If someone believes that CERTAIN polluters should bear SOME of the future costs of pollution, that is not the same as arguing that all air conditioners should be destroyed.

If someone responds that the government is poorly suited to determine future costs of pollution, that is not the same as arguing that private property rights are more important than the public good.

Every resource consumed by humans is removed from the pool of resources available for future consumption. The only way to completely eliminate my impact on future generations is by refusing to eat or breathe. On the other hand, I might leave a smaller “footprint” on the environment simply by eating less meat and more veggies.

Should I abondon the second option simply because the first is impractical?

Any potential solution, carried to the ultimate extreme, is unrealistic. Serious economists should not use that type of argument to discuss the real world.

“We should be frugal and respectful for future generations.” That may sound logical, but it doesn’t necessarily follow from the above premise. We don’t know how much of natural resources we have on the planet. We know only what we have discovered, which may be a tiny fraction of what exists. Take oil, for example. We’ve heard for a century from peer-reviewed scientists that we would use it all up shortly. Yet we keep finding more. We have been told for decades that all the oil in the continental US has been found, then last year a company strikes oil in Nevada and it’s the biggest strike on land ever. Scientists should be a whole lot more humble about what they don’t know. We may have discovered less than one percent of the natural resources available.

As for conserving natural resources, I have no problem with that. But I would emphasize that the fairest and most reasonable method is let the market do the rationing, not the government. As resources become more scarce, the price will rise and the market will force its own rationing. At the same time, the potential profits in alternative fuels will encourage their development. Just keep the government out of it. 991646

But he is trying to do something else here. To show the underlying links to the hypocritical propaganda, motives deep down.

Because sadly you cant create strong movements by rational discussions.

You appeal to peoples fears and emotions, you tell some lie so many times that it seems as a self evident truth, then you use the masses to coerce the rest.

This how states and statist politics works.

And it is not fair to keep criticising Reisman for not making a cool steril raitonal Austiran property rights argument.

Cooperation among humans are interspecie cooperation and humans are smart enough that if they cooperate, it would be better for them. Meaning they will have a longer happier life.

But humans cooperate against nature, to tame it to control it, to make it serve them better. They dont cooperate in order to senselessly destroy everything that is not human, but to further their beings.

In nature everything eats everthing else. And in the end bugs and maggots eat humans. That is the law of nature. You can not keep living without ending some type of life and conmsume its energy.

Being smart and economizing resources is one thing. Putting non human life forms above humans is antoher.

Environmentalist are more communist in nature. Communism is a world wide movement, in contrast to National Socialism(Fascism).

Try running that argument by your local newspaper editorial board. You will be laughed and scoffed at, especially in a university city. You will be considered, no matter your true care for the environment, as a mere capitalist apologist (which is bad, in case you don’t understand).

They don’t address the science of climate change at all. They don’t address actual policies that are being proposed by statist environmentalists. They either address personal aesthetic judgments (and yes it is perfectly in keeping with Objectivism that tastes differ) or attack a caricature of the environmental movement. Perhaps the picture you paint is the destination we will eventually arrive at if we follow the statist-environmentalist movement consistently, but even the statist-evironmentalists are not fully consistent. Your goal would be much better served addressing actual policies proposed by environmentalists on both moral and economic grounds.

I’m afraid that if you continue in your current vein you will be ineffective at best and alienate fellow libertarians and potential converts at worst. You’ll drive away libertarian or potentially libertarian environmentalists, right into the open arms of the moderate and extreme statists who are providing practical policy proposals (however misguided and counterproductive they will in fact prove to be). Instead of ridiculing and attacking a caricature of the environmentalist movement, critique their actual policy proposals and offer libertarian alternatives.

I think Ryan is referring to so-called “watermelons”, green on the outside, red on the inside.

They’re more socialist than communist:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eco-socialism

http://media.mises.org/mp3/rothbard/R8-16m.mp3

To answer that question, one would have to define the purpose of life. Is it to be as happy as possible? Is it to ensure the survival and well being of your children and species?

You should be frugal for the sake of your descendants, in my opinion. That is, unless you are like these guys.

http://littlewhiteearbuds.wordpress.com/2007/01/02/25-of-americans-believe-jesus-comes-back-in-2007/

This is illogical. If the resources are finite in the sense you seem to mean, then they will eventually run out no matter what we do. What, then, is the supposed benefit of being frugal?

Your comment was on the mark. I should have changed words. What I really meant to convey is that there exists a complex organization in markets that arises “naturally,” so to speak. Maybe cooperation would be a better term. Equilibrium is an elusive concept, and can not be achieved, though many introductory economics professors would have you believe otherwise. The cooperation makes everone better off. I simply want to say that living in cooperation with the world leads to betterment for all. Cooperate with nature as you do your fellow man. One should help his fellow man as a farmer should rotate crops to preserve soil viability. It is not up to the state to force this, but up to us to strive for it. I believe it is ethically wrong, though it may be one’s right, to attack generalized “environmentalists” as nutty. To me this exibits a dangerous flaw in the way one percieves reality.

You’ve inspired me to place a “copyright” notice after every Instant Message and grocery list I compose as well.

Yeah I find the constant copyright notices from Reisman a little bothersome. But don’t be too hard on him; it’s the Randism talking.