At huge cost to the economy and freedom from government regulations and bureaucracy. Plus, a lot of "green" solutions aren't utopic or practical.
It's not all or nothing, and I support being ecologically conscious. But I don't think it's wise to dismiss all criticism of the climate change cult.
So color me jaded about Dems shouting about tax credits for GM Volts or implementing cap and trade.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023034803045795784...
"Yet the assertion that 97% of scientists believe that climate change is a man-made, urgent problem is a fiction. The so-called consensus comes from a handful of surveys and abstract-counting exercises that have been contradicted by more reliable research."
If it's Science, why the lies? And why the push for government intervention? I thought Science was about reality, not policy.
If climate "skeptics" aren't completely full of it, why do they constantly mix up climate and weather and otherwise constantly demonstrate fundamental misunderstandings of the topic?
In fact, there's little that's worse for HN. Such tangents are predictable, which makes them tedious, and tendentious, which makes them prolific. Tedious plus prolific equals sludge. Moreover, such discussions only get worse as they proceed, never better.
Of course it's not terrible to improve the atmosphere. But you're making it sound like all methods are equivalent; when there are limited resources to address the problem, they need to be allocated accordingly.
It's a similar situation to water in California -- yes, everyone should cut down on consumption. But the single-family mega-mansions using as much as 90 normal residences [1] cutting 10% of their water usage has a much bigger impact than an average residence cutting 10%.
Edited:
If a billion dollars spent in the US reduces US emissions by 5%, and US emissions and emissions from these fires are equivalent, and it costs less to incentivize Indonesian / Malaysian palm oil producers to stop burning peat forest and reduce emissions by 5%, we should be doing that instead.
[1] https://www.revealnews.org/article/the-wet-prince-of-bel-air...
Original before edit: If the US could spend a billion dollars to reduce our carbon emissions by 5%, or could spend a billion dollars paying Indonesia & Malaysia to stop setting palm oil on fire and reduce THEIR emissions, the results are not equivalent. The latter is 200x more effective. [the 200x was from a misreading of the article]
"Taken together, the impact of peat fires on global warming can be more than 200 times greater than fires on other lands."
And if you're looking at how the US could effectively use its financial clout to help the environment, funding investigations into who started illegal forest fires in upstream Kalimantan is probably going to be lower on the list than subsidising cleantech in California.
One of the tricks of the trade is to use logical fallacies, as they are mechanisms for hiding premises or faulty logic, which is ideal to build assumptions in the viewer's mind that are then shattered by the punchline.
The figure of speech employed here is a fallacy called Begging the Question. When the character says "what if we create a better world for nothing" he is implicitly accepting the premise that the changes proposed by the presenter would create a better world even though he might not agree with the presenter's conclusions.
So the "funny" comes from pretending that we all agree that the list of things the presenter is talking about actually describe "a better world".
As for real life, I would say the cartoon, while funny, does not "sum up perfectly" the issue in real life, because in real life what is under dispute is whether governments taking more control for themselves, in order to carry out those things in the presenter's slide, is actually a better world than all of the alternatives, including taking care of the planet without giving more power to government institutions which have proven themselves incapable of seeing to completion endeavors several orders of magnitude simpler than "saving the world".
And in fact we already saw what happens when government does take control. The result is vastly improved pollution, and without wrecking the economy.
Where? What's that place where the industry (short for "all private companies") can do what they will (your words), meaning, government cannot curb their will?
I've never heard of such place in all my readings of History and Economics. I'm ready for you to blow my mind!
For times and places where pollution was not regulated, look at just about anywhere before 1900 or so.
Can you point out in your original post ("We already saw what happens") the wording you used to constrain the actions you are talking about to just pollution? I missed that. I don't want to accuse you of poorly wording your arguments, or fixing them up as you go along.
> For times and places where pollution was not regulated, look at just about anywhere before 1900 or so.
So now what you're saying is this:
We already saw what happens when the government lets the industry do what they will regarding pollution, but doesn't let them do what they will in numerous other aspects: the result is massive pollution (your example being, I suppose, US in 1880).
"And in fact we already saw what happens when government does take control. The result is vastly improved pollution, and without wrecking the economy."
