environmentalism or the end of man

7/30/2019 Environmentalism or the End of Man

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ENVIRONMENTALISM OR THE END OF MAN

SUMMARY

A free market, economic system is far more environmentally friendly than any statist system, includingthe welfare state, socialism (whether democratic or centrally planned), or fascism. The world might bedifferent had government never intervened to protect the environment but rather left all matters toproperty owners to sort out. Environmentalism and the government interference do not resolveenvironmental problems. On the contrary, environmentalism, especially through the notion ofglobalwarming, real or imagined, is an excuse for collectivist control of the economic system. And if we areto allow the really green members of the environmentalism movement to govern our every day liveswith their apocalyptic sermons, we will soon assist at our very own extinction.

1. INTRODUCTION

A free market, political, economic system is far more environmentally friendly than any statistsystem, including the welfare state, socialism (whether democratic or centrally planned), or fascism.The world might be different had government never intervened to protect the environment but ratherleft all matters to property owners to sort out.

This fact needs to be recalled when we consider such current problems as those involvingwhat is commonly referred to as the environment. What might have prevented some of the lamentablepollution that we now experience? No, not all of it was preventable. Some environmental problemsare inherent in the ecology of the globe - for example, the Los Angeles basin had been subject toatmosphere inversions throughout the past which left it filled with what we now call smog but was thecombination of haze, dust, smoke from wild fires, and so forth.

Other so-called environmental problems, such as wildlife extinction, also occurred not throughhuman agency but because of natural events. Only when human agency is involved - so that we canconsider the different choices people could have made - can we entertain the possibility of having donethings better. Indeed, a point rarely noted these days, the very idea of critically assessing past policiesand conduct involves the assumption that human beings can make basic choices and they might have

made ones different from those they did actually make.

In this paper I bring forth arguments stressing the fact that environmentalism and thegovernment interference do not resolve environmental problems. On the contrary, environmentalism,especially through the notion ofglobal warming, real or imagined, is an excuse for collectivist controlof the economic system. And if we are to allow the really green members of the environmentalismmovement to govern our every day lives with their apocalyptic sermons, we will soon assist at our veryown extinction.

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2. THE STATE INTERVENED AND IT ALL WENT DOWNHILL FROM THERE

When Jayant Bhandari, a Canadian-established businessman, went to pay a visit to one of thethree public sector electricity-generation plant in New Delhi, one of their top officers told him this: Idump the ash (the residue from burning coal) in the river, I do not pay the railways for delivery of the

coal, I do not pay the coal company, and I will keep running it this way.

The pollution related departments of the government had a lot of teeth to stop such pollutingelectricity plants. But then imagine, how could one arm of the government stop the other arm? Insteadof closing these plants down they agreed on sanitizing statistics to fool everyone - and this was so oftrepeated that they started to believe in it themselves. How could this cover up be done so easily I dontknow as one of these power plants is right opposite the South East Asian Regional Office of the WorldHealth Organization, the other two not too far away. They spew black soot and cover WHOs building.

A commonly favored argument towards state intervention in the economy and thus in theenvironmental issues is the fact that thanks to its influence many good things were developed. Such

good things are the Internet, which rose out of the governments ARPANET system, the revolutionin flight which came about not only because of the work of private geniuses but also because a bunchof bureaucrats at NASA pushed it, and because those bureaucrats were lucky to have had as their bosssince 1992 an engineer named Daniel Goldin.

If the truth be said, the ARPANET system did give rise to the Internet but, as many historiansargue, that was of minimal significance. The initial ARPANET was clumsy and only after a demand forthe service developed did it become efficient and useful. Kelly was right - as was, also, former U.S.Vice President Al Gore - that the initial ideas that produced the Internet had come from efforts by theDepartment of Defense to enhance the defense of the country. However, these ideas could havedeveloped independently and once they became divorced from state matters become far moreproductive than beforehand. The story is the same all the way across, including the flight industrywhere government airports have been the source of much consternation both for environmentalists andfor those with different visions as to how that industry might and should have developed.

