Old MySpace Blogpost:
“Gore warns that “what is at stake [is] our ability to live on planet Earth, to have a future as a civilization.” Let’s take a look at some of the evidence that he presents to justify this dire conclusion. He begins by insisting that nothing he has to say is scientifically controversial. Gore claims to be presenting the “scientific consensus” on global warming. But is that so?”
Read more of this illuminating article at ReasonOnline.
I don’t agree with all of the claims the author makes, but it is for the most part a healthy rebutal of Gore’s alarmist documentary. I don’t deny that some degree of global warming is occurring, but statist environmentalists would be just as up-in-arms about global cooling. There are in fact both positive and negative consequences to both. Such climate change is natural, however, and I’m not absolutely convinced that humans are making a significant contribution to global warming (see here for example). Moreover, there is no consensus on what effects global warming is having or will have. One recent study suggests it could cause a mini-ice age in Europe, another suggests it is responsible for increased vegetation (a positive for environmentalists!). As for the negative consequences, we don’t know whether they will outweigh the positive. More importantly, we don’t know if the alleged positive consequences (if any) of the statist public policies recommended by Gore and his alarmist ilk will outweigh by their negative consequences. A sound understanding of political and economic theory and history provides little reason to suspect they will come even close to doing so. Certainly the shaky and highly exaggerated “evidence” provided by the alarmists does not justify them. Finally, Gore and his ilk rarely consider the largely unseen negative consequences of their proposed policies, fail to consider the general superiority of free market solutions, and, as the article indicates toward the end, fail to consider how we can cope with the negative consequences of global warming with existing and possible future technologies, practices, and entrepreneurial innovations.
Consider this: If humans aren’t the primary and/or a significant cause of global warming, then statist policies will not only have their usual predictable negative consequences, but will leave us (especially the poor) less able to cope with the negative consequences of a global warming we didn’t cause and can’t stop. And if we are the primary and/or significant cause, statist policies are still the wrong way to go because they will inevitably hinder economic progress (again harming the poor the most) not only making us less well off materially than we otherwise would have been but also, actually, at the same time and for the same reasons, hindering the advance toward more environmentally-friendly technologies, personal lifestyles, and business strategies. Not to mention the fact that the statist route will serve to perpetuate the plutocracy in this country and the world, as it has always done and will ever do, contrary to the professed wishes of leftists yet perfectly in keeping with their actual actions.
Geoffrey is an Aristotelian-Libertarian political philosopher, writer, editor, and web designer. He is the founder of the