June 07, 2012
For example, the Los Angeles City Council apparently sees plastic grocery bags as a threat to the government-owned Los Angeles River’s sanctity. Far larger intrusions into the economy include a 90 percent increase in electricity costs in exchange for a world temperature reduction of a mere .2Ë Celsius by the end of the century.
Despite popular belief, not even American Indians were environmentally friendly. Chief Seattle’s famous “Man Belongs to the Earth” speech is a fabrication written by some screenwriter named Ted Perry. Tom Woods explains in 33 Questions how the Indians recklessly killed entire animal populations as well as cut and burned down entire forests for farmland without regard for the ecological consequences. Some of the fires spread “for weeks at a time over several hundred thousand square miles,” most not stopping until the rain smothered the flames.
The only appropriate excuse for conservation is that it’s economically sound. The market is necessarily a promoter of clean environments because its core principle is private property. An entrepreneur would treat a privately owned Los Angeles River just as he would treat his own privately owned swimming pool. Considering the river’s potential for profit, he may treat it even better. In that sense, all free market capitalists are also free market environmentalists.
There are still countless political roadblocks that prevent simple solutions. If there wasn”t a monopoly on trash pickup in my city, maybe a company would pay me to pick up and keep my recycled items. To advance the rare breed of humanity-friendly, economy-boosting, realistic environmentalism, I think that’s a perfect place to start.
Despite liberal whining about car pollution, automobiles were a solution to the poisoned atmosphere resulting from primitive travel methods. The horse-and-buggy days tainted our air with the foul scent of horse manure before businessmen came into the picture. So yes, the Earth is a little smoggier than it was in the last two centuries, but it also no longer smells like horseshit.