The bottom line, though, is this: Governments use force to accomplish their goals. Force,unless used in defense - as the military is supposed to use it - wreaks havoc in its path, even where theostensible results seem to be grand.

When law and public policy favor the system of eminent domain and the use of publiclyowned lands and waters for whatever happens to be in democratic demand, the result is akin to a zerosum game: the favored policy or law wins and the disfavored one loses. Whereas in the free marketthere are many demands that get satisfied to a greater or lesser extent.

My main point, then, is plain: had there been a consistent and firmly implemented system ofprivate property rights, there would not have been massive environmental mismanagement. But it isbetter late than never.

3. THE KYOTO PROTOCOL:

WHEN STATES CAME TOGETHER AND MESSED UP BIG TIME

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According to the international environmentalist movement, such complex problems asenvironmental problems can only be solved at international level. Thus the Kyoto Protocol, aninternational statist intervention offspring.

Working out the rights and the wrongs of the international effort to reduce global warming isfar trickier than you may imagine. Its been portrayed as a battle between good and evil, good guys and

bad guys, but in truth there are no good guys The environmentalists whose views tend to dominatethe media tell us that all the countries attending the climate change negotiations in Kyoto havehonorable intentions except one: Australia On the other hand, the government and the energyindustry tell us that the cost to Australians in lost incomes and jobs not to mention exorbitant petrolprices from the uniform gas reduction targets that could be imposed on us are horrible (Ross Gittins,Sydney Morning Herald, 3 December, 1997).

United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control (IPCC) sponsored the adoption ofthe Kyoto Protocol by the most industrialized nations around the world, with estimated costs of legallybinding compliance estimated at over $150 billion per year. The chief promotional artifact in theproceedings, the "hockey stick" historical temperature chart of IPCC Third Scientific AssessmentChapter Lead Author Michael Mann, is shown to be based on a computer program that produceshockey sticks from over 99 percent of ten thousand samples of random noise fed to it. StephenMcIntyre, retired Canadian minerals consultant, demonstrates numerous other defects and distortions inboth the data and statistical methodology, ultimately the subject of a front-page article in the WallStreet Journalof February 14 and a follow-up editorial on February 18.

Any government investigation? Despite the fact that the US government funded eleven out ofthe twelve "Funded Proposals" cited in Dr. Manns curriculum vitae, it neither conducts audits of theresults reported nor requires that information be made available to others for conducting audits at theirown expense and initiative. But the Kyoto Protocol remains in force and legally binding.

Government and science have found each other, and the spawn of this marriage look set todestroy global wealth on a scale that will render the greatest of historys wars trivial by comparison.The ultimate outrage of all this is that the people who are subjected to the ravages of the wrong-headedpolicies promoted by these self-seekers are taxed to pay for the production of this junk science to beginwith.

Actually, as described in the Wall Street Journaleditorial of February 18, two climatologists,Willie Soon and Sallie L. Baliunas, had the temerity to advance criticism of Manns article in 2003.The tsunami of protest from the academy against this suggestion that man may not be warming up hisplanet after all would have made Trofim Lysenko, the Soviet Unions quack official geneticist of the1930s, proud.

4. ENVIRONMENTALISM IS NOXIOUS

While it is not necessary to question the good intentions and sincerity of the overwhelmingmajority of the members of the environmental or ecology movement, it is vital that the public realizethat in this seemingly lofty and noble movement itself can be found more than a little evidence of themost profound toxicity.

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Consider, for example, the following quotation from David M. Graber, a research biologistwith the National Park Service, in his prominently featured Los Angeles Times book review of BillMcKibben's The End of Nature: "This [man's "remaking the earth by degrees"] makes what ishappening no less tragic for those of us who value wildness for its own sake, not for what value itconfers upon mankind. I, for one, cannot wish upon either my children or the rest of Earth's biota atame planet, be it monstrous or however unlikely benign. McKibben is a biocentrist, and so am I.

