Libertarian Solutions: Making Sense of the Global Warming Crisis
Rhinehold
Libertarian Solutions: Making sense of the global warming 'crisis'
by Bill Winter
LP News Editor
Global warming is going to kill your children. At least, that's the
claim of a significant number of scientists and politicians.
They say global warming will cause the world's temperature to rise by as
much as 5.8 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century. That, in turn,
will cause the ice caps to melt, sea levels to rise, epidemics of
tropical diseases to rage across the globe, and cataclysmic storms and
droughts to destroy crops and cities.
Are they correct? To answer that, we must first answer four other
questions:
1) Is the earth really getting warmer?
2) If it's getting warmer, is human activity causing it?
3) How much warmer might it get?
4) How bad might the effects be?
Environmentalists get indignant if you ask the first two questions. They
say the science is so definitive that anyone who questions global
warming is a crackpot.
For example, former vice president and amateur climatologist Al Gore
compared critics of global warming to tobacco company executives who
lied about the dangers of cigarettes. Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
(FAIR) called ABC News commentator John Stosell a "free-market zealot"
for questioning global warming doom-and-gloom scenarios.
Environmentalists also say they know the answers to the third and fourth
questions. Gore claimed in his 1993 book Earth in the Balance that
"every coastal country will suffer adverse effects" from rising sea
levels, and that "pests, germs, and viruses [will] migrate with the
changing climate patterns," threatening the lives of "hundreds of
millions of people."
Raising the rhetorical ante even more was Sir John Houghton, co-chair of
the U.N.'s Scientific Assessment Working Group of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, who proclaimed that "human-induced climate
change is a weapon of mass destruction."
Are they correct? Are we polluting ourselves into an environmental
apocalypse?
But first: What exactly is "global warming"?
It's the theory that gasses -- primarily carbon dioxide (CO2), methane
(CH4), and nitrous oxide (N02) -- created by burning fossil fuels like
oil and coal collect in the atmosphere, trapping heat and causing global
temperatures to rise.
The theory was first expounded by Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius in
1896. At the time, Arrhenius was concerned about smoke caused by coal,
which was burned to fuel the industrial revolution.
No one paid much attention until the 1950s, when some hotter than usual
summers prompted Scripps Institution of Oceanography Director Roger
Revelle to revive the theory.
However, by the 1960s, global warming had been supplanted by a new
theory -- global cooling. A two-decades long chill caused scientists to
warn that atmospheric smoke and dust were leading inexorably to a new
Ice Age. The only debate, noted John Shanahan in a Heritage Foundation
Backgrounder (May 21, 1992) was "how soon it would come and how
devastating the cold would be."
To the surprise of many, glaciers failed to cover the earth. Instead,
temperatures crept back up, leading to another revival of the global
warming theory. In 1975, the first computer-simulated climate model
(called a General Circulation Model, or GCM) was introduced. It
predicted that CO2 would cause sustained temperature increases.
In 1988, James Hansen, chief of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space
Studies, told the U.S. Senate that global warming had arrived, and "we
can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect
relationship" to human activity.
Alarmed, the United Nations created the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988 to study "human-induced climate change."
The panel issued a report that declared a "balance of evidence suggests
a discernible human influence on the global climate." Using computer
models, it predicted that global temperatures could increase by 5.8
degrees by 2100.
That prognostication inspired the Kyoto Protocol (named after the
Japanese city in which it was negotiated). The treaty called for
industrialized countries to reduce greenhouse gases by 7% by 2012.
However, the Kyoto Protocol can't take effect until it is ratified by 55
nations, including industrialized nations that produce 55% of the
world's greenhouse gases.
The U.S. Senate has refused to ratify it, citing the massive cost of
compliance. By some estimates, the curbs in energy production mandated
by the Kyoto Protocol could cause the U.S. GDP to fall by $318 billion
and could destroy 3.1 million jobs.
Meanwhile, the global warming debate goes on. Which leads us back to our
four questions...
* Is the earth really getting warmer?
Probably. But only a little.
Over the last 100 years, the Earth's temperature has increased about one
degree Fahrenheit, according to S. Fred Singer in Environment News
(November 21, 2003).
However, as noted in the Cato Handbook for the 107th Congress, a
significant portion of that warming occurred between 1910 to 1940 --
"and likely had little if anything to do with changes in the earth's
greenhouse effect, as three-quarters of the greenhouse emissions
occurred in the [post-World War II] era."
Since then, temperatures have flattened out. In fact, by 1996, 100
climate scientists signed the Leipzig Declaration, which stated, "Most
scientists now accept the fact that actual observations from Earth
satellites show no climate warming whatsoever."
* If it's getting warmer, is human activity causing it?
