Topic: Seriously, though, how would a libertarian society address global warming? - page 23. (Read 30176 times)

If people care about it, which they clearly do, they will voluntarily devote their own resources to solving the problem, maybe even try to convince others to join in.

Whenever someone schemes about how to get my stuff in order to solve a problem they see I know they don't care much about it. When someone really cares about something they devote their own resources. It's easy to spend other people's money on garbage plans.

You sound a lot like Herman Daly (which is a good thing): http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/rethinking_growth/

Centuries is not a particularly long time in human history. We had a brief period of access to nearly free energy because we were essentially granted access to millions of years worth of concentrated solar energy. That energy will quickly start having much smaller EROI over the next century. We could argue that other energy sources - nuclear solar hydro geo etc will take up the slack, but there is at least a fair possibility that they won't/can't.

Unless we redefine growth in terms of "development" rather than increasing of energy throughput, there's certainly a non-zero chance that we will see a reversion to the energy throughput of most of human history.

Exponential growth doesn't occur indefinitely in finite systems.

Exactly. As George Carlin put it, The earth is a self-correcting system. If we fuck it up, it will fuck us up, until we are no more, at which point, it will seek equilibrium again. Short of turning the surface into glass via nukes (And I'm not entirely certain even that would get everything), We are nothing more than a hiccup for this planet. You're not worried about destroying the ecosystem, you're worried about making the planet a place hostile to human life. Should humanity make the planet hostile to human life, we will either leave, or die. Either way, Planet keeps on trucking.

At this point, I would like to point out that back before 'the little ice age' British wines were out-performing the French ones. I would also like to point out that the age of the Dinosaurs was considerably warmer than the current climate, So, at least be honest about what you're concerned about. It isn't the planet. It's the coastal cities.

If any individual could predict how a voluntaryist society would address environmental issues, they would be well-qualified to lead a planned economy!

The more free a society is, the more possible courses of action its people can choose from, therefore the higher the chance of being able to pursue desirable outcomes.

You can take some comfort from some large-scale experiments. Consider West Germany vs. East Germany. After reunification it was clear that pollution and environmental degradation were much worse in the previously-communist East Germany. Prosperous people like to live in a nice environment, and are more likely to be able to achieve it.

Similarly, we can compare South vs North Korea, or Hong Kong vs Shanghai. In each case, the more free country or city is the less polluted one.

You can learn about the natural cause of ice ages here: http://www.amazon.com/After-Ice-Age-Glaciated-America/dp/0226668126/

We're supposed to be entering a new ice age, based upon the orbital dynamics of the Earth, the dynamics of its changing axis tilt, and Sun cycles. These are the natural causes of ice ages. Despite that, the last 100 years, coincident with the rise of the industrial age, show a very marked trend like increase in temperatures.

Now really, what is the big deal about global warming and environment destruction?

Humans will die en masse, only maybe 10% will be left, and they will live in a different way than we do, to put it shortly.

It is a great hubris, in my view, to believe that humans have the power to destroy their environment (at large scale - meaning he planet) in the first place.

Having destroyed their micro-environment, it is an even greater hubris that they can restore it by their means.

There is overwhelming evidence that the planet we live in is changing, and the chages happening will cause problems for the human race.

There has not been, in my view again, overwhelming evidence that humans have actually caused this. I do not count academic researches and papers written in order to cash out subsidies or tenure positions.

And there is complete lack of evidence that humans could possibly reverse planetary scale changes, no matter how much they wish to, no matter how much funding they have.

I think we had better start thinking about surviving WITH global environment change, instead of spending our wit in order to understand the obscure and do the impossible.
 
If you are out of food for your children, and without a shelter for the night, you will probably stop worrying about whether society is or can be libertarian or whatever else.

It depends on how you choose to look at it. The statement I quoted is not really a prediction. It's more an assertion about the current state of affairs, which you argue is only an opportunity to make a turn in the road.

Fine. Who decides which way to turn? You? People who are choosing to think like you? Me? People who are choosing to think like me? You clearly admit that a turn likely needs to be made. Is Ehrlich saying anything else? Or Herman Daly? That's exactly what they are saying.