We are not interested in the utility of a particular species or free-flowing river, or ecosystem, tomankind. They have intrinsic value, more value to me than another human body, or a billion ofthem.

"Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, are not as important as a wild and healthyplanet. I know social scientists who remind me that people are part of nature, but it isn't true.Somewhere along the line- at about a billion years ago, maybe half that - we quit the contract andbecame a cancer. We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth.

"It is cosmically unlikely that the developed world will choose to end its orgy of fossil-energyconsumption, and the Third World its suicidal consumption of landscape. Until such time as Homosapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along."

While Mr. Graber openly wishes for the death of a billion people, Mr. McKibben, the authorhe reviewed, quotes with approval John Muir's benediction to alligators, describing it as a "goodepigram" for his own, "humble approach": "'Honorable representatives of the great saurians of oldercreation, may you long enjoy your lilies and rushes, and be blessed now and then with a mouthful ofterror-stricken man by way of a dainty!'"

Such statements represent pure, unadulterated poison. They express ideas and wishes which, ifacted upon, would mean terror and death for enormous numbers of human beings.

These statements, and others like them, are made by prominent members of the environmentalmovement. The significance of such statements cannot be diminished by ascribing them only to a smallfringe of the environmental movement. Indeed, even if such views were indicative of the thinking ofonly 5 or 10 percent of the members of the environmental movement - the "deep ecology," Earth First!Wing - they would represent toxicity in the environmental movement as a whole not at the level ofparts per billion or even parts per million, but at the level of parts per hundred, which, of course, is anenormously higher level of toxicity than is deemed to constitute a danger to human life in virtuallyevery other case in which deadly poison is present.

The idea of nature's intrinsic value inexorably implies a desire to destroy man and his worksbecause it implies a perception of man as the systematic destroyer of the good, and thus as thesystematic doer of evil. Just as man perceives coyotes, wolves, and rattlesnakes as evil because theyregularly destroy the cattle and sheep he values as sources of food and clothing, so on the premise ofnature's intrinsic value, the environmentalists view man as evil, because, in the pursuit of his well-being, man systematically destroys the wildlife, jungles, and rock formations that the environmentalistshold to be intrinsically valuable. Indeed, from the perspective of such alleged intrinsic values of nature,the degree of man's alleged destructiveness and evil is directly in proportion to his loyalty to hisessential nature. Man is the rational being. It is his application of his reason in the form of science,technology, and an industrial civilization that enables him to act on nature on the enormous scale onwhich he now does. Thus, it is his possession and use of reason - manifested in his technology andindustry - for which he is hated.

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In other words, the doctrine of intrinsic value is nothing but a doctrine of the negation ofhuman values. It is pure nihilism. It should be realized that it is logically implicit in what has just beensaid that to establish a public office such as that recently proposed in California, of "environmentaladvocate," would be tantamount to establishing an office of Negator of Human Valuation. The work ofsuch an office would be to stop man from achieving his values for no other reason than that he was man

and wanted to achieve them.

Of course, the environmental movement is not pure poison. Very few people would listen to itif it were. As I have said, it is poisonous only at the level of several parts per ten. Mixed in with thepoison and overlaying it as a kind of sugar coating is the advocacy of many measures which have theavowed purpose of promoting human life and well-being, and among these, some that, considered inisolation, might actually achieve that purpose. The problem is that the mixture is poisonous. And thus,when one swallows environmentalism, one inescapably swallows poison.

