Seriously, though, how would a libertarian society address global warming?

[NghtRppr]

Businesses that believe replanting clear cut forests is a substitute for preexisting old growth forests are engaging in the destruction of a resource that is not being replenished, as replanted clear cut sections are not the same as old growth forests.

I didn't claim they were. My point was, if you replant trees, you don't have to keep cutting more and more old growth. At some point you can go back and cut down the new growth. The problem with clear cutting is that it's unsustainable.

What's destroyed, and what is being destroyed could be what we need in the future. And when it is destroyed, then we start looking to that which is not destroyed. For example, the Arctic Refuge or Patagonia. It doesn't stop.

Go claim sections of the Arctic Refuge or Patagonia and make it an ecological preserve. Problem solved. It sounds like you're saying that you want the world to be untouched. That's unreasonable. You need to come up with some kind of plan whereby we preserve as much biodiversity as possible, in case we might need it, without bringing the rest of the world to a grinding halt.

Your arguments are only showing your naivete.

Your insults are only showing how hysterical you are. I'm now ignoring you. Congratulations on completely alienating someone that could have been persuaded to your viewpoint had you not been so belligerent. You're really not helping your cause.

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[ascent]

Go claim sections of the Arctic Refuge or Patagonia and make it an ecological preserve. Problem solved. It sounds like you're saying that you want the world to be untouched. That's unreasonable. You need to come up with some kind of plan whereby we preserve as much biodiversity as possible, in case we might need it, without bringing the rest of the world to a grinding halt.

The Arctic Refuge is claimed as an area that is supposed to be untouched. And the same goes for Patagonia! That's the whole point. It's the slippery slope in action.

[ascent]

Your insults are only showing how hysterical you are. I'm now ignoring you. Congratulations on completely alienating someone that could have been persuaded to your viewpoint had you not been so belligerent. You're really not helping your cause.

I will attempt to be civil. I do wish you to come around to my viewpoint. Accept my apology.

[JoelKatz]

It's often too late by then. Damage has already occurred.

I agree. But the political process is even slower and even less reliable. There are no perfect solutions. There may not even be any really good ones.

[NghtRppr]

I will attempt to be civil. I do wish you to come around to my viewpoint. Accept my apology.

Thanks. All you have to do is attack the arguments and not me personally. I may be naive, brainwashed or whatever but I'm not going to just take your word for it. You'll have to convince me. I'm also sympathetic to your cause. However, I refuse to condone any solution to the problem that involves initiatory violence against other people or their property.

The Arctic Refuge is claimed as an area that is supposed to be untouched. And the same goes for Patagonia! That's the whole point. It's the slippery slope in action.

The problem is that it's owned by governments and not private citizens. If I owned the Arctic Refuge and you tried to drill into it then I'd stop you, with force if necessary. That's why I said it needs to be claimed by a person or group of people.

[ascent]

It's often too late by then. Damage has already occurred.

I agree. But the political process is even slower and even less reliable. There are no perfect solutions. There may not even be any really good ones.

I agree with you. But I believe until some process that works is in place, regulation is very important, and we're not stringent enough, because most people think along the lines of: "Drill, baby, Drill!" That's a sign that education is lacking. What is needed is an understanding that the trajectory in place is not leading in the right direction. We must seek alternatives. Education and technology are paramount, and a realization that growth cannot be sustained.

Unfortunately, nations competing with each other forces growth for the purposes of funding national security.

[ascent]

The problem is that it's owned by governments and not private citizens. If I owned the Arctic Refuge and you tried to drill into it then I'd stop you, with force if necessary. That's why I said it needs to be claimed by a person.

Doug Tompkins only has so much money. We're still in a crisis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Tompkins

[AyeYo]

Your proposals encourage a reactive rather than proactive method. However, the reactive method only reacts when excessive irreversible damage has been done. Already, irreversible damage has been done. There is a finely nuanced understanding that is required by all entities involved, and servicing the bottom line encourages glossing over those finer nuances. Your arguments are an example of selectively choosing to ignore those finer nuances.

There isn't an economic school of thought on earth that doesn't agree with this statement.  It's only those hard liner libertarians that think a free market will magically be sufficiently proactive.

[Explodicle]

Although hurting the environment is bad PR and all that, most people only pretend to care about the environment. There is a "libertarianism and externalities" thread that kinda goes on about this: the consensus here appears to be "we kinda suck at controlling externalities, but so do governments".

This is pretty weak. At a minimum, tradable emissions permits are a very capitalist solution, and there is already an international framework (Kyoto accord). Yes, it's not working perfectly and never will... But I have a lot more confidence in long-term diplomatic pressure than planetwide cooperation on a prisoner's dilemma.

I'm sure this will attract a witty insult to my intelligence for supporting an already floundering, globally statist solution.    I eagerly await a free market solution that actually works better, if anyone has heard of one that I haven't seen... It should be theoretically possible.

[JoelKatz]

...  and a realization that growth cannot be sustained.

Unfortunately, nations competing with each other forces growth for the purposes of funding national security.

You're wrong, the growth is good and absolutely can be sustained. The view that the growth is unsustainable comes from the mistaken assumption that sustaining something means continuing to go in the precise direction. This is not so. Sustaining growth means continuing to grow. It's like you look at a curving highway and think "there's no way you can keep going to San Diego, you'd run off the road". No, you turn with it.

We've sustained unsustainable growth for centuries simply by changing the way we grow as needed and on schedule.

[NghtRppr]

I don't condone initiatory violence to solve problems. If you damage my property or it's clear that your actions will damage my property, I can stop you but I can't do anything until there is a clear and present danger. I don't have to wait for you to shoot me, just until you threaten me. It can be proactive but not to the point where there's never a threat in the first place. There has to be a threat before it's legitimate to respond in kind.

It doesn't matter if not using initiatory violence "doesn't work". Let justice be done though the heavens fall. Even if the world will implode unless we initiate violence against a minority of people, my only response will be "it had to end sometime". In the long run, we're all dead. Let's live our lives nobly until then.

[ascent]

We've sustained unsustainable growth for centuries simply by changing the way we grow as needed and on schedule.

I think it might be accurate to say it like this:

We've sustained unsustainable growth for centuries simply by changing the way we grow as needed, but behind schedule, and at the expense of living on a world with ever diminishing resources.

[ascent]

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.

[Jaime Frontero]

Seriously, though, how would a libertarian society address global warming?

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.

*

it would die.

*

here is the truth:

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

global warming is one of them.

[NghtRppr]

Seriously, though, how would a libertarian society address global warming?

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.

*

it would die.

*

here is the truth:

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

global warming is one of them.

Therefore initiating violence against other people is moral?

[JoelKatz]

We've sustained unsustainable growth for centuries simply by changing the way we grow as needed, but behind schedule, and at the expense of living on a world with ever diminishing resources.

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.

[ascent]

If not, how do you know resources are diminishing? It seems we're finding new resources at least as fast as we're using them up.

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.

[LastBattle]

If not, how do you know resources are diminishing? It seems we're finding new resources at least as fast as we're using them up.

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.

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.

[Jaime Frontero]

Therefore initiating violence against other people is moral?

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?

[JoelKatz]

If not, how do you know resources are diminishing? It seems we're finding new resources at least as fast as we're using them up.

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.

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.