Possibly. There is evidence that human-created CO2 has nudged global
temperatures up slightly in the 20th century.
But the proof is not conclusive; other evidence suggests that the rise
in temperature is part of long-term, natural cycles.
We do know this: Levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have increased by about
30% -- from 280 parts per million (ppm) to about 365 ppm -- over the
past millennium.
However, human beings play only a small role in the production of CO2.
As a documentary on England's Channel 4 Television noted in 1997:
"Oceans emit 90 billion tons of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas,
every year. Decaying plants throw up another 90 billion tons, compared
to just six billion tons a year from humans."
A study of historic records, tree rings, and ice cores also reveals that
there have been significant climate fluctuations through the ages.
For example, there was a centuries-long warming spell -- called the
Medieval Warm Period -- that allowed Vikings to settle in Greenland in
982 A.D. The now-snow covered island had pockets of lush greenery and a
hospitable growing season back then, and more than 1,000 Scandinavians
thrived there.
Thrived for about 200 years, that is. Then, the so-called Little Ice Age
chilled the entire Western hemisphere. By 1480 A.D., all the Greenland
Vikings had fled or starved to death during icy winters.
During the Little Ice Age, the Thames river in London froze, famines
became more frequent as crops failed because of shorter growing seasons,
and glaciers advanced out of the Swiss Alps.
(Interesting historical side note: Researchers now think that Antonio
Stradivari made such heavenly sounding violins because of the Little Ice
Age. USA Today reported on December 2, 2003 that the cold winters and
cool summers stunted Alpine Spruce tree growth in Europe, making the
wood denser, and giving it special acoustic properties. Stradivari made
his famous violins from 1700 to 1720, right in the middle of the Little
Ice Age.)
Scientists who measure today's temperatures against the
colder-than-average Little Ice Age, which lasted from the mid-14th
century until about 1850, are "exaggerating the significance of today's
temperature rise," said the Wikipedia Encyclopedia.
If the planet is getting warmer again, what is turning up the
thermostat? One possible answer: The sun.
In a study in the journal Physical Review Letters and publicized in the
Washington Times (November 3, 2003), European scientists reported that
the sun has been more active during the last half-century than at
anytime in the last 1,150 years.
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Aeronomy and the University
of Oulu say sunspots are at a millennium-high level. They calculated
this based on radioactive isotopes preserved in ice cores from Greenland
and Antarctica.
The European scientists did not claim that the sunspots contribute to
global warming. However, as the Washington Times reported, "Their work
will probably be noted by those who claim temperature rises during the
past century are the result of changes in the Sun's output."
* How much hotter might it get?
According to the latest "best guess" by the IPCC's computer models, the
Earth's temperature will increase by 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100.
However, as Joseph L. Bast noted in Heartland Policy Study No. 88
(October 1, 1998), the IPCC's computer models are "unable to replicate
past climate trends."
In other words, when they run the models backwards, and attempt to
recreate the temperature fluctuations that have actually occurred over
the past 100 years, the computer generates numbers that "do not even
overlap" with reality. Such "unreliable" results show that the computer
models are "too crude to predict future climate changes," wrote Bast.
Other scientists say the temperature increase could be 2.25 degrees
Fahrenheit, according to Jerry Taylor, the director of natural resource
studies at the Cato Institute.
If temperatures continue to creep upwards as they have during the last
century, the increase could be as little as 1.35 degrees Fahrenheit,
said Patrick J. Michaels, author of The Satanic Gases.
Why the big difference in projections? Because "climatology is perhaps
one of the most complex and uncertain of all scientific fields," wrote
the Heritage Foundation's John Shanahan. "It is not possible to run
controlled experiments for the whole planet in a laboratory test tube.
Thus, scientists are forced to use models to predict the consequences of
various influences, and to try to disentangle the effect of one factor
from a myriad of others."
The bottom line: No one knows for sure.
* How bad might the effects be?
If you believe Al Gore, the effects of global warming will rival those
of the Black Death.
Real scientists aren't so sure. Writing in Heartland Policy Study No.
88, Bast noted that a "a slightly warmer world would probably be greener
and a little cloudier than our world today, but otherwise not much
different."
Dennis T. Avery, writing on www.GlobalWarming.org (September 1, 1998),
said a two degree increase in temperate would mean "milder winters,
fewer storms, only a slight increase in daytime summer temperatures, and
more carbon dioxide to fertilize crops and pastures."
Higher concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere would "improve
agricultural production," agreed the Heritage Foundation's Shanahan.
"Studies conducted by the Department of Agriculture's Agricultural
Research Service show that doubling the CO2 concentration in the
atmosphere would improve cotton yields by 80%, wheat and rice by 36%,
soybeans by 32%, and corn by 16%."