Given the underlying nihilism of the movement, it is certainly not possible to accept at facevalue any of the claims it makes of seeking to improve human life and well-being, especially whenfollowing its recommendations would impose on people great deprivation or cost. Indeed, nothingcould be more absurd or dangerous than to take advice on how to improve one's life and well-beingfrom those who wish one dead and whose satisfaction comes from human terror, which, of course, as Ihave shown, is precisely what is wished in the environmental movement - openly and on principle. Thisconclusion, it must be stressed, applies irrespective of the scientific or academic credentials of anindividual. If an alleged scientific expert believes in the intrinsic value of nature, then to seek hisadvice is equivalent to seeking the advice of a medical doctor who was on the side of the germs ratherthan of the patient, if such a thing can be imagined. Obviously, Congressional committees takingtestimony from alleged expert witnesses on the subject of proposed environmental legislation need tobe aware of this fact and never to forget it.

Not surprisingly, in virtually every case, the claims made by the environmentalists have turnedout to be false or simply absurd. Consider, for example, the recent case of Alar, a chemical spray usedfor many years on apples in order to preserve their color and freshness. Here, it turned out that even ifthe environmentalists' claims had actually been true, and the use of Alar would result in 4.2 deaths permillion over a seventy-year lifetime, all that would have been signified was that eating apples sprayedwith Alar would then have been less dangerous than driving to the supermarket to buy the apples!

And now, in yet another overthrow of the environmentalists' claims, a noted climatologist,Prof. Robert Pease, has shown that it is impossible for chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to destroy largequantities of ozone in the stratosphere because relatively few of them are even capable of reaching thestratosphere in the first place. He also shows that the celebrated ozone "hole" over Antarctica every fallis a phenomenon of nature, in existence since long before CFCs were invented, and results largely fromthe fact that during the long Antarctic night ultraviolet sunlight is not present to create fresh ozone.

The words of Paul Ehrlich and his incredible claims in connection with the "greenhouseeffect" should be recalled. In the first wave of ecological hysteria, this "scientist" declared: "At themoment we cannot predict what the overall climatic results will be of our using the atmosphere as agarbage dump. We do know that very small changes in either direction in the average temperature ofthe Earth could be very serious. With a few degrees of cooling, a new ice age might be upon us, withrapid and drastic effects on the agricultural productivity of the temperate regions. With a few degrees

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of heating, the polar ice caps would melt, perhaps raising ocean levels 250 feet. Gondola to the EmpireState Building, anyone?"

The 250-foot rise in the sea level projected by Ehrlich as the result of global warming has beenscaled back somewhat. According to McKibben, the "worst case scenario" is now supposed to beeleven feet, by the year 2100, with something less than seven feet considered more likely. According to

a United Nations panel of alleged scientists, it is supposed to be 25.6 inches. (Even this still morelimited projected rise did not stop the UN panel from calling for an immediate 60 percent reduction incarbon-dioxide emissions to try to prevent it.)

Perhaps of even greater significance is the continuous and profound distrust of science andtechnology that the environmental movement displays. The one thing, the environmental movementholds, that science and technology can do so well that we are entitled to have unlimited confidence inthem is forecast the weather - for the next one hundred years! It is, after all, supposedly on the basis ofa weather forecast that we are being asked to abandon the Industrial Revolution, or, as it iseuphemistically put, "to radically and profoundly change the way in which we live" - to our enormousmaterial detriment. The meaning of this insanity is that industrial civilization is to be abandonedbecause this is what must be done to avoid bad weather. All right, very bad weather.

There is actually a remarkable new principle implied here, concerning how man can cope withhis environment. Instead of our taking action upon nature, as we have always believed we must do, weshall henceforth control the forces of nature more to our advantage by means of our inaction . Indeed, ifwe do not act, no significant threatening forces of nature will arise! The threatening forces of nature arenot the product of nature, but of us! Thus speaks the environmental movement.

The reason that one after another of the environmentalists' claims turn out to be proven wrongis that they are made without any regard for truth in the first place. In making their claims, theenvironmentalists reach for whatever is at hand that will serve to frighten people, make them loseconfidence in science and technology, and, ultimately, lead them to deliver themselves up to theenvironmentalists' tender mercies. Such claims have nothing to do either with actual experimentation orwith the concept of causality.

