Need some advice for an argument (about Environmentalism)

[ers]

Hello all.

I've been arguing back and forth with my local representative about his plan to introduce a progressive energy system that charges more (punishes) for excessive use of energy in order to promote "conservation."

This is one of the last things he's written to me:

"I believe government also has a role in preventing negative externalities that occur in the free market. Things like our air quality, global warming, and pollution have a direct impact on individuals. Without things like Renewable Portfolio Standards, cap and trade programs, etc, I do not think the market is going to step up until it is too late. I don't think most companies care about carbon emissions that will be in the air for 50 to 200 years more than if they can improve their bottom line for 1 year."

I've got some idea about how to respond to this, but wanted to get others' input as well.

Thanks!

Edited August 13, 2008 by ers

[KurtColville]

Hello all.

I've been arguing back and forth with my local representative about his plan to introduce a progressive energy system that charges more (punishes) for excessive use of energy in order to promote "conservation."

This is one of the last things he's written to me:

"I believe government also has a role in preventing negative externalities that occur in the free market. Things like our air quality, global warming, and pollution have a direct impact on individuals. Without things like Renewable Portfolio Standards, cap and trade programs, etc, I do not think the market is going to step up until it is too late. I don't think most companies care about carbon emissions that will be in the air for 50 to 200 years more than if they can improve their bottom line for 1 year."

I've got some idea about how to respond to this, but wanted to get others' input as well.

Thanks!

Not to sound cynical, but I think you're wasting your time trying to persuade this bureaucrat. Nonetheless, for the benefit of your own thinking, I'll offer the following thoughts:

- Government has no role in altering market directions. Government's role is to preserve the freedom (ultimately, rights) that makes a market possible. Individuals alone have the right to respond to market actions, not government.

- If businesses somehow violate an individual's rights with pollution or some other sort of emission, it is up to the individual to take that business to court, and it is up to the government to establish objective laws to protect all individuals rights, including both protection from harmful pollution and from garbage lawsuits in the name of "the environment."

- The government has no place offering an opinion, much less taking action, on undesirable directions in the economy (the market). If the market responds "too late" to some commercial trend, those individuals who responded too late will suffer the consequences, as they should. But the bureaucrat wants you to think that the consequences are somehow unfair, and that it's he and other bureaucrats that must step in and bar other individuals from dealing with each other voluntarily.

- Whether or not companies care about carbon emissions is not for him to determine. His only proper concern is the protection of rights.

I should add, because it's worth a lot to one's own epistemology, that even though one often encounters people like this bureaucrat who won't listen to reason, one is bound to run into someone who will. For that reason, and for one's own edification, it's worth getting one's thoughts straight.

[Pokarrin]

I agree completely with KurtColville, but just to add my own two cents:

Without things like Renewable Portfolio Standards, cap and trade programs, etc, I do not think the market is going to step up until it is too late.

- Just because someone may (or even is certain to) make a bad decision regarding his own property, that does not in any way give you the right to take that decision away from him. It doesn't make it any better to assume that right simply because there are a large number of people involved.

[LovesLife]

"I believe government also has a role in preventing negative externalities that occur in the free market. Things like our air quality, global warming, and pollution have a direct impact on individuals. Without things like Renewable Portfolio Standards, cap and trade programs, etc, I do not think the market is going to step up until it is too late. I don't think most companies care about carbon emissions that will be in the air for 50 to 200 years more than if they can improve their bottom line for 1 year."

Like most bureaucrats, this one clearly only sees one side of the equation. A few points, in addition to the ones offered in the previous posts:

-- Who makes the decisions about much pollution is too much, about which industries or companies get exceptions, etc? Laws such as these will only serve to favor certain individuals and companies over others.

-- If the costs of environmental regulation are made too high, the companies that are impacted the most (that don't receive special favors) will be forced to either move to an area or country with more favorable rules, or close down. Either way, local jobs are lost, which has a direct impact on those individuals and their families.

-- Why should be against the law to pollute here, but OK in another country? We all breathe the same air.

-- Manufacturing industries, the oft-accused source of pollution, is the real source of wealth in this country. Most other businesses indirectly rely on manufacturing. If all manufacturing is driven out of the country, the rest of the economy will go with it. We should be relaxing rules for manufacturers, encouraging them to grow, not the reverse.

