For the Children! Still!
March 25th, 2008 by Peter SudermanOver at Reason, Ron Bailey responds to the oft-employed environmentalist argument that whatever expensive, restrictive regulation they’re arguing for at a given time is justified because “we owe it to future generations.” That sounds nice, but the reality of the argument is far less pleasant. As Bailey says:
Really? Perhaps intergenerational ethics tells us that poor people (us) should not sacrfice their livelihoods, health and welfare for rich people (future generations). Reducing current incomes will certainly be deadly for some people now alive.
Should people making an average of $7000 per year be forced to lower their incomes in order to boost the incomes of future generations that some scenarios project will have incomes in 2100 over $107,000 per capita in developed countries and over $66,000 in developing countries? Also keep in mind that not only will future generations be much richer, they will have access to better technologies with which to address any problems caused by man-made climate change, nuclear waste and geo-engineering projects.
This follows a lot of the same arguments that have been made by Jim Manzi, whose opposition to a carbon tax stems largely from his assessment that greater wealth and technology will, in the long run, be far more suited to responding to environmental challenges than burdensome regulatory non-solutions now.
March 25th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
I honestly couldn’t follow his point. It didn’t make any sense to me.
March 25th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
I think ruining the environment because it’s simply cheaper is silly and short-sighted.
What’s up with the front page of this blog’s website? It looks like the posting below this post has screwed up the website or something…
March 26th, 2008 at 9:12 am
It’s really not that difficult to follow.
Complaints about a process being more expensive are usually portrayed as whiny upper-middle class types who don’t want to sacrifice their three-car garage. Bailey’s point is that requiring more expensive methods from poor, third-world countries is not just a matter of luxury, but a matter of life or death. When you’re struggling to make a dollar a day, drastic economic changes like those that are likely to follow carbon-rationing have serious consequences.
The follow-up is that wealthier, more technologically advanced societies are more capable of addressing environmental challenges. So why not wait till further down the road, when we’re wealthier, more knowledgeable, have more resources, etc. rather than succumb to panic now and enact policies (like, say, Kyoto) that are both hugely expensive (thus having a ripple effect on future wealth) and completely ineffectual?
March 26th, 2008 at 11:35 am
That’s the thing though…alternative energy sources don’t have to be “more expensive”. Imagine what position this country would have been in today if we continued to focus on conservation & alternative energy sources like Jimmy Carter wanted us to over 30 years ago?
Still not seeing any easy way to get to the posts that are older than the ones displayed on the front page of this website.
March 26th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Peter, what you wrote makes sense. What that guy wrote didn’t make any sense at all.