Direct evidence of the willful dishonesty of the environmental movement comes from one ofits leading representatives, Stephen Schneider, who is well-known for his predictions of globalcatastrophe. In the October 1989 issue ofDiscovermagazine, he is quoted (with approval) as follows:". . . To do this, we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public's imagination. That, ofcourse, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, makesimplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. This 'doubleethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decidewhat the right balance is between being effective and being honest."

5. CLIMATE CHANGE: SHATTERING THE MYTH

Climates change and have been changing for as long as the earth has existed. Changes affectair temperature, rainfall, sail moisture and sea levels. Sea levels around the world have risen between10 and 25 cm over the past 100 years. Average temperatures of the past few years have been thewarmest since 1860. Night temperatures have also tended to increase more than daytime temperatures.

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Scientists suggested in 1996 that between 1990 and 2100 average temperatures will rise 2C, averagesea levels will rise about 50 cm and there will be more extremely hot days and fewer cold ones.

The world's climate is in constant flux: on time-scales from days to millennia, global andregional temperature, wind and rainfall patterns are changing. Over periods of decades and centuries,the most significant factor affecting climate appears to be changes in the output of the sun.

Man's emissions of 'greenhouse gases' (GHGs) also play a role in altering climate. However, estimatessuggest that only 30 to 40 per cent of the warming seen over the past century was caused by GHGs.

Measuring climate change: how accurate is the scientific data about climate change? There areno agreed ways to measure climate change. Measurements have only been made for a few decades.Scientific knowledge remains incomplete. Although there are measured changes in climates, there issome conflicting evidence about the accuracy of this evidence. Given the uncertainty about climatechange, the precautionary principle implies that we should improve our understanding of the world'sclimate and do what we can to ensure that we are able to adapt most effectively. This means collectingbetter data, encouraging scientists to develop and test competing theories about the causes andconsequences of climate change, freeing up the world's markets, and eliminating subsidies. We shouldnot wait until we know everything before we take preventive measures.

6. RECYCLING DOES NOT PAY!

What's wrong with recycling? The answer is simple; it doesn't pay. And since it doesn't pay itis an inefficient use of the time, money, and scarce resources. That's right, as Mises would have argued:let prices be your guide. Prices are essential to evaluate actions ex post. If the accounting of a near past

event reveals a financial loss, the activity was a waste of both the entrepreneur's and society's scarceresources.

The same applies to recycling. What is the true cost of all factors involved in the recyclingactivity? I haven't a clue. Though using Misesian logic I know that the costs of recycling exceed thebenefits. This is the simple result of the observation that recycling doesn't return a financial profit.

Since there is no market for recyclable materials, at least no market sufficient to at least returnmy investment in soap and water, not to mention time and labor, I conclude that there is no pressingneed for recycling. If landfills were truly in short supply then the cost of dumping waste would quicklyrise. I would then see the financial benefit to reducing my waste volume, and since the recycling bin

does not count toward waste volume, the more in the recycling bin, the less in the increasinglyexpensive garbage cans. Prices drive entrepreneurial calculations and, hence, human action. Recyclingis no different.

Come on now, there can't be any benefit to even the neoclassical society if you actually haveto pay someone to remove recyclables.

That recycling doesn't pay signifies that resources devoted to recycling activities would bebetter utilized in other modes of production. Instead of wasting resources on recycling, it would be

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more prudent to invest that money so that new recipes could be created to better conserve scarcematerials in the production process.

Human action guides resources toward the activities that meet the most pressing needs. Thismovement of resources means that those activities that don't meet pressing needs are relativelyexpensive. Why? Those activities have to bid for factors of production along with the profitable

activities- activities that are meeting the most pressing needs. The profitable activities will drive thecost of those scarce factors upward leading to financial ruin for those activities that don't satisfy themost pressing needs. Forced recycling is such a failed activity.

