Free market environmentalism, property rights, and rational cost-benefit analyses
April 22nd, 2008 by Republican By DefaultEarth day. In the 70’s it was a bunch of aging hippies trying to fight their growing insignificance. Now it’s a political firestorm being used as a way to gain support for raising taxes and stripping land owners of their property rights.
In case you are too young to remember, the last climate change scare was ‘the coming ice age’. The Washington Policy Institute put together a list of climate change quotes about the last climate hoax (Earth Day 2008: Predictions of Environmental Disaster Were Wrong). Just one example:
- Because of increased dust, cloud cover and water vapor “…the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born,” Newsweek magazine, January 26, 1970.
In Biblical terminology, these are called ‘false prophecies’, and with that comes the admonition that we shouldn’t fear those false prophets. So, I don’t.
Are we supposed to think that el Nino and global warming stopped the coming ice age? Did greenhouse gases save the planet? Or were the scare-mongers just plain wrong then? And if they were wrong then, could they be wrong now?
In a related note, Michelle Malkin points out that Newt Gingrich may have crossed a line in filming a commercial with Nancy Pelosi for an Al Gore scare-mongering organization. I have to say, I’m disappointed. Normally I’ve relied on Newt for sound reason on major issues (such as environmentalism, health-care reform and government reform), so this seems out of character.
Here’s Newt’s response in a letter to subscribers:
The Gingrich-Pelosi Climate Change Ad: Why I Took Part
Many of you have written to me to ask why I recently taped an advertisement with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for The Alliance for Climate Protection, a group founded by former Vice President Al Gore.
I completely understand why many of you would have questions about this, so I want to take this opportunity to explain my reasons. First of all, I want to be clear: I don’t think that we have conclusive proof of global warming. And I don’t think we have conclusive proof that humans are at the center of it.
But here’s what we do know. There is an important debate going on right now over the right energy policy, the right environmental policy, and making sure we do the right things for our future and the future of our children and grandchildren. Conservatives are missing from this debate, and I think that’s a mistake. When it comes to preserving our environment for future generations, we can’t have a slogan of “Just yell no!”
I have a different view. I think it’s important to be on the stage, to engage in the debate, and to communicate our position clearly. There is a big difference between left-wing environmentalism that wants higher taxes, bigger government., more bureaucracy, more regulation, more red tape, and more litigation and a Green Conservatism that wants to use science, technology, innovation, entrepreneurs, and prizes to find a way to creatively invent the kind of environmental future we all want to live in. Unless we start making the case for the latter, we’re going to get the former. That’s why I took part in the ad.
I agree with his reasons right up to the point where he took part in the ad. So, for now I’ll just dismiss it as a momentary lapse in judgment. Shilling for Mr. Lock-Box isn’t a good way to enter into the debate. It puts conservatives on the wrong footing.
I agree with Newt that conservatives need to enter the debate. We need to fight for free market environmentalism, property rights, and rational cost-benefit analyses (quote taken from Michelle Malkin’s piece linked to above). That should be our ‘battle cry’ in this fight against left-wing lunacy in environmental policy.
The city I live in, Tacoma, is currently being overrun by environmental scare-mongers. They’re not happy scaring children in schools as they talk about climate change under the guise of a holiday that originally just gave hippies another excuse to party. They want to scare adults as well.
Last week at a Neighborhood Council Meeting we heard from city planners about height restrictions in an area that falls in the West-End Neighborhood. That was the most worked up I’ve heard people in a public discussion forum in a long time.
Afterward came a presentation from a left-wing environmental group that seems to have paid, full-time staff with the sole purpose of influencing public policy to strip away property rights and spend money on ridiculous projects that are supposed to protect the environment. There was only one question for that group. It was a woman inquiring about who formed the organization. The answer wasn’t really an answer. I’ll have to look into that.
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:23 pm
A Global Warming paradigm as a means to build political careers and for use as a basis for governments to formulate policies for social control?
There is nothing new under the sun.
We all want to have faith in our leaders to guide and govern us on the basis of truth. In return, we pledge to guard that truth.
Is there any truth in the Global Warming paradigm worth guarding, worth dying for?
I think it might be best if the United States could set the world standard for environmental policies, as opposed to China for instance.
But how can the U.S. sustain its position as a world leader if its citizens are impeded by questionable taxation and economic policies by which the rest of the world doesn’t conduct itself?