(January 3, 2012 at 2:17 pm)5thHorseman Wrote: I'd like to hear more on this from Tiberius or theVoid. The Koch brothers are obviously very right wing libertarian/ economic liberals, what are your thoughts on green issues like pollution, climate change etc, where do you stand on de-regulating enviromental laws etc.
I'd like to point out that I am not implying libertarians do not care about green issues, I am aware that the Koch brothers will do anything for more money.
The Cock brothers are assholes, they just happen to consider themselves some brand of conservative-libertarian - though as far as I can tell they have no real concerns about individual sovereignty or the rule of law and they'll happily take subsidies in one hand while pushing out anti-subsidy press releases with the other.
Pollution and Climate Change are somewhat different issues. For the former, given a court system that is accessible to all individuals free of charge (as it should be) and a police force that treats pollution as a criminal office in the same way reckless endangerment and vandalism are, it should be a reasonable task to demonstrate that someone damaged your property (including your body) through pollutants, there are chemical traces for instance that can be found and traced to the source of the pollutant. Obviously this isn't as easy as it should be in the modern legal bureaucracy, but should someone be able to reasonably demonstrate that their property has been damaged by pollutants they should freely be able to seek compensation (or in more serious cases refer to the police to press charges), either as an individual or as a class action.
As for Climate Change:
Given that; (i) it is known to be the case that beyond a certain level of emissions a person is doing more damage (or amplifying the risk of damage) to the property of others than the emission of others do to theirs, (ii) people who have their property damaged have a right to compensation from the offending party, (iii) it is implausible for individuals to seek compensation for damage caused by emissions due to the scope of the problem - I find that the government has a legitimate authority to seek compensation from offenders so long as this compensation actually benefits the people whom have had their property damaged/threatened - One method I favour is giving businesses an option to pay the compensation as a tax OR to reinvest the money that would be taxed to lower their emissions, saving them money on future emissions taxes which means they have a financial incentive to act.
Though I don't think any government action performed with any legitimate authority will be what ultimately solves the problem though, that will come when the price of fossil fuels and the advancement of technology (as well as an increase in environmental values amongst general consumers) will lead to the adoption of renewable energy as the most cost effective power source in terms of delivering the maximum utility relative to the cost of production (as well as the increasing market domination of low-emissions appliances) - once that happens the trend will reverse, and the market has a much better chance of achieving this turn through the price system than any bumbling group of politicians at some luxury conference.
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