The only caveat to this train of thought is what Rothbard wrote about when he discussedpsychic profit: the perceived benefit one gets from performing an action, even if that action leads to aneconomic loss. Who reaps the real psychic reward from recycling? The statist do-gooderand the obsessed conservationist. Since recycling is now a statist goal, the do-gooders and greens forcethe cost of recycling on the unsuspecting masses by selling recycling as a pseudo-spiritual activity. Inaddition to these beneficiaries, there are those who have not considered the full costs of recycling, buttheir psychic benefit is more ephemeral than real. The other winners are the companies that do thecollecting and process the materials, an industry that is sustained by mandates at the local level.

If recycling at a financial loss leads you to greater psychic profit, then recycle, recycle,recycle. Let your personal preferences guide your actions, but don't force your preference schedule onothers who have a different preference rank for their own actions. And, do not delude yourself intothinking that you are economizing anything; you are simply increasing your psychic profit at theexpense of a more rational investment. But, hey, your actions are your business; just don't force yourpreferences to be my business.

7. THE OBVIOUS SOLUTION TO ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS: PRIVATIZE,

PRIVATIZE, PRIVATIZE!

Consider the proposal that current champions of free-market environmentalism often make, aproposal that defenders of the politicization of environmental problems oppose almost automatically.

This proposal boils down to the very general principle, namely, that it is better all around forland and other property to be owned privately than publicly. Common or public ownership results, inother words, in what has been dubbed the tragedy of the commons. This occurs when everyone in agiven society is convinced that some realm belongs to us all, so that we all are entitled to make use of itto our hearts' content. This leads to depletion of resources.

The remedy champions of politicized environmentalism offer, namely, that the government

ration our use of public or common resources, will not work. Environmentalists may gain temporaryadvantages from governments, but soon other interests take over.

Imagine how it might have been had the free-market idea been made part of basic law: all landwould be owned by individuals and any use made of the land would require the agreement of theowners. This would have made it nearly impossible to implement massive technological projects suchas building railways, highways, airports, sports and recreational arenas unless complete consent hadbeen given by the owners over whose property these projects would have had to be constructed.

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The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution suggests this approach, stating that only forpublic use may private property be taken. Public policies must protect individual rights. So, very littleof what there is to be owned can belong to the public. The rest must remain at the disposal of privateowners.

Such a general approach to ownership of land, for example, would not have made possible theimplementation of massive projects in the name of the public and thus would have diversified resource

use throughout the country. The building of railways, highways and many other pseudo-public projectswould not have occurred with the aggressiveness they actually occurred in this country's history.

It is the contention of those who champion a free society that implementing the principles ofthe right to private property on the broadest possible scope would have worked out for better as far asour environmental woes are concerned. Nevertheless, it is better late than never! Thus the bestapproach to environmental issues is to privatize - that is how responsible environmental management isencouraged (though never guaranteed, as it certainly isn't when government takes on the task).

Societies where the principle of freedom of association is upheld and where private propertymakes it possible for one to enjoy a significant measure of sovereignty, are certainly better ones thanthose growing in levels of involuntary servitude, even to the highest or noblest goals one can imagine,including environmental rectitude. This is true, beyond any reasonable doubt.

Yet, sadly, most propose political solutions to problems they see with the environment andsupport state regimentation as the default solution to whatever problem they perceive.

CITED WORKS

Tibor Machan: Environmentalism without Government, posted on Monday, June 20, 2005.

George Reisman: The Toxicity of Environmentalism, posted on Monday, October 03, 2005 on

www.mises.org.

Jayant Bhandari: The Polluting State, posted on Wednesday, July 20, 2005.

N. Joseph Potts: The Climate Debate: When Science Serves the State, posted on Wednesday,

March 02, 2005, on www.mises.org.

Jim Fedako: Recycling: What a Waste!, posted on Thursday, September 22, 2005, on

www.mises.org.

Ike C. Sugg and Urs P. Kreuter: Elephants and Ivory: Lessons from the Trade Ban, posted on

01 November 1994, on www.mises.org.

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environmentalism or the end of man

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