You're advocating the development and use of alternative resources to fuel our growth. This is obvious. But that turn in the road must also incorporate a heightened sense of diminishing natural wealth, and the current turns in the road do not seem to be sharp enough. Determining when and where that turn is, which way it goes, and how sharp it is should be a process which weighs a lot of factors, many of which seem to be conveniently ignored. Unfortunately, many political ideologies benefit from ignoring certain factors.

You have to show a direct threat. You can't just say that so-and-so doing X will increase my chances of coming to harm. If that argument applies then we need to lock up all teenage males because letting them roam freely increases the chances that I'll get attacked by one of them.

Odd that you would stand by views that have been so thoroughly discredited, but whatever. To the extent you agree with Ehrlich, you should be trying to speed up cultural evolution, not slow it down. The child you don't have could have been the person who figured out how to make fusion power practical.

Ehrlich has claimed that his doomsday forecasts didn't come true because he sounded the alarm and action was taken to avert catastrophes. Exactly. When you get to the curve in the road, you don't freak out, you just turn.

I disagree with this. I stand behind the statement made by Stanford professor Paul R. Ehrlich:

"The scale of the human socio-economic-political complex system is so large that it seriously interferes with the biospheric complex system upon which it is wholly dependant, and cultural evolution has been too slow to deal effectively with the resulting crisis."

And the views of Herman Daly. You can watch a video of him here: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/daly-on/

Unfortunately, the Seed Magazine site is down, or I'd point you to two excellent articles, one an interview with Herman Daly, and another an article on biodiversity.

Still, we are finding new resources faster than we are using them up. Blubber, horses, coal, oil, uranium, solar, there is no evidence even the usable resources on Earth are decreasing. We are better off using the resources more quickly and developing the technology and prosperity to find more resources than we are trying to slow ourselves down. You don't turn the wheel of the car until you get to the curve.

never.

but defending ones self from violence is always moral.

who is initiating violence?  i mean - the truth of global warming is clear - and only argued by people like Lord Monckton (who is not a Lord and has a degree in journalism, but has nevertheless been invited to testify before Congress - by Republicans like Inhofe, who is purely owned by Exxon), or Rick Santorum.

at this point, the people who are initiating violence are those who defend one more day's profits of big oil - and who are paid to do so, thinking they'll get to join the club.  they won't.  but they will create a billion climate refugees in the course of the next three to four decades.  where will they go?  how will they get there?  what will they eat?  violence, you were saying?

Oil will be more expensive without government subsidies. Alternate energy sources, no longer with a subsidized competitor, would be competitive in the marketplace and something would take its place, making it obsolete and removing the problem.

Sure. The Singularity will arise, and provide us with the technology to build a space faring species, resulting in a solar system wide economy, enveloping first the Asteroid Belt, then the gas giants, then the Kuiper Belt, then the Oort Cloud, then the nearby stars, ultimately resulting in a trans-human diaspora across the Milky Way. The Human Experience will ultimately harness the power of stars, and most of us will live in Dyson Spheres until the heat death of the Universe.

But until such time, the Earth is where it's at.

Was oil a resource in 1650? Was uranium a resource in 1850? Is the moon a resource today?

If yes, fine, resources are diminishing but the universe is huge. Our growth may only be sustainable for a few trillion years. (Assuming this is the only universe.)

If no, how do you know resources are diminishing? It seems we're finding new resources at least as fast as we're using them up.

Therefore initiating violence against other people is moral?

reading the posts above, the answer should be obvious.

it wouldn't.  it would dither.  it would slice and dice reality with polite legal and quasi-legal fictions.  it would assign blame incrementally, and feel bad about itself decrementally.  it would grant exemptions for wealth, while refusing to recognize that wealth was the cause.  it would politicize, and demonize.  it would deflect, and obfuscate.

it would do everything - and more - seen in the posts above.  posts in, arguably, one of the most purely libertarian sites around.

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it would die.

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here is the truth:

some very few things are so big that they transcend politics.  or national government.

global warming is one of them.

Actually, I think my above statement is not strong enough. By using the term resources, it implies a simple commodity, where one unit of x is just like another.

Instead of ever diminishing resources, I would say ever diminishing resources and natural complexity.