Any time you calmly and rationally keep asking for more and more evidence that the toxic waste you're poisoning my kids' water and air with isn't all that bad, or is a net benefit for humanity even if my kids seem ever-the-more sickly for it you're causing irreparable harm.
I feel such a profound imposition of your will -- convince me I'm not poisoning you! -- over mine is something that doesn't deserve polite speech and I don't care if it makes you uncomfortable.
This is really the conflict that's going to play out all over the next century, regardless of how climate-change specifically plays out:
- libertarian-minded types like to think we live in a world where it's possible to swing a fist without hitting someone's face
- if that world ever really existed, it's gone now: anytime you light a fire you're blowing smoke in my face
It's the difference between the morality of the home and the morality of the bus station:
- in your home you're surrounded by walls and only people who want to be there (usually) are present, so do as you wish
- in the bus station you're cheek-by-jowl with hundreds to thousands of other people, and the only thing that makes it bearable is a shared belief in restraint
The abstraction of "your resources" is just another leaky abstraction:
- there's no platonic book of property titles; you can't really call God on the phone and confirm that "your resources" are actually "yours, to do with as you wish"
- you can't really (as an individual) exert enough force to make everyone respect your "ownership" over "your resources"; the fact that you can act as though they're unambiguously yours depends on the willingness of hundreds of millions of people to leave you and "your resources" alone
- even if everyone agrees "your resources" are yours, you -- and your resources -- are not off in some private pocket universe when you use your resources; you -- and your resources -- are embedded in the same material reality everyone else is, and every action you take -- including any use you make of your resources -- will impact other people
- it's not realistic to expect people to sit idly by if you and your use of "your resources" are harming them; since "your resources" staying "your resources" depends on everyone else being willing to leave you alone, it's not smart to use "your resources" in a way that blows smoke in their face or pisses in their drinking water
- historically people have been more willing to treat certain resource usages as "not harming them" (eg: smokestacks, dumping industrial byproducts into riverwater, etc.); this is less and less true with time, and there's no sign of a slowdown in that trend
- every time so far that a particular set of negative environmental externalities has been identified the producers of that externality have either voluntarily agreed to cut back, some kind of nominal regulation (looks good, may not actually do anything) has been imposed, or some actually-strong regulation has been put in place; it's obvious which way the wind is blowing, here
Regardless of how "climate change" pans out, this is the future:
- on the one side, people who strongly believe they're being directly harmed by actions you're taking; any calm, rational request for evidence that your actions are actually harmful is asking for them to endure more harm, and to what end? Why does your claim on "your resources" -- which ultimately depends upon their consent, as you yourself can't do squat to hold onto "your resources" should they lift that consent -- trump their well being? What justifies such self-sacrifice? Why would it ever be your place to tell me how much smoke in my face I ought to be willing to put up with?
- on the other side, people taking actions they've been taking in the past will want to continue taking them. Sometimes they will probably have a reasonable case for continuing to take those actions, and sometimes they won't; in any case, they're at a disadvantage:
--- direct appeals to the fact that you're using "your resources" aren't going to resonate with your accusers (even if they rouse sympathy in those who fear they're next); not only are "your resources" only "yours" until the people you're arguing with decide they aren't, but you're insisting on upholding an abstraction that's looking ever-the-more leaky
--- direct appeals to how much harm you're causing (or not) are also going to fall flat; it's not really your place to tell other people how much harm you can cause them before they have a right to complain, and so for this to work at all you need to appeal to some kind of mutually-accepted arbiter; that mutually-accepted arbiter is going to be ultimately more beholden to everyone-else-but-you (you are one, they are many)
I'd like to as much as possible preserve the notion of "your resources" and some kind of private sphere in which one can act freely (without looking over one's shoulder) but that's not going to happen if you take the abstraction for granted, and ignore the reality (what you're asking for is leeway and the presumption from other parties that you're not harming them enough for them to take action...that's an exceedingly fragile base).