‘Environmental policy thinkers almost always begin with statist, top-down fixes, and quickly embrace crony capitalist ideas that involve subsidies for certain types of energy production, such as the ethanol abomination. Powerful economic lobbies then run with these ideas, perverting them until their environmental benefits take a back seat to their usefulness as tools of wealth capture.’
That’s because, on many fronts, this a matter ideological, not scientific. Many of the disillusioned Left have attached themselves, and their hopes, to climate change as a vehicle for their ideas. These are precisely the people who need to be disaggregated from scientific inquiry, like creeping vines from a healthy plant.
Climate change can be a rallying cry for meaning in life, offering purpose, money, jobs, identity, and a kind of near religious belief. More broadly, it’s a solid part of our culture and educational system.
There is a true-belief problem in human affairs, and no shortage of human ignorance, which ought to be kept in mind.
Here’s Robert Zubrin again:
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Even a private property-based conservation effort is something I could get behind, as it’s important to keep an open mind, and not define the problem merely as one of ideology, nor political philosophy.
Any thoughts or comments are welcome, feel free to highlight my ignorance.
Related On This Site: Ronald Bailey At Reason: ‘Delusional in Durban’…A Few Links On Environmentalism And Liberty
From Fora.tv Via A & L Daily: Bjorn Lomberg @ COP15
Jonathan Adler At The Atlantic: ‘A Conservative’s Approach to Combating Climate Change’ 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”…
Amy Payne At The Foundry: ‘Morning Bell: Obama Administration Buries Good News on Keystone Pipeline’…Repost-From if-then knots: “Response To Yetter On AGW”
Ronald Bailey At Reason: ‘Delusional in Durban’…A Few Links On Environmentalism And Liberty…From The WSJ-A Heated Exchange: Al Gore Confronts His Critics…From The Literary Review–Weather Channel Green Ideology: Founder John Coleman Upset….The Weather Channel’s Green Blog: A Little Too Green…From The Washington Post: The Weather Channel’s Forecast Earth Team Fired