David Harsanyi has an essay over at The Federalist titled Environmentalists Will Lose, And That’s Great News For Mankind. Taking a critique of a recent piece by Jonathan Chait as his starting point, Harsanyi debunks the idea that climate change is our biggest bugaboo since the Second World War. He points out that the significant improvements in living conditions around the world had been almost completely driven by market forces bringing the benefits of technology to an increasingly greater share of the world’s people and that command economies have stunted economic progress, holding billions in poverty.
Now, unlike coal, oil, gas, and market economics, an environmentalist has never lifted anyone out of poverty. But if you’re convinced that every wildfire and tornado is the fault of Koch Brothers, Ayn Rand and a recalcitrant GOP Congress, this moral structure probably makes some sense to you. If you believe the moral magnitude of climate change falls somewhere short of the killing of 70 million people (we don’t know the exact number World War II took), but is a more a pressing problem than mass hunger or disease or war, I can understand why you think doing nearly anything to stop it is okay. Like emulating one-party authoritarianism, for instance.
Not many people are going to volunteer for a life of poverty. The numbers are not on the environmentalists’ side.
Read the whole thing.
“Not many people are going to volunteer for a life of poverty.”
But if you put environmental loonies into the EPA as well paid bureaucrats , e.g., you don’t have to have anyone actually volunteer.
I am gratified that you know how to spell “losers.” These days, it is often misspelled as “loosers,” and instead of “losing,” many incorrectly write, “loosing.”
Things are loose enough around here.
It was a close battle of puns, but, John wins by a noose!
Chait:
Away from fossil fuels to what, exactly? Unicorn farts?
Nuclear power would be one answer, but yes, the politics involved are fiendish indeed.
Well, if the wind stops blowing at night, we can alway use kerosene lamps.
Oh.
What do you have against tried and true whale oil lamps?
Not being Japanese, Norwegian, or Eskimo, I’m unable to hunt whales under the present treaty. However, whale oil has potential as a biofuel.
Fireflies.
Sure, you need an awful lot to read by, but watching them has the added benefit of giving a feeling of Serenity.
malclave’s comment has earned the Hogewash! Seal of Approval.
As long as they can’t take the sky from me, I’m good.
Bravo Malcave,
https://youtu.be/TAryFIuRxmQ
I ask forgiveness in advance for posting this off-topic issue, but because this blog advocates for, inter alia, First Amendment freedoms, I wanted to mention it here with the hope that this issue will get more attention. Please delete if it’s not appropriate. It deals with the Chinese crackdown of a number of lawyers, paralegals, and an orphanage owner.
http://www.scifiwright.com/2015/09/my-daughters-other-father/