By Ahmed Suliman
Climate change. Just two words that have a literal meaning of no more than a variance in our weather patterns. However these two words have caused so much tension, debate, conspiracy theories involving anyone who likes to have an opinion, as well as a multitude of new government policies and UN ramblings. The reason for that is the inconspicuous addition of the word anthropogenic, denoting human responsibility. Responsibility for our actions is, as we were taught from a young age, a fine and necessary virtue to have. However as collective specie we seemed to have developed an unwavering phobia against admitting the consequences of our actions.
The science of climate change is reaching a higher consensus with every passing year. I’m sorry to tell you, my skeptic friends, that there is no, in all likelihood, global climate change conspiracy peddled by the Illuminati and green socialists, and facilitated by UN Agenda 21. I live in hope that we all realise that depoliticising the survival of our specie isn’t too much of an ask. The issue is real, but that is not say that the solutions we are presented with today are anything near adequate.
More coercive, economically illiterate government taxes are not the answer. The state, in this country and elsewhere, has become adept at creating and maintaining a culture amongst the masses of running off to the Nice Government Bureaucrat every time something needed action. This has legitimised the expansion of the state beyond belief, particularly in areas such as bureaucracy, tax collection and surveillance of its citizens. From a minarchist perspective, I believe that there are no real legitimate duties of a government other than providing safety and justice to its constituents through a strong police system and judiciary branch, and to maintain a defence force that can repel a foreign invasion. That’s it. Any other “important” service or product can be produced in high quality and lower prices through a truly free market. Any necessary collective action can make use of the free-willed motivated individuals taking part, not coercively made to come along for the ride by an increasingly Orwellian government.
That last part will prove to be, in my opinion, highly influential in finding an amicable solution to decelerating anthropogenic climate change to a manageable level, while not compromising the great living standards that free enterprise has brought us since the industrial revolution. In an economic sense, the factors contributing to global warming are considered a negative externality, or actions that affect third parties without punishing the source through market pricing. To account for a negative externality would be to either tax it (which has negative impacts from a national economy health perspective, especially when other countries aren’t doing the same) or for those affected to demand compensation. At the moment there are many laws internationally concerning class or individual tort claims that provide polluters with immunity from tort claims. Governments would need to respect property rights (a fundamental tenant of a healthy free market system) enough to repeal such laws and allow those who can show demonstrable damage from the actions of a polluter for example to claim compensation, which can be in the form of class action lawsuits or individual cases. This would force companies and firms to account for such risks in their business cases and logically look towards more environmentally conscious alternatives.
On the topic of environmentally conscious alternatives, the clean energy sector is clearly the way of the future, but constant hampering by the state through high taxation and crippling regulations means that the cost of entry is still too high for most individuals and enterprises. It’s a basic principle of human behaviour that you should effectively incentivise a behaviour if you want to see more of it. The importance of the clean energy sector needs to be recognised through decreased taxation and repealing restrictive legislation.
Finally, the personal civil responsibility of the individual is what we need in the face of a challenge like global warming. Throwing away the responsibility onto an inefficient and power-hungry state is reckless. Make sustainable choices in your own daily life, and encourage others to do the same. The work being done by private organisations such as Nature.org, who use donations to purchase forests to preserve wildlife and prevent them from being deforested, is a perfect example of how a non-coercive free market solution to environmental challenges works without damaging our economies or living standards.
Climate change. Just two words that have a literal meaning of no more than a variance in our weather patterns. However these two words have caused so much tension, debate, conspiracy theories involving anyone who likes to have an opinion, as well as a multitude of new government policies and UN ramblings. The reason for that is the inconspicuous addition of the word anthropogenic, denoting human responsibility. Responsibility for our actions is, as we were taught from a young age, a fine and necessary virtue to have. However as collective specie we seemed to have developed an unwavering phobia against admitting the consequences of our actions.
The science of climate change is reaching a higher consensus with every passing year. I’m sorry to tell you, my skeptic friends, that there is no, in all likelihood, global climate change conspiracy peddled by the Illuminati and green socialists, and facilitated by UN Agenda 21. I live in hope that we all realise that depoliticising the survival of our specie isn’t too much of an ask. The issue is real, but that is not say that the solutions we are presented with today are anything near adequate.
More coercive, economically illiterate government taxes are not the answer. The state, in this country and elsewhere, has become adept at creating and maintaining a culture amongst the masses of running off to the Nice Government Bureaucrat every time something needed action. This has legitimised the expansion of the state beyond belief, particularly in areas such as bureaucracy, tax collection and surveillance of its citizens. From a minarchist perspective, I believe that there are no real legitimate duties of a government other than providing safety and justice to its constituents through a strong police system and judiciary branch, and to maintain a defence force that can repel a foreign invasion. That’s it. Any other “important” service or product can be produced in high quality and lower prices through a truly free market. Any necessary collective action can make use of the free-willed motivated individuals taking part, not coercively made to come along for the ride by an increasingly Orwellian government.
That last part will prove to be, in my opinion, highly influential in finding an amicable solution to decelerating anthropogenic climate change to a manageable level, while not compromising the great living standards that free enterprise has brought us since the industrial revolution. In an economic sense, the factors contributing to global warming are considered a negative externality, or actions that affect third parties without punishing the source through market pricing. To account for a negative externality would be to either tax it (which has negative impacts from a national economy health perspective, especially when other countries aren’t doing the same) or for those affected to demand compensation. At the moment there are many laws internationally concerning class or individual tort claims that provide polluters with immunity from tort claims. Governments would need to respect property rights (a fundamental tenant of a healthy free market system) enough to repeal such laws and allow those who can show demonstrable damage from the actions of a polluter for example to claim compensation, which can be in the form of class action lawsuits or individual cases. This would force companies and firms to account for such risks in their business cases and logically look towards more environmentally conscious alternatives.
On the topic of environmentally conscious alternatives, the clean energy sector is clearly the way of the future, but constant hampering by the state through high taxation and crippling regulations means that the cost of entry is still too high for most individuals and enterprises. It’s a basic principle of human behaviour that you should effectively incentivise a behaviour if you want to see more of it. The importance of the clean energy sector needs to be recognised through decreased taxation and repealing restrictive legislation.
Finally, the personal civil responsibility of the individual is what we need in the face of a challenge like global warming. Throwing away the responsibility onto an inefficient and power-hungry state is reckless. Make sustainable choices in your own daily life, and encourage others to do the same. The work being done by private organisations such as Nature.org, who use donations to purchase forests to preserve wildlife and prevent them from being deforested, is a perfect example of how a non-coercive free market solution to environmental challenges works without damaging our economies or living standards.