, since I don’t devote a large amount of time posting in D&D at the moment.
Man that forum is a viper’s den. Talk about getting zerged.
Yeah, lots of people with lots of time, and the forum is usually well educated and intelligent people so you can’t be lazy and skate by on half-assed arguments. The rest of the forums though are great, high quality, and pretty useful/funny. Everything from video games to cars to cocktail mixing to movies. It probably has something to do with the fact that it costs $10 to register to post, and that privilage can be revoked by a moderator, prompting you to have to re-register and pay the fee again. It keeps the posting AND moderating quality high, as the mods can’t be tyrants or else people wouldn’t put up with the fee, and people have to have a stake in actually posting there.
Enough about SA though, back to the thread…
I’m not “trying” to do anything, be it “pull a schtick” or “derail” a “I’m in a debate somewhere on the Internet and I need help” thread. I was simply poking fun and the ridiculousness of the whole thing.
Sphairon, if you need some resources on externalities, I’ve created a meta-thread here and will be adding to it. (I would pay particular attention to the ones called “A libertarian solution to global warming” and “A Non-State Solution to Global Warming”) Also check out the “public goods” Mises Wiki article and the links included there.
I might even make a “global warming” thread, as there might even be enough posts on that specific topic.
Uh oh. Careful. I was already told it’s a real thing. And the guy had the word “Earth” in his handle. So I’m pretty sure he outranks you.
Simple. Gather whatever property or ‘stuff’ man uses that causes this “warming”. Then give it back to him. It’s really just recycling. Call it Post Consumer Pollution and repackage it in a pill or powder form. Soon, everyone who cares will be re-ingesting their own PCP, working toward a greener future.
Sounds like a recipe for Soylent Green, if you ask me.
The first problem is having to demonstrate GW actually caused property damage. It’s one thing to say so and completely another to demonstrate it beyond doubt. For example let’s say I am convinced my neighbor is causing damage to my cabbages and ask compensation. The court will then order an inquiry. If they aren’t biased and are doing their job (defending my property but also my neighbor’s innocence until he’s proven guilty) they will order an inquiry and discover the damage is actually caused by wood pigeons. Since the court has no rule over pigeons, we’ll be back to square one but at least my neighbor won’t be forced to pay for damages he didn’t cause. GW is exactly the same thing: until you prove beyond doubt it’s the cause of property damage you risk violating another person’s rights by forcing him/her to pay compensation (or spend money to reduce impact, whatever).
Even assuming the phenomenon is proven to be right there’s the spiny issue of how to divide the blame. Let’s say I am charged with contributing to GW and hence asked to pay compensation for damages caused to another person’s property. At that point I can hire experts who will prove I am not actually contributing because, say, I am a farmer and the CO2 emitted by my car and tractor are more than offset by that absorbed by the corn, vegetables etc I grow. Same thing about an airline: they may show proof they have purchased “carbon credits” from Russia or Brazil and hence they are carbon neutral. As far as the experts are concerned they do not contribute to GW and hence to the damage done. In short the court would need to spend incredible amounts of time (not to mention ungodly sums of money) to go through this procedure for every single person, shop, factory etc in the world. Why? Because if you charge somebody unjustly you are violating his/her rights. If a person hasn’t caused damage, you cannot force him/her to pay reparation.
Notice that I didn’t frame the thread in such a way, but instead asked a general question that might intrigue others for reasons other than my particular debate.
But alright. Let’s take Woods by his word. In the time it takes to carry on a Facebook debate, you could be reading. You could be making yourself a formidable debater one or two years from now.
So I’m reading what mises.org has to offer me when I search for “climate change”. An article from a non-climatologist that comments on climate science and posits that we should embrace the pro-life philosophy of the free market. Another article informing us that AGW is slow and manageable enough for us to ignore a likely root cause, human GHG emissions; by the same token, we could argue that factory pollution is predictable enough (if someone builds a factory near you, sell your lot!) to adjust without having to get into messy externality questions. A Reisman blog that effectively says nobody is responsible for a death by a thousand cuts. A Murphy article attacking an econometric model for climate change control based on projected GDP figures without addressing the core point - violations of property rights through man-made changes in the climate. Finally, a paper arguing that seeking legal redress against the few major corporate GHG offenders for property rights violations would be enough to restore climate justice.
Hence, the libertarian solution looks suspiciously like the progressive call for redistributive taxation on “climate offenders”, with the difference that “taxes” would be called “damages” and they would be imposed by (presumably market-based) judicial bodies and not some political entity - based, however, on the same “expert opinions” on climate change.
Your threads don’t add many new facets. “A Non-State Solution to Global Warming” argues that people will subject themselves to a rigorous green certification regime out of concern for their social capital. If you consider that many self-styled progressives are perfectly happy driving a Prius and donating a little money to green charities every once in a while to fulfill their perceived duty of saving the Earth, this notion becomes questionable.
Kakugo, are you suggesting a free-market emission market?