Monbiot may be a statist, but he's right on in this column
Let us accept the idea that damage to the value of property without the owner’s consent is an unwarranted intrusion upon the owner’s freedoms. What this means is that as soon as libertarians encounter environmental issues, they’re stuffed.
Climate change, industrial pollution, ozone depletion, damage to the physical beauty of the area surrounding people’s homes (and therefore their value), all these, if the libertarians did not possess a shocking set of double standards, would be denounced by them as infringements on other people’s property.
The owners of coal-burning power stations in the UK have not obtained the consent of everyone who owns a lake or a forest in Sweden to deposit acid rain there. So their emissions, in the libertarian worldview, should be regarded as a form of trespass on the property of Swedish landowners. Nor have they received the consent of the people of this country to allow mercury and other heavy metals to enter our bloodstreams, which means that they are intruding upon our property in the form of our bodies.
Nor have they – or airports, oil companies or car manufacturers – obtained the consent of all those it will affect to release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, altering global temperatures and – through rising sea levels, droughts, storms and other impacts – damaging the property of many people.
Read the whole thing here.
Taken to its logical conclusion, market anarchism has much to offer the environmental movement.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Tea Party joins the fight against toxic, statist pipeline
Looks like some Tea Party people have started to realize the fact that their anti-environment views conflict with their libertarian tendencies. How is a giant toxic pipeline, made possible through eminent domain theft (along with violating the property rights of the indigenous in Canada) a "small government" project? It's crony capitalism, and ecologically destructive crony capitalism at that.
Paul Craig Roberts on libertarianism and the environment
I couldn't have said it better myself:
Libertarians claim that the best way to protect the environment is to have it privately owned. If streams, oceans, and underground aquifers were privately owned, the owners could sue polluters such as the oil companies, the mining companies, agri-business, etc. Thus, private property would protect the environment. Whether this would work or not, we are a long way from such private ownership, and many private economic activities are destroying common environmental resources.
The list is endless. The World Wildlife Fund reports that Asia Pulp & Paper is destroying the last remaining Sumatran tigers by clear cutting the tigers’ last remaining refuge in order to produce toilet paper marketed in the US under the Paseo and LIVI brand names. “Feel the Power! Buy our product and flush a tiger and a rain forest!”
The National Defense Resource Council reports that under an Obama regime and state of Utah plan, massive coal mining will be permitted adjacent to Bryce Canyon National Park. Three hundred heavy diesel trucks per day will travel down the scenic two-lane highway to supply China with dirty coal.
The Obama regime has granted Shell Oil tentative approval to begin drilling off the coast of the Arctic Refuge, the main on-shore birthing ground for polar bears.
Defenders of Wildlife reports that Shell Oil is pushing to open Bristol Bay to oil drilling, despite the danger to fisheries and wildlife and despite the fact that the long-term value of the renewable fisheries far exceeds the short-term value of nonrenewable fossil fuel extraction in the area.
In the Powder River Basin in Montana, coal companies are mobilizing to destroy the water resources and ranchers in the eastern part of the state.
All of these are current hot ticket items with progressives, environmentalists, and ranchers. Obama is vulnerable. He has put the tar sands pipeline on hold, but many believe he will approve the environmentally destructive project once he is re-elected.
Air, water, wildlife, and fish in the sea are not private property and have no protectors. They are being destroyed by the lack of regulation. Moreover, private property has not protected forests from being clearcut or soil from being depleted of its natural nutrients. The chemical farming with which agri-business has replaced natural farming has polluted America’s aquifers, streams, lakes, rivers, and the Gulf of Mexico, which has extensive dead areas from chemical fertilizer run-off.
As Herman Daly and other environmental economists have made clear, the world is running out of sinks into which to dump its wastes. The external costs of unregulated activity are mounting. Once a threshold is crossed, the environment is ruined. The drive to maximize short-run profits is a great source of ruin. The external costs associated with maximizing short-run profits can exceed the value of the private output.
Libertarians claim that the best way to protect the environment is to have it privately owned. If streams, oceans, and underground aquifers were privately owned, the owners could sue polluters such as the oil companies, the mining companies, agri-business, etc. Thus, private property would protect the environment. Whether this would work or not, we are a long way from such private ownership, and many private economic activities are destroying common environmental resources.
The list is endless. The World Wildlife Fund reports that Asia Pulp & Paper is destroying the last remaining Sumatran tigers by clear cutting the tigers’ last remaining refuge in order to produce toilet paper marketed in the US under the Paseo and LIVI brand names. “Feel the Power! Buy our product and flush a tiger and a rain forest!”
The National Defense Resource Council reports that under an Obama regime and state of Utah plan, massive coal mining will be permitted adjacent to Bryce Canyon National Park. Three hundred heavy diesel trucks per day will travel down the scenic two-lane highway to supply China with dirty coal.
The Obama regime has granted Shell Oil tentative approval to begin drilling off the coast of the Arctic Refuge, the main on-shore birthing ground for polar bears.
Defenders of Wildlife reports that Shell Oil is pushing to open Bristol Bay to oil drilling, despite the danger to fisheries and wildlife and despite the fact that the long-term value of the renewable fisheries far exceeds the short-term value of nonrenewable fossil fuel extraction in the area.
In the Powder River Basin in Montana, coal companies are mobilizing to destroy the water resources and ranchers in the eastern part of the state.
All of these are current hot ticket items with progressives, environmentalists, and ranchers. Obama is vulnerable. He has put the tar sands pipeline on hold, but many believe he will approve the environmentally destructive project once he is re-elected.
Air, water, wildlife, and fish in the sea are not private property and have no protectors. They are being destroyed by the lack of regulation. Moreover, private property has not protected forests from being clearcut or soil from being depleted of its natural nutrients. The chemical farming with which agri-business has replaced natural farming has polluted America’s aquifers, streams, lakes, rivers, and the Gulf of Mexico, which has extensive dead areas from chemical fertilizer run-off.
As Herman Daly and other environmental economists have made clear, the world is running out of sinks into which to dump its wastes. The external costs of unregulated activity are mounting. Once a threshold is crossed, the environment is ruined. The drive to maximize short-run profits is a great source of ruin. The external costs associated with maximizing short-run profits can exceed the value of the private output.
Why I Created This Blog
As a long-time individualist/market anarchist, it was only within the last couple years that I became interested in the subject of ecology. Sadly, the more I read, the more I became convinced that libertarians were totally ignorant and callous on this issue. Despite the fact that there is NOTHING inherently anti-environmentalist about libertarian ideology per se, libertarians tend to adopt mindless, knee-jerk anti-environmentalist views on just about everything. Ironically, for all their criticisms of state socialism, they believe we should have the EXACT same policy towards the natural world as the Soviet Union did.
This blog will serve as a correction to the hysterical anti-environment libertarians, and document all of their blatant hypocrisies. It will also keep track of state policies that encourage or cause environmental problems, as well as market innovations that decrease them.
Don't worry: this blog will cover other topics related to market anarchism as well.
Are you a market anarchist with an interest in green ideology? Stay tuned.
-Cork
This blog will serve as a correction to the hysterical anti-environment libertarians, and document all of their blatant hypocrisies. It will also keep track of state policies that encourage or cause environmental problems, as well as market innovations that decrease them.
Don't worry: this blog will cover other topics related to market anarchism as well.
Are you a market anarchist with an interest in green ideology? Stay tuned.
-Cork
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