-- A more productive way to apply legislation would be to require industries to fully and accurately disclose the pollution that they cause. That could then give concerned consumers enough information to make an informed choice for alternatives.

[Steve D'Ippolito]

-- Who makes the decisions about much pollution is too much, about which industries or companies get exceptions, etc? Laws such as these will only serve to favor certain individuals and companies over others.

In particular the laws will serve to favor their enforcers. Shades of the subhuman bureaucrats in Atlas Shrugged (to say nothing of We The Living).

[knast]

Hello all.

I've been arguing back and forth with my local representative about his plan to introduce a progressive energy system that charges more (punishes) for excessive use of energy in order to promote "conservation."

This is one of the last things he's written to me:

"I believe government also has a role in preventing negative externalities that occur in the free market. Things like our air quality, global warming, and pollution have a direct impact on individuals. Without things like Renewable Portfolio Standards, cap and trade programs, etc, I do not think the market is going to step up until it is too late. I don't think most companies care about carbon emissions that will be in the air for 50 to 200 years more than if they can improve their bottom line for 1 year."

I've got some idea about how to respond to this, but wanted to get others' input as well.

Thanks!

I would suggest that you read a great book by Dr Brian P Simpsons. It is entitled _Markets don't fail!_ and you can order it at www.AynRandBookstore.com. It deals specifically with issues such as "externalities". If you can't afford it or you just can't wait, then I would refer you to another great book by Dr George Reisman, entitled _Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics_. You can read it online, for free, at www.Capitalism.net. In particular you should start with page 96, and the following pages.

[KurtColville]

-- Manufacturing industries, the oft-accused source of pollution, is the real source of wealth in this country. Most other businesses indirectly rely on manufacturing. If all manufacturing is driven out of the country, the rest of the economy will go with it. We should be relaxing rules for manufacturers, encouraging them to grow, not the reverse.

Really, we should just get out of manufacturers' way and protect their rights just like anybody else. Part of the reason why people are so conflicted about what should be done is that pollution laws have always been so arbitrary that real polluters sometimes got away with it. We need objective laws, period.

-- A more productive way to apply legislation would be to require industries to fully and accurately disclose the pollution that they cause. That could then give concerned consumers enough information to make an informed choice for alternatives.

Again, government should not require businesses to do anything where the violation of rights isn't established. Federal regulations already do require companies to disclose pollution -- that's the problem, and because it assumes guilt and imposes totally crippling pollution standards set up by the environmentalist racket. Companies already have an incentive, apart from the government's gun, to disclose their emissions to the public: the potential loss of business. Allow manufacturers the same assumption of innocence that we all enjoy, and establish objective laws to punish the actual polluters.

[Marc K.]

I've been arguing back and forth with my local representative about his plan to introduce a progressive energy system that charges more (punishes) for excessive use of energy in order to promote "conservation."

[...]

I've got some idea about how to respond to this, but wanted to get others' input as well.

You could point out to him that his beginning premise is flawed. There is no such thing as an "excessive use of energy". That the more energy we use the better. That there is a direct correlation between energy used and progress. That, historically speaking, the more energy a person or country uses the more productive they are. That, historically speaking, even when increases in efficiency come they lead to even more energy use, not less, and that this is rational and moral. That cheaper energy leads to it being more available to more people; allowing them to be more productive; making them more wealthy.

This is one of the last things he's written to me:

"I believe government also has a role in preventing negative externalities that occur in the free market. [...] I don't think most companies care about carbon emissions that will be in the air for 50 to 200 years more than if they can improve their bottom line for 1 year."

You could also tell him that he doesn't understand the "free market". That the free market is composed of free individuals buying things they think are good for them; so that it doesn't matter what "most companies care about" because it only matters what those free individuals care about. And that "preventing [occurrences] in the free market" means preventing an individual from acting on his own judgement which is most emphatically not the proper role of the government, in fact it is the opposite. That the government's job is to protect individual rights not violate them.

Things like our air quality, global warming, and pollution have a direct impact on individuals.

Well then ask him how much the industrial civilization we live in has impacted individuals and would he rather: have his cake or eat it? Or maybe better: does he like cake?

