Property rights and environmentalism in the atmosphere and ocean

Economics Economics Questions
1

The libertarian solution for protecting the environment is to privatize all land because private individuals are more concerned with keeping their property free from pollution than the state. And if someone is polluting their property they could bring charges against that individual and force him to pay for the cleanup.

But once you start getting into atmosphere and ocean things become less clear. First most people don’t normally apply property ownership rights to the atmosphere or ocean because people don’t live on the water or in the air like we do on land. A person could build a fence around a piece of land and claim it as his own. Or a person could claim ownership on the land underneath a lake or small body of water and claim the water above it as his property as well. Or even own a piece of beach front property and claim a piece of the ocean so many miles/kilometers/insert measure of distance out from it as an extension of his property as well.

But what about the vast stretches of unclaimed space that lie in the sky or the middle of the ocean? How could property rights be applied to these two things in a way that would proptect them from pollution in the same way that property rights on land do?

A person could sue a company or individual that was dumping toxic chemicals into the atmosphere or ocean for giving them some kind of illness or condition. But with global ocean and air currents it might be hard to prove that one specific company or individual was to blame.

2

This is actually one of the main problems I have so far when trying to defend libertarianism. Someone always pulls out the environment trump card. The answer, from what I understand, is that no, it’s not possible to ensure protection of oceans and certain masses of the air.

But then look at it this way. The government handles this no better than individuals would. Look at how much power governments already have, and how little liberties we have left, and yet pollution is still a major problem. Governments haven’t solved the problem, they’ve only exacerbated it. I wonder if anyone measures how much pollution was caused by the military industrial complex when building weapons of war, or how much pollution the war in Iraq has caused, or the way in which tankers spill oil all the time with no serious consequences.

If environmental imperfection is something we have to live with when we choose libertarianism, then considering the incompetence of governments in dealing with pretty much anything, i’d rather go for personal liberties, economic freedoms, etc. than government intervention which ultimately solves nothing.

The main fallacy in this argument lies in that by saying the free market can’t handle it, that somehow governments can, when in reality they do a far worse job, while taking away too much of our freedom and wealth.

3

True, like that giant vortex of floating garbage in the Pacific Ocean.

4

Is that supposed to be sarcasm?

Because if it is, then here’s a few statistics for you to digest about just how ineffective government ownership of oceans, and various other “public” areas has been:

Oil spills

Gulf war oil spill: about 1,000,000 tonnes of crude oil spilt in 1991

460,000 tonnes of oil spilt in the gulf of mexico in 1979

287,000 tonnes spilt in trinidad in 1979

285,000 tonnes spilt in Uzbekistan in 1992

More persian gulf: 260,000 spilt in 1983

the list goes on…these are just the 5 biggest spills recorded to date.

Radioactive waste

I mentioned in another post how the Russian government is getting a little extra revenue by dumping international nuclear waste in the forests of Siberia. Funny because if global warming actually meets expectations, then Siberia will once again become inhabitable and much warmer, of course, no one will be able to live there because of the horrible way in which radioactive pollution is handled by the government (violations of safety precautions, I mean it’s not like you can sue the government for violating their own rules, otherwise they’d all be in prison).

Remember Chernobyl? The dome they built around it to stop pollution after the accident has over the years decayed and has huge holes in it with lots of radiation escaping, and so far there’s very little to nothing being done to repair it.

Space waste

I wonder if anyone ever thinks of this. I mean, space is huge right? But think about how much debris will eventually be flying in orbit around the earth. It doesn’t take much debris at a very high velocity to damage the hull of some space vessel and kill astronauts. We’re slowly but surely creating a mini-asteroid field of garbage around the planet. Who’s doing this? The space agencies of the world, with NASA at the top.

Rivers

Isn’t it wonderful that if you go and drink water from the river Nile, you’ll likely get some sort of lethal disease? I wonder who supervises and restricts pollution there…oh wait, I know, it’s the government!

So far, the Government, having taken into its hands all of these matters, is the main responsible party for failing to enforce any real punitive measures. Would a free market and personal property rights have fared better? Probably, but we can’t tell for sure since it’s mostly theory for now. I do know this though, governments are wholly ineffective at combating pollution. Although the way global warming is becoming politisized, it may very well become a very popular issue with the electorate, and then you can be sure people will start to jump on the environmentalism bandwagon. To solve the problem? Nah, just to get the votes.

5

I don’t know how that could have been taken as sarcasm. You said that states are just as bad if not worse than individuals in protecting the oceans or atmosphere from pollution. I responded in agreement and stated with an example the garbage vortex in the Pacific Ocean as proof that with all the power the state (or states) currently has it hasn’t solved current problems, the garbage vortex being one.

6

The whole global warming thing is pseudoscience. Who is crazy enough to predict our climate, or even anything 100 years from now? It’s like India predicting that its GDP per capita would reach the U.S. by 2045. It’s like Hugo Chaves predicting that Venezuela would catch up with us in 2045. Like John McCain’s 100 year war.

The whole global warming theory is empirical science. Nothing can be extrapolated precisely for such long time, even a few months is very hard.

A voluntary state would perfectly protect groups of individuals from global warming.

