March of the Polar Bears
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/21/AR2008052102428.html
March of the Polar Bears By George F. Will Thursday, May 22, 2008
A preventive war worked out so well in Iraq that Washington last week launched another. The new preventive war -- the government responding forcefully against a postulated future threat -- has been declared on behalf of polar bears, the first species whose supposed jeopardy has been ascribed to global warming.
Such a pissy "war" to declare or oppose - ignorance is on all sides! What's a good environmentalist to do? What are the facts? What can be predicted? What don't we know?
I really despise the GW debate. It's unwinnable except by waiting and saying in 50 years "I told you so" after the crisis has come full-tilt. Maybe only 20 years if we're really lucky!
On the other hand, I could take a walk in my local park, see the trees and birds and blue sky and "understand" its crazy to imagine human's little atmospheric tinkering could seriously affect the balance of life on earth. Life is robust - it'll adapt like it always has, and the harder we knock it down, the harder it'll climb back up, at least in the bigger picture.
Is it reasonable for humans to "worry about extinction", at least for species that "don't matter" (by someone's judgement)?
Well, I accept there's a false sense of power at the start. I mean it's one thing to take something we "CAN DO" and DO that is hard and offers us advantage, and expect it'll continue. BUT it is something else entirely to imagine we'll do something HARD that doesn't offer direct advantage. Such efforts seem to me doomed to fail - because they require top-down power to keep it going. Basically if there's surpluses of time or energy, we might consider doing "charity work", but when something is limited, we have to build systems that give advantage AND offer wider charity as a side effect. I'm only saying this as a practical reality.
So can we save the polar bears? Can we cause their extinction? Can the risk of their extinction be sufficient to promote HARD choices to change our choices?
Wendell Berry offers a clear judgement of our economy - which fails to see ourselves within the natural system but above it. So if economics is to be "honest", there must be an accounting of costs. Since the costs can't be predicted (How much will GW cost us between now and 2050 if we do nothing? How much will it cost us if we do something different?)
It all breaks down for me as unknowable. Apparently "conservatives" like Will would say the polar bear's future it outside our responsibility, it'll deal with its own survival as it can. I agree at least in the sense of uncertainty, BUT I'd support economic measures for our decisions. I don't know if we can measure the costs of CO2 production, BUT we can recognize Fossil fuels are nonrenewable, depleting, and getting dirtier and dirtier over time as easiest sources of energy are consumed. We can recognize we need "something better" and it won't come as long as what we have works, as long as we are willing to have "no bottom line" against environmental costs for using more fossil fuels.
It seems reasonable to me to tax CO2 production because it is a fair assessment of fossil fuel use. It need not be called a "pollutant", but simply a measure of consumption of something we want to reduce.
For me, given we know we want to transition to other more renewable sources, the solution seems clear - increase taxes on fossil fuel consumption, increasing progressively until scalable alternatives become competitive.
The flaw is that we have an economy that is BASED on the assumption of every increasing availability of resources and energy, SO it's unclear if what we do is even POSSIBLE within a climate of reduced resources and energy. Mainly I mean on how money (capital) is used to create wealth. Wealth creation means exploiting the bottom line, whatever it is, BUT will "marketeers" blindly accept their wealth can be taken from them by taxes for "unwanted decisions", OR will they simply move their wealth elsewhere where they are free to exploit as they like?
It would seem we must come down to "two worlds" - one where governments are UNITED against fossil fuel consumption and one where governments are beholden to fossil fuel interests. At the moment ALL modern governments are slaves to fossil fuels. There's no alternative except accepting greater poverty. I don't know how a transition can occur. I suppose attempts like Kyoto were bold, and at least created tension in countries to face their CO2 production, even if they're still beholden to it. Anyway, if there's attempts to regulate, then the "regulated" must limit trade with the "unregulated". And that assumes such pure positions can even be accepted by any government.
Canada is a prime example - progressive BUT vast natural resources, so Alberta Sand Tars are economic resources and no one can imagine fighting such vast success as long as it can seem viable, as long as the costs are kept hidden.
Lastly, to face Will's argument, that environmentalism offers an unlimited "license to intrude." I don't have much will to fight. Ultimately it can only come down to "majority rights" and so as long as a majority find "limitations" as "inconvenient", they can win the right to keep down the path to destruction, and we all follow, however much we might try to reduce our personal impact.
The lovely conservative philosophy is to lead by carrots rather than whips. So rather than taxing polluters, you apparently print money (taxing everyone via inflation), and give it to capitalists who will create better ways of doing things.
I suppose I should get off my "sin-tax" hope. It works only when the majority recoginizes the "sin" and the minority decide not to revolt.
I accept the conservative position that trying to control others is always troublesome and best avoided. Every effort to push wastes energy in counter-pushing back that could have been directed to actually changing something.
Anyway, yes, Mr. Will, I'm a dark pessimist about the future of humanity. I'm so dark, I'll let you win and not even try to oppose the success that will bring our ruin. I'll just try to "stay small", like the mammals in the age of the dinosaurs, until our madness wrecks everything. Then if I'm still around, I'll get out my broom and see what I can clean up.
I'm sure all the conservatives are happy by my easy surrender! Too bad Gore has to keep throwing around his new found weight trying to make people optimistic about a better world that will never come.