[Maggie]

I agree completely with KurtColville, but just to add my own two cents:

- Just because someone may (or even is certain to) make a bad decision regarding his own property, that does not in any way give you the right to take that decision away from him. It doesn't make it any better to assume that right simply because there are a large number of people involved.

is the air his own property? does he own the climate?

[Maggie]

The government has no place offering an opinion, much less taking action, on undesirable directions in the economy (the market). If the market responds "too late" to some commercial trend, those individuals who responded too late will suffer the consequences, as they should. But the bureaucrat wants you to think that the consequences are somehow unfair, and that it's he and other bureaucrats that must step in and bar other individuals from dealing with each other voluntarily.

Exactly what market trend are we talking about? It's not like rising gas prices...it's air quality. Does the government have the right to protect its citizens from pollution or not?

[Marc K.]

is the air his own property? does he own the climate?

Do you?

[KurtColville]

Exactly what market trend are we talking about? It's not like rising gas prices...it's air quality. Does the government have the right to protect its citizens from pollution or not?

The government has no role manipulating any market. The government has the right to protect its citizens from pollution that violates individuals' rights, not just any old pollution whatever.

[Pokarrin]

is the air his own property? does he own the climate?

I don't think anyone can be said to own the air or the climate; the property I was talking about was both the company owner's factory and the customers' individual wealth that they use to purchase goods produced by the factory. I agree that running a factory such that a great deal of soot is thrown into the air can have a negative effect on air quality, but that's a separate issue from property rights. This basically comes down to an individual's willingness to hurt himself; he can simply choose not to buy goods from the factory that pollutes the air he breathes. In fact, this very trend has begun with the rise in popularity of "green" products in the U.S. market (I can't speak for foreign markets). The fact remains, though, that you don't have the right to spend his money for him. As regards the damage caused by factories with whom you don't choose to do business (but others do, thereby causing you harm indirectly), that's a matter for suit in a court of law, not for the legislature. Assuming you could show the harm done to you and its origin (I suppose you would have to name multiple defendants in a particular industy), there is no reason to have specifically "environmental" legislation and certainly no reason to apply arbitrary market manipulations to coerce adherence to an undefined standard like a "clean" environment.

[Capitalism Forever]

Does the government have the right to protect its citizens from pollution or not?

It does not.

A government does not have rights; only individuals do. The government only has the powers granted to it by the constitution, and a rational and moral constitution will not grant the government any power other than those required for the protection of individual rights.

[ers]

Thank you all for your input. It has helped me at least gather my own thoughts if nothing else.

Unfortunately, when I presented some arguments to this guy, he responded with a two sentence dismissal saying roughly, "I respect your point of view but there are other philosophies regarding how governments should function and I subscribe to one of those."

Translation: I can't argue with you so I will prematurely terminate the discussion.

Not sure what else to do at this point. I feel as though I should do something, such make other people in my district aware that if his plan passes they are likely to see increased in electric bills. Unfortunately with the current trends in society the other council members would probably pass this motion anyway. It all seems very futile.

[Marc K.]

Unfortunately, when I presented some arguments to this guy, he responded with a two sentence dismissal saying roughly, "I respect your point of view but there are other philosophies regarding how governments should function and I subscribe to one of those."

[...]

Not sure what else to do at this point. I feel as though I should do something, such make other people in my district aware that if his plan passes they are likely to see increased in electric bills. [...] It all seems very futile.

No! No, I think you are doing quite well. At least you have gotten him to admit that there is a proper function of government, pursue that. What is his specific view on the proper function of government you could ask. He is your representative so you have a right to know what is his view. Whether he tells you or not you should write a letter to the editor or an op/ed in your local paper quoting him even if the above is the only quote you have. If you are able to show that his philosophy is anti-freedom many people would be interested in that.

You can learn how to write a convincing and well formatted op/ed either at ARI or I think Robert Tracinski has some advice online. Of course my favorite advice comes from Ayn Rand in "The Art of Non-fiction".

[LovesLife]

Trying to argue with a bureaucrat about the role of government is futile. You're wasting your time.

A better approach is to either:

1. Show how their suggested "solutions" will do more harm than good (particularly effective if you can identify a way that it will harm the bureaucrat himself), or

2. Redirect their legislative impulse into something less harmful, or

3. Explain how their approach is morally wrong, in terms that they are likely to understand and accept

I personally think that #3 is the best long-term solution, but it's also the most difficult.