Questions About Environment and Global Warming

Economics Political Theory
1

I was wondering if libertarianism has a mechanism through which the world might avoid the more deleterious effects of global warming. I understand that many of you probably don’t accept that its real but as it stands; I am of the opinion that it is real and that human activity is responsible. Thus, it is important to me that there be a mechanism to address this and other related environmental issues.

If you would like to argue that there is no such thing as global warming I’ll listen but I would also like you to at least humor me and suppose that it is real for the sake of argument. The reality of global warming and the greenhouse effect cannot be established or refuted within the realms of economic or political reasoning alone so it is important that libertarianism and the Austrian School be able to safeguard against this very realistic possibility. If the environmentalists are right about global warming and the harmful effects (such as drought and rising water levels), what would be your solution be and how would it work? If you are against carbon taxes and regulation - which I presume you are - then what mechanism does the free market have to save future generations? If you are of the opinion that global warming can only reach critical mass under the distorting effects of government intervention and the Federal Reserve, are there any policies you can cite which have prevented Americans or other people’s of the world from adopting greener technologies sooner (not just hemp-based ethanol).

This brings up other questions I have about libertarianism and the Austrian School. It seems to me, that this philosophy doesn’t accept the idea that human kind is a part of nature and is connected with the plants and animals of the world, in ways that we are sometimes unable to immediately see. Also, judging from some of the articles on this site, this philosophy presume that only humans have desires and rights and that plants and animals exist only to satisfy our wants. While I wouldn’t consider myself an animal rights activist per say, I do believe that we ought to show a certain degree of respect and restraint when we consider developing land. After all, our oxygen does come from trees.

Again, I would appreciate your thoughts and comments. And feel free to set me straight on any misconceptions I have.

2

First, there is another step to the argument other than establishing that it’s real and man-made: you also have to establish that it’s, in some sense, bad. It seems to me that, if it’s real, it’s a change that some will like more than others, a change that will help some people and hurt others, a change that will be good for some animals and bad for others. It would seem to be a helpful thing for increasing farm production. So why exactly do we need to “stop it?”

Now, suppose it is bad. Then there is a mechanism that can deal with it - private property. If it’s harmful, then some people are inflicting actual, physical harm on the property of others, which a free independent judiciary could deal with. A state judiciary will not be capable of dealing with it.

If releasing carbon harms others, then we shouldn’t be taxing it, or giving licenses to release it - we should be disallowing the release, and fining those who do release it - with the money going to the victims when they demonstrate harm. Why on earth should the carbon releaser be paying the government, or, ever more absurd, other carbon releasers who release less?

I don’t know exactly what you’re looking for in the last part of your question here; the policy I’d advocate would be real private property. Certainly we can point to policies which have made it harder for green alternatives to be developed - corn subsidies, use of the military to protect oil companies, oil subsidies, grants to car makers, government roads!, government takeover of mass transportation followed - of course - by incompetence in running them, wars for oil…

From an Austrian perspective, what matters is that trees and animals don’t act, only people act. Your last sentence makes it seem that you do accept a human-centered view of nature - that protecting nature is important only because it benefits people. Whatever benefits people is done by markets; thus, if you are correct about nature (are trees the only or best way of producing oxygen?) the market will protect nature. Are you asking to go beyond that?

3

This might be helpful:

http://libertarian-left.blogspot.com/2008/04/what-does-it-mean-to-advocate-market.html

4

That’d depend on who you ask… libertarianism is a very broad doctrine, covering a whole series of ideologies linked by the non-aggression principle. Strictly speaking, it is a political ideology - not a political philosophy - that covers many political philosophies (e.g. Aristotelian liberalism.) In terms of economics, the Austrian school analyzes the consequences of human actions; to the extent that nature is involved in this, it subsumes it too, in the form of resources.

-Jon

5

Just to comment on the idea that we ought to show respect when developing land: To respect a thing is to recognize it as having value in itself, and not simply to acknowledge it as being valuable to you. I respect you not because you can help me to satisfy my own ends (although that may well be true), but because you are worthy of respect: to disrespect you would be to fail to pay you your proper due. When you offer the fact that trees produce oxygen as a primary reason that they are worthy of respect, you seem to be implying that the respect to which they are due is a product of their being valuable to us for achieving our ends. This, however, is not having respect for the trees themselves: it is having respect for the people who depend on them.

Recognizing this, it becomes clear that your argument is simply a utilitarian exhortation to use resources for their most valued use. The idea, then, is that trees produce oxygen, which people value, and cutting them down to too great of a degree would make people generally worse off, so we should keep our tree-cutting practices under control.

Contrast this with an actual argument for respecting trees, which would sound something like this: Just as we have a good of our own, and can be benefitted and harmed by the actions of others, so can trees be benefitted or harmed by what we do. Surely it is not meaningless to speak of the flourishing of a tree, and we can all recognize when a tree has been stunted or destroyed. So it is only by attributing value to the human sort of flourishing and not to other sorts of flourishing that we arrive at the view that it’s wrong to harm a person, but not wrong to harm a tree. There is simply no good ground for this double standard. Anything we cite as the reason why humans are “more valuable” or “more important” than trees must be the recognition of a characteristic in humans that is valuable for and to humans. For example, a tree is not a rational being; a tree cannot feel pain; but of what importance are those things to the flourishing of a tree? Why judge a tree by human standards? To respect the tree, we must recognize that all teleological centers of life are valuable in their own right, and our differences cannot be used to justify the subordination of one being’s good to another’s. Therefore, we must not just go around killing trees for no good reason, and must approach situations in which we must destroy trees with respect and restraint.

Of course, I’m not endorsing that argument. I’m only trying to tease out the difference between an argument for respect for trees and an argument for respect for the usefulness of trees to people.