However, those benefits could be tempered by flooding and more
unpredictable weather, say other researchers.
In other words: No one can be sure "whether any changes in global
temperature would be beneficial or detrimental," said Shanahan.
Conclusion
There is no "official" Libertarian position on the debate over global
warming.
Libertarianism -- a political philosophy -- cannot say whether the Earth
is warming, or what causes long-term climate change, or what the impact
of a warming planet might be. Ultimately, those are scientific questions
that will be answered by scientists.
However, most libertarians will view global warming through a
libertarian sensibility.
That sensibility was best summarized by H.L. Mencken, who said, "The
whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and
hence clamoring to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless
series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
For politicians, global warming is the perfect hobgoblin.
Politicians like Al Gore tell us that only government (and the Kyoto
Protocol) can save future generations from an environmental plague of
Biblical proportions.
Without new taxes on energy sources (oil, gasoline, and coal); without
new regulations on automobiles and power plants; without
government-funded research into alternative energy sources -- in other
words, without a raft of new taxes and regulations -- the planet is
doomed, they say.
As Bast wrote in Heartland Policy Study No. 88, "Virtually all economic
activities involve the use of energy and consequently the release of
greenhouse gases." Therefore, he wrote, politicians' proposals "to limit
greenhouse gases is a license for governments to monitor, tax, regulate,
or ban virtually any activity."
Giving that power to politicians -- to "monitor, tax, regulate, or ban
virtually any activity" -- is not something that any Libertarian could
endorse.
That's why the best solution to the possible threat of global warming
may be what Bast calls the "no regrets" policy.
It consists of investing "in atmospheric research to determine whether a
genuine threat exists, and [investing] in reducing emissions only when
such investments make economic sense in their own right."
Under such a plan, government could help by reducing taxes and
eliminating regulations to "encourage new investments in capital and
technology, thereby speeding up the process of phasing out inefficient
machinery [that produce greenhouse gasses]."
Such a policy, wrote Bast, "promises much superior results without the
enormous social costs and losses of liberty" that would result from
giving politicians the almost unlimited power they say they need to
"fix" global warming.
Ike Milligan
"Rhinehold" <non...@business.com> wrote in message
news:diWdnXSNxNC...@speakeasy.net...
> http://www.lp.org/lpnews/0401/libsolutions.html
>
> Libertarian Solutions: Making sense of the global warming 'crisis'
> by Bill Winter
>
> LP News Editor
Libertarians have a lot more to worry about than Global Warming panic. The
Libertarian Party can't get arrested. One reason it's weak is, it's
overloaded with egotisitcal windbags.
--
Freedom of thought entails no "Intellectual Property".
JAS
use big words. But let's break it down. Either global warming is a fact
and in 100 years or so the results will be catastrophic, or, global warming
is not a fact and we have nothing to worry about.
If there is nothing to worry about, fine.
But what if there is something to worry about? In 100 years -- or 70 or
80 -- it's too late for corrective action.
Then you can babble about how we should have done something, globally, back
in '03 (that would be 2003).
--
----
JAS
"Rhinehold" <non...@business.com> wrote in message
news:diWdnXSNxNC...@speakeasy.net...
Captain Compassion
wrote:
>Babble, babble, babble. I know it's comforting to post long articles that
>use big words. But let's break it down. Either global warming is a fact
>and in 100 years or so the results will be catastrophic, or, global warming
>is not a fact and we have nothing to worry about.
>
>If there is nothing to worry about, fine.
>
>But what if there is something to worry about? In 100 years -- or 70 or
>80 -- it's too late for corrective action.
>
>Then you can babble about how we should have done something, globally, back
>in '03 (that would be 2003).
>
The earth has been warming and cooling for billions of years without
the help of man. What makes you believe this to be different now? Even
the IPCC scientists admit that reducing global CO2 emissions by 10%
would have little effect on their projected global warming.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.
--Will Durant
"Madmen reason rightly from the wrong premisis" -- Locke
"There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other
is wrong, but the middle is always evil." -- Ayn Rand
Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate -- William of Occam
Joseph R. Darancette
res0...@NOSPAMverizon.net
<SmirkS>
> Libertarians have a lot more to worry about than Global Warming panic.
> The Libertarian Party can't get arrested. One reason it's weak is,
> it's overloaded with egotisitcal windbags.
ouch.
--
TheTruthHurts.
<SmirkS>
> The earth has been warming and cooling for billions of years without
> the help of man. What makes you believe this to be different now? Even
> the IPCC scientists admit that reducing global CO2 emissions by 10%
> would have little effect on their projected global warming.
