Environmentalism and Climate Change

[popeyespappy]

TAKING PROPERTY RIGHTS SERIOUSLY: THE CASE OF CLIMATE CHANGE

No takers?

Well let me break it down for you then. This paper was written by a libertarian lawyer that specializes in environmental law. In it he makes a free market environmentalism case for a carbon tax based on property rights. It’s a thought that would send most of the self-proclaimed libertarian Americans that I have talked to into an instant rage. They would be wrong though because they don’t really understand the system they advocate for.

Here is how it works. Under the libertarian idea of property rights people that own property are entitled to compensation from those that damage their property. Anthropogenic global warming is real and is mainly caused by the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Unless something is done to mitigate the effects of AGW it is going to cause the climate of our planet to change. Temperatures are going to increase. Sea levels are going to rise. Some areas are going to become drier than they have been for thousands of years.

These changes are going to damage the property of many people. Coastal areas will be inundated. Productive farmland will become too dry to farm profitably. People in the affected areas will be entitled to compensation from those responsible for the damage to their property. i.e. us. The worst of the damage is going to be far enough in the future that we, i.e. those most responsible for the damage, aren’t going to be around to take responsibility for our actions. Therefore we should be putting money aside to compensate those whose property will be damaged by our actions.

We need to provide the means for people living in Bangladesh and Virginia Beach to buy new property when theirs is inundated. We need to provide the means for Rhythm’s ten times great grandchildren to buy a new tomato farm in Canada after Northern Kentucky becomes too dry for them to make a living there. A carbon tax is the logical way to accomplish this. Make the people responsible for putting excessive levels of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere take responsibility for their actions by paying for them. That’s how the ideal of free market environmentalism is supposed to work.