Where is that place? What's the place that right now doesn't have a wrecked economy, whose government tightly regulates pollution (I want to know how often that government sends workers to collect samples from factories waste, test it in the lab, potentially sues the company for non-compliance, etc) and that had a horrible pollution problem that was vastly improved by government action?
I still think what we should try is a situation where a government lets the industry do what they will in every aspect (not just pollution). That, it seems, has never happened, and according to Rothbard, Hayek, Friedman and Nozick, would yield the most positive solution of all possible solutions (which in this case would be the cleanest environment).
By the way, this means that your original post did not refute what I said, because you only refuted the regulated-industries-excepting-pollution, whereas I was talking about unregulated industries.
I'm curious as to why you think completely unregulated industry would result in the most reduction in pollution, when industries with no pollution regulations (but with other regulations) have repeatedly shown to pollute enormously at every opportunity. What mechanism would cause industry to suddenly care about their pollution in that scenario?
How could those industries not pollute enormously, when they have to quickly adapt to any new government law or regulation (or they will die) in an unpredictable political and legislative scenario? Even if a company had plans to contain their pollution (and therefore funds allocated for this), they would quickly have to divert those funds as soon as a new regulation impeded on their business. When companies are run in unpredictable, ever-changing scenarios such as being regulated by a government, they can't look into the future with confidence to make financial decisions for it in the present (such is the nature of not being able to predict the next rule coming down the pike).
As for your question, it's simple, really. The mechanism that would cause industry to suddenly care about their pollution is called private property - which, don't kid yourself, is not the "private property" extant in the U.S. where there are still taxes for land that is owned, there's eminent domain, there's civil forfeiture, etc. Which is crazy, considering the constitution really only allows the government to own 10 square miles of land, but that's besides the point.
With private property, industries would be very careful not to pollute, say, a nearby river they don't own, because the owner might sue them for having damaged their property (just like you can sue for someone driving a wrecking ball through your house by accident or with intent to damage). If the company in question does own their nearby river, they will still have to make sure that they are only polluting the river they own, and not any downstream rivers that are not their property, or they might get sued by those downstream-river owners.
The government's job, in this scenario, is to enforce contract law and property rights (via tort law) through its justice courts. Since the river owners and the polluting company (in our example) don't have a contract with each other, only tort law applies. Clearly the company damaged these owners' rivers downstream (let's suppose) so the courts will decide the company must either cease and desist (destroying the property of river owners) and compensate them for the damage caused, or offer to buy them out, or offer to draw a contract that the river owners would agree to instead of winning the lawsuit.
If the company owns the nearby river and there are no downstream rivers, they can choose to pollute that river without consequences. If people aren't happy with that, they have many choices: they may bring awareness to the cause, stage a boycott, pool money to offer to buy the river (though the company isn't required to sell, its shareholders nevertheless like money and will be forced to weigh between 1. selling the river and finding some place else to store their waste and byproducts, and 2. continuing to pollute the river that causes them so much grief they have people offering them money to stop - the company will have to find a way to solve that impasse). Most probably this would be solved swiftly since the options outlined do not need the government.
I'm sure this will probably raise more questions for you than answer them, but having gone through that same path I can tell you all those questions have satisfying answers scattered all across many books by Rothbard, Nozick et alii but most of them have been compiled nicely by a very smart and helpful lady called Mary J. Ruwart.
Your example is very good for the lawsuit approach, because there's one polluter and one pollutee and it's very clear with liability, cause and effect, etc.
I accept that this solution works for cases like this. Indeed, it's why I mostly don't have to deal with people dumping trash on my front door and such. Property rights work fine for that sort of thing.
The problem I have is when both pollution and harm is much more diffuse. You might have thousands or millions of polluters, and millions or billions of victims. For any given polluter-pollutee pairing, the harm is far below the cost of litigation. Yet the total harm can be enormous.
For example, let's say there's a city with ten thousand factories and 20 million people. The factories are polluting the air like crazy which makes it unpleasant to be outside and causing all sorts of long-term health problems. (I just got back from Beijing so this is a particularly significant example for me.) Someone living in this city wants to sue the polluters for the massive amount of harm they're causing. How does this work?