>
the inimitable mr carlin:
"We're so self-important. So self-important. Everybody's going to save
something now. "Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those
snails." And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. What? Are
these fucking people kidding me? Save the planet, we don't even know how to
take care of ourselves yet. We haven't learned how to care for one another,
we're gonna save the fucking planet? I'm getting tired of that shit. Tired
of that shit. I'm tired of fucking Earth Day, I'm tired of these self-
righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the
only thing wrong with this country is there aren't enough bicycle paths.
People trying to make the world save for their Volvos. Besides,
environmentalists don't give a shit about the planet. They don't care about
the planet. Not in the abstract they don't. Not in the abstract they don't.
You know what they're interested in? A clean place to live. Their own
habitat. They're worried that some day in the future, they might be
personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn't
impress me.
Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the
planet. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked. Difference. Difference.
The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been
here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the
arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We've
been here, what, a hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we've
only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years.
Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT
to think that somehow we're a threat? That somehow we're gonna put in
jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that's just a-floatin'
around the sun?
The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of
things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics,
continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic
reversal of the poles...hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by
comets and asteroids and meteors, worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide
fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages...And we think some plastic
bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The
planet...the planet...the planet isn't going anywhere. WE ARE!
We're going away. Pack your shit, folks. We're going away. And we won't
leave much of a trace, either. Thank God for that. Maybe a little
styrofoam. Maybe. A little styrofoam. The planet'll be here and we'll be
long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological
mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet'll shake us off like a bad
case of fleas. A surface nuisance.
You wanna know how the planet's doing? Ask those people at Pompeii, who are
frozen into position from volcanic ash, how the planet's doing. You wanna
know if the planet's all right, ask those people in Mexico City or Armenia
or a hundred other places buried under thousands of tons of earthquake
rubble, if they feel like a threat to the planet this week. Or how about
those people in Kilowaia, Hawaii, who built their homes right next to an
active volcano, and then wonder why they have lava in the living room.
The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we're gone, and
it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, 'cause that's what it does.
It's a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the
earth will be renewed, and if it's true that plastic is not degradable,
well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new pardigm: the
earth plus plastic. The earth doesn't share our prejudice towards plastic.
Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just
another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us
to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself.
Didn't know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old
egocentric philosophical question, "Why are we here?" Plastic...asshole.
So, the plastic is here, our job is done, we can be phased out now. And I
think that's begun. Don't you think that's already started? I think, to be
fair, the planet sees us as a mild threat. Something to be dealt with. And
the planet can defend itself in an organized, collective way, the way a
beehive or an ant colony can. A collective defense mechanism. The planet
will think of something. What would you do if you were the planet? How
would you defend yourself against this troublesome, pesky species? Let's
see... Viruses. Viruses might be good. They seem vulnerable to viruses.
And, uh...viruses are tricky, always mutating and forming new strains
whenever a vaccine is developed. Perhaps, this first virus could be one
that compromises the immune system of these creatures. Perhaps a human
immunodeficiency virus, making them vulnerable to all sorts of other
diseases and infections that might come along. And maybe it could be spread
sexually, making them a little reluctant to engage in the act of
reproduction.
Well, that's a poetic note. And it's a start. And I can dream, can't I? See
I don't worry about the little things: bees, trees, whales, snails. I think
we're part of a greater wisdom than we will ever understand. A higher
order. Call it what you want. Know what I call it? The Big Electron. The
Big Electron...whoooa. Whoooa. Whoooa. It doesn't punish, it doesn't
reward, it doesn't judge at all. It just is. And so are we. For a little
while."
Rhinehold
"JAS" <maxle...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:bsf6s...@enews3.newsguy.com...
> Babble, babble, babble. I know it's comforting to post long articles that
> use big words. But let's break it down. Either global warming is a fact
> and in 100 years or so the results will be catastrophic, or, global
warming
> is not a fact and we have nothing to worry about.
>
> If there is nothing to worry about, fine.
>
> But what if there is something to worry about? In 100 years -- or 70 or
> 80 -- it's too late for corrective action.
>
> Then you can babble about how we should have done something, globally,
back
> in '03 (that would be 2003).
Ah, the 'best believe in god' attitudes towards political policy...
I'll pass.
I find that putting millions of people out of a job on a 'best to be safe'
attitude is not only dangerous but stupid.
And how do you know that NOT acting isn't the best thing to do? We have no
imperical proof of anything in this area, except that man makes up about .5%
(a guess, but just about as valid as any other gobal warming scientist) of
anything that happens to the environment.
Rhinehold
Captain Compassion
wrote:
"Generations come and generations go, but the Earth abides forever."
-- Ecclesiastes 1:4
Thanks SmirkS