March of the Polar Bears By George F. Will Thursday, May 22, 2008
A preventive war worked out so well in Iraq that Washington last week launched another. The new preventive war -- the government responding forcefully against a postulated future threat -- has been declared on behalf of polar bears, the first species whose supposed jeopardy has been ascribed to global warming.
Such a pissy "war" to declare or oppose - ignorance is on all sides! What's a good environmentalist to do? What are the facts? What can be predicted? What don't we know?
I really despise the GW debate. It's unwinnable except by waiting and saying in 50 years "I told you so" after the crisis has come full-tilt. Maybe only 20 years if we're really lucky!
On the other hand, I could take a walk in my local park, see the trees and birds and blue sky and "understand" its crazy to imagine human's little atmospheric tinkering could seriously affect the balance of life on earth. Life is robust - it'll adapt like it always has, and the harder we knock it down, the harder it'll climb back up, at least in the bigger picture.
Is it reasonable for humans to "worry about extinction", at least for species that "don't matter" (by someone's judgement)?
Well, I accept there's a false sense of power at the start. I mean it's one thing to take something we "CAN DO" and DO that is hard and offers us advantage, and expect it'll continue. BUT it is something else entirely to imagine we'll do something HARD that doesn't offer direct advantage. Such efforts seem to me doomed to fail - because they require top-down power to keep it going. Basically if there's surpluses of time or energy, we might consider doing "charity work", but when something is limited, we have to build systems that give advantage AND offer wider charity as a side effect. I'm only saying this as a practical reality.
So can we save the polar bears? Can we cause their extinction? Can the risk of their extinction be sufficient to promote HARD choices to change our choices?
Wendell Berry offers a clear judgement of our economy - which fails to see ourselves within the natural system but above it. So if economics is to be "honest", there must be an accounting of costs. Since the costs can't be predicted (How much will GW cost us between now and 2050 if we do nothing? How much will it cost us if we do something different?)
It all breaks down for me as unknowable. Apparently "conservatives" like Will would say the polar bear's future it outside our responsibility, it'll deal with its own survival as it can. I agree at least in the sense of uncertainty, BUT I'd support economic measures for our decisions. I don't know if we can measure the costs of CO2 production, BUT we can recognize Fossil fuels are nonrenewable, depleting, and getting dirtier and dirtier over time as easiest sources of energy are consumed. We can recognize we need "something better" and it won't come as long as what we have works, as long as we are willing to have "no bottom line" against environmental costs for using more fossil fuels.
It seems reasonable to me to tax CO2 production because it is a fair assessment of fossil fuel use. It need not be called a "pollutant", but simply a measure of consumption of something we want to reduce.
For me, given we know we want to transition to other more renewable sources, the solution seems clear - increase taxes on fossil fuel consumption, increasing progressively until scalable alternatives become competitive.
The flaw is that we have an economy that is BASED on the assumption of every increasing availability of resources and energy, SO it's unclear if what we do is even POSSIBLE within a climate of reduced resources and energy. Mainly I mean on how money (capital) is used to create wealth. Wealth creation means exploiting the bottom line, whatever it is, BUT will "marketeers" blindly accept their wealth can be taken from them by taxes for "unwanted decisions", OR will they simply move their wealth elsewhere where they are free to exploit as they like?
It would seem we must come down to "two worlds" - one where governments are UNITED against fossil fuel consumption and one where governments are beholden to fossil fuel interests. At the moment ALL modern governments are slaves to fossil fuels. There's no alternative except accepting greater poverty. I don't know how a transition can occur. I suppose attempts like Kyoto were bold, and at least created tension in countries to face their CO2 production, even if they're still beholden to it. Anyway, if there's attempts to regulate, then the "regulated" must limit trade with the "unregulated". And that assumes such pure positions can even be accepted by any government.
Canada is a prime example - progressive BUT vast natural resources, so Alberta Sand Tars are economic resources and no one can imagine fighting such vast success as long as it can seem viable, as long as the costs are kept hidden.
Lastly, to face Will's argument, that environmentalism offers an unlimited "license to intrude." I don't have much will to fight. Ultimately it can only come down to "majority rights" and so as long as a majority find "limitations" as "inconvenient", they can win the right to keep down the path to destruction, and we all follow, however much we might try to reduce our personal impact.
The lovely conservative philosophy is to lead by carrots rather than whips. So rather than taxing polluters, you apparently print money (taxing everyone via inflation), and give it to capitalists who will create better ways of doing things.
I suppose I should get off my "sin-tax" hope. It works only when the majority recoginizes the "sin" and the minority decide not to revolt.
I accept the conservative position that trying to control others is always troublesome and best avoided. Every effort to push wastes energy in counter-pushing back that could have been directed to actually changing something.
Anyway, yes, Mr. Will, I'm a dark pessimist about the future of humanity. I'm so dark, I'll let you win and not even try to oppose the success that will bring our ruin. I'll just try to "stay small", like the mammals in the age of the dinosaurs, until our madness wrecks everything. Then if I'm still around, I'll get out my broom and see what I can clean up.
I'm sure all the conservatives are happy by my easy surrender! Too bad Gore has to keep throwing around his new found weight trying to make people optimistic about a better world that will never come.
posted by Ares Olympus at 3:29 PM
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