Here's how I see it not working. They can't sue every factory because they can't afford the legal fees for ten thousand lawsuits. They'll have to pick one, or maybe a few. Now they get to court and have to prove damages. Well, the defendant's pollution is causing about 0.01% of the total pollution affecting the plaintiff. It's negligible. Even if you say that the total harm to the plaintiff is, say, $10 million, the defendant's share of that liability is $1,000. Hardly worth the time to litigate. And will you even be able to prove to the court that that particular factory is responsible for any of the pollution harming that particular plaintiff? Particles don't have serial numbers, after all, and neither do cancer cells.
Maybe you manage to put together a class action lawsuit so all 20 million citizens can band together. You still have the same problems of going after an individual factory.
Maybe the legal system is structured such that all 20 million citizens can band together and sue all 10,000 factories simultaneously. Aggregate harm can be demonstrated and liability apportioned even though no individual factory can be blamed, and no individual plaintiff can conclusively trace any ailment to the pollution. This works, but all you've done is reinvent something identical to modern environmental regulations, only they're ad-hoc regulations dictated by courts rather than concrete regulations dictated by the legislature.
And this is a relatively simple example. How would this deal with, for example, atmospheric mercury pollution that has already caused seafood to be dangerously toxic to children and pregnant women if eaten in large quantities? How would it deal with greenhouse gas pollution which won't cause any catastrophic effects for decades?
Yes, this is the scenario that would occur. It's obvious, in retrospect, you've debated this before. ;)
Are you familiar with the concept of DROs? I would need to introduce the concept of Dispute Resolution Organizations and Polycentric Law in order to explain this fully, which I am afraid would take far too long. The gist is that, due to many advantages I will skip over here, people would subscribe to DROs (like they do today for life insurance) which would mediate disputes through negotiation with a view to establishing new contracts that will repair the initial damage that is under scrutiny. People would choose DROs based on the promises and rules that DROs make and abide by when they sign their contracts with those they represent, and based on the process they have for negotiating and establishing new rules, and also their tie-breaking process.
There would be DROs for people in general, DROs for specialized trades (like medical doctors and engineers due to different liabilities), and of course DROs for companies.
If several companies are polluting the air in a given city full of people, and those people want to sue those companies for their smog having caused them bodily harm (under tort law, since your body is your property), then they could notify their DROs of their intent; those DROs already talk to each other on a consistent basis since that is how disputes are solved between people that belong to different DROs, so they already have rules amongst themselves for how to deal with lawsuits that are many-to-many in relationship, as it were. Upon asked to effectuate this plural lawsuit, the DROs representing both plural parties would engage in negotiation amongst themselves on behalf of their clients and would need to find a solution that would make most of their clients happy. Here we have the DROs interests perfectly aligned with the interests of those they represent, because if the DRO makes an unpopular decision, it will lose clients.
> This works, but all you've done is reinvent something identical to modern environmental regulations
Yes, but now without the coercion that is sine-qua-non to regulations. That means a huge decrease in the initiation of violence among people.
> And this is a relatively simple example.
It is, and I hope my sketch-answer above has enough information to inform you that there are very good and well-fleshed-out solutions to this problem as discovered by the philosophers that explore this field. Nozick is particularly good at taking readers through complicated examples of real-life situations that at first seem hard or impossible to solve with a free market.
> How would this deal with, for example, atmospheric mercury pollution that has already caused seafood to be dangerously toxic to children and pregnant women if eaten in large quantities? How would it deal with greenhouse gas pollution which won't cause any catastrophic effects for decades?
I do not know if there are proposed solutions for those issues where there is a large delay between cause and effect. Here I am speaking from my own head and not remembering things I've read as I was above for the DRO answer: I would guess that for the first case, where a present issue was caused by something/someone(s) in a hazy past, that the tortfeasor may be impossible to track down to engage the plaintiffs. If the tortfeasor companies are still around and haven't engaged in this issue before, and proof can be established to link cause and effect to them, I imagine it could be treated as a normal lawsuit from here on (having identified both parties in the suit); their representative DROs will have to negotiate and come up with a solution that is satisfying for all parties involved; if rectification is impossible, then perhaps reparations would be in order. If there is a known method for fish-mercury removal (or the like), then depending on the pressure put on the DROs by their clients, the resolution could include the company having to pay to employ this solution, even though the person who was responsible for the mercury leak (let's suppose) might be long gone.