If an asteroid is going to hit us, then what should we do? Voluntary associations would prevent such disaster.

7

Sorry about that then, it’s very hard to perceive someone’s tone through a text message, and the inclusion of the word “vortex” made me think you were being sarcastic, so I mis-interpreted you.

Eitherway, it’s all good since all of that information I posted is good to know anyway [:P]

As to global warming, I agree regarding the pseudo-scientific nature of it all. Have a look at “The great global warming swindel”. We can’t say for sure if global warming is a result of human action, or if human action is negligible, but to treat the global warming (as a result of human action) theory as fact, and destroy the basis of our industrialised society, as well as killing any future for many developing economies in the name of a theory relying on highly dubious claims and data is madness.

8

Voluntary state, Isn’t that an oxymoron?

How should I respond if I’m around a statist who makes the claim that something as expensive as space exploration requires a certain amount of coersion (taxes) to pay for it, or atleast to get it jump started? The Soviet Union was a communist country and their government was the first to get into this groundbreaking technology by launching Sputnik. And that private enterprise will be the future of space exploration but it wouldn’t have happened without the state to jump start it.

Or if they said that private enterprise probably isn’t going to spend billions to put a giant telescope into space just to get back some pretty pictures so even if private enterprise did get into space first the wouldn’t have invested in the technology to see if a giant asteroid was headed towards Earth.

Watched it in school. Along with An Inconvenient Truth.

9

If private enterprise is unwilling to do any of this it is because no one is willing to give it the funds to do so. In which case, it makes absolutely no sense to devote massive funds to an activity next to no one is willing to finance.

10

If we knew an asteroid is coming, it would be too late. Government built satellites that detected asteroids.

Would it make sense for the government to coercively fund libertarian education, when no one wants to promote libertarianism? The general population, and even famous scientists, are apathetic.

Would it make sense for the rich to fund environtamentalism propaganda or socialist education?

11

Again, why should anyone be forced to consume a good they do not want?

12

If the government did not fund space, it would be dangerous. If an asteroid is going to hit us, it would be too late for private investment.

I did not say that the government should currently fund these things.

Asteroids cause a greater impact on us than global warming. I don’t know why our people are fearing the global warming pseudoscience but have no hint of asteroids.

Same as patents. Although patents are useful in the 1800s, it is currently obsolete.

13

Lucky. Our school is somewhat biased, and showed us only “An inconvenient Truth”, after which a geography teacher went on stage and started trying to ridicule the people who cast doubts on the global warming theory, saying that it’s fact and not theory, and that they’re irresponsible. Well I suppose it could be worse.

14

But ultimately it should, right?

15

We need a state to save us from space debris? I’ll take my chances, thanks.

This is a perfect example of making up your mind first (that we need a state) then searching for justifications later (any will do).

16

At least he wasn’t saying that global warming deiers are the same as holocaust deniers.

I don’t know how Belgium is but from what I’ve heard America is the only (or one of the only) modern countries where the majority of the population doesn’t believe in man made global warming and statist enviromentalism.

17

Private property is a pretty flexible legal system. I am not so sure about things like ownership of the atmosphere but ownership of certain parts of the ocean has been instituted before. For instance certain areas of the ocean have been claimed by fishermen or others in the past and their rights to that area were respected. This usually leads to a concentration of ocean ownership that allows the fishing companies to not have a tragedy of the commons in fish stock by preventing the creation of too many fishermen with easy access to the ocean. On top of this there are easment rights for travel in these ocean lots. Now if I dumped some pollution into my little ocean lot it will most certainly harm the abutting lots who would then sue me. Also some countries have instituted stock ownership in certain species of fish that is on it’s way to being publically traded. Only those who own the fish stock can fish a certain ratio fixed by the stock contract agreement. If they go over on the fishing they can be sued by other stock owners. Both of these actions have lead to good stewardship of the water and the amount of fish species owned this way have caused their supply to boom. Unfortunately the Fish stock is still heavily regulated by the state.

Now as for atmosphere, in the common law people have been able to create torts for trespass in relation to their general property and the air surrounding it. For instance there have been cases when people have used state of the art technology to prove that someone polluted on their property. Now dont worry this cannot get you in trouble if the small super microscopic pollution does not cause serious harm, so if you drop some paint in your yard and then tiny microscopic particles somehow get into the abutting property it has to be proven that it honestly caused harm for them to be able collect damages for negligence. Where this can go for possible global warming I don’t know but I am just shooting it out there.

Overall check out the book Free Market Environmentalism by Terry Anderson.

18

I am sorry I forgot to explain something. We can get sued for simply walking onto someones property without permission even if we did not cause harm or property damage. Now the reason when you get to the microscopic level that this law of trespass starts to include the issue of harm and damage is because it is nearly impossible to control things at that level. But also companies have been sued in court for not using proper care and installing equipment that would stop or minimize the microscopic trespass and harm.

19

I’ve heard of that one before. Unfortunately I have a half dozen books already on my shelf that I haven’t yet started reading, two books coming in the mail next week about the Civil War (War for Southern Independence) I need for a school research paper I’m doing, and a couple other libertarian books I want to read first. The Machinery of Freedom being the first on that list.