Adler suggests an approach that doesn’t subsume property rights to utilitarian design, but rather to 400 years of common law when it comes to carbon emissions. Of course, this is one response to the consistent calls for economic regulation and State control from the Left in response to climate change. It would have transnational implications:
‘My argument is that the same general principles that lead libertarians and conservatives to call for greater protection of property rights should lead them to call for greater attention to the most likely effects of climate change. It is a well recognized principle of common law that if company A is flooding the land of person B, it is irrelevant whether company A generates lots of economic prosperity for the local community (including B). A’s action would still violate B’s property rights, and B would be entitled to relief of some sort. By the same token, if the land of a farmer in Bangladesh is flooded, due in measurable and provable part to human-induced climate change, why would he be any less entitled to redress than a farmer who has his land flooded by his neighbor’s land-use changes? Property rights should not be sacrificed as part of some utilitarian calculus. Libertarians readily accept this principle when government planners violate property rights in the name of economic development (see e.g., Kelo v. New London). Yet they seem to abandon their commitment to property rights when it comes to global warming.’
Perhaps. But as for conservatives who find such a definition of liberty too far afield from their lights? What about climate-change skeptics?
Related On This Site: Monbiot invokes Isaiah Berlin and attacks libertarians: From George Monbiot: ‘How Freedom Became Tyranny’…A Few Thoughts On Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts Of Liberty”…
Instead of global green governance, what about a World Leviathan…food for thought, and a little frightening: At Bloggingheads Steven Pinker Discusses War And Thomas Hobbes…
Ronald Bailey At Reason: ‘Delusional in Durban’…A Few Links On Environmentalism And Liberty