As for the greenhouse problem where the cause is in the present and the effect is in a hazy future, the DROs would first expect good evidence that there is indeed a cause of something going on, and sufficient evidence that this cause will result in a definable effect. Having established as much, there may be grounds for a lawsuit under threat of violence (threats of violence are considered initiation of violence by most philosophers in this area) since the noxious gases being dispersed now are threatening the lives of children and infant (we can't use "future generations") in the future, just like a threat to kill someone works.
This has been very enjoyable, and I hope you can take something away from this. Most free marketers I meet are well read and reached their conclusions from carefully reading the extremely counter-intuitive stuff that Nozick et alii put forth, or whoever else is their favorite Jew, since most of the best free market philosophers have been Jews for some reason [1] (my guess: high verbal intelligence coupled with propensity towards radicalization and high self-confidence and courage, or as they call it, chutzpah) and I feel like mentioning it because I owe my education largely to them (as an autodidact in economics), even though I am a harsh critic of their version of WW2 history (critiques which are purely based on science (especially chemical analysis) and not on any form of bigotry as many are quick to suggest).
[1] The current best jewish free marketer philosopher is unbeatably Walter Block. You owe it to yourself to listen to some of his arguments; you will undoubtedly catch a glimpse of the whole free market machinery at work through his astoundingly clear explanations. No one comes close. His defense of slander and libel are among my favorites - students that at first disagree with him are left speechless after having their contentions undone by Block.
I find it extremely difficult to take anything you say seriously when you make absurd statements like this. Environmental regulation is responsible for so much violence that its lack can cause a "huge decrease" in it?
Reading further, you are apparently using a definition of the word "violence" which is essentially unrelated to how normal people understand the word. What other words are you using your own definitions for? How am I to understand anything you're saying in any of this when apparently any word can mean anything at any time?
The unlawful exercise of physical force or intimidation by the exhibition of such force.
(Emphasis mine.)
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_eng...
Regulation is intimidation by the exhibition of force (the regulatory body's authority is an exhibition of the threat of violence that backs its ability to fine and imprison).
That is initiation of violence number one.
Second of all, it is theft since the government is appropriating goods it does not own without permission from the owner which in this case is the company that broke environmental regulations.
That is initiation of violence number two.
Now I must ask you, Mike Ash, after all this conversation and your refutations visibly fizzling out (first your silly "I refuse to look up 'violence' in the dictionary' and presently this 'I can't see the violence in threatening banks and stealing from them' grasping-at-straws move, and after having seen my arguments for what I am defending and after your not being able to offer substantive counter-arguments), are you ready to entertain the thought that we should give fully unregulated (-by the government or any other monopoly on violence) industries and private property law a try?
I am ready and willing to help you learn more as I hope to have demonstrated throughout this discussion where I wasn't disrespectful to you and treated your inquiries fairly. I must say though, that judging from your last replies, it might be that you do not possess the intellectual honesty I thought you did when we first started this discussion, because your last two responses have been intellectually dishonest (not looking up in the dictionary, and not being willing to see the violence in state coercion).
The governments job in the present US system includes that, and its demonstrable that that function of government alone is not sufficient to encourage polluters to take great pains not to pollute others property, especially with pollutants that are difficult to trace to a single source such that ascribing liability to a particular polluter is difficult.
You suggest that things like property tax, eminent domain, etc. are problematic to your vision of "private property" (which seems a lot more like sovereign territory than private property), but you don't actually trace any causal link between the features you complain about and companies' propensity to pollute, and the avenues you point to as solutions in a "private property" (by your rather atypical definition of the term) system are, in fact, avenues that are equally present in the existing system and which have proven insufficient to the task.
The US is the second largest emitter of CO2 in the world, and emits one seventh of the world total. China emits twice as much but has four times as many people. If you brought China into line with the US on a per-capita basis, you'd increase their total emissions by a factor of two!
[1]http://www.wsj.com/articles/north-dakotas-latest-fracking-pr...
"Just went we learn to play poker they change the game to bridge."