Will draconian carbon rules avert global war?
John Kerry claims that a failure by government to address what he believes to be a coming catastrophic climate change will lead to an increase in war that will threaten U.S. national security:
Kerry panel looks at climate change and national security
Interesting.
Here's how I see it.
Scenario 1: Government does nothing, and individuals continue to prosper and (if they deem it prudent for themselves) prepare for changes in climate as best they can under current government controls; the feared climate changes either come to pass in the next century or so, or they don't; and the climate changes, if they do occur, will just as likely open up new resources as destroy current ones, and those people negatively affected would at least have been able to further develop economically in the meantime, which is the best way to mitigate any negative effects.
Scenario 2: Government cracks down even more on carbon dioxide emissions, thus plunging the world into a severe economic downturn, driving billions of people into poverty, and forcing much of the world's population to start to consider extreme measures to survive; and all this without even having a clue if those drastic and coercive government controls will have any positive effect on the climate (however one defines positive in this case).
Which scenario seems more likely to lead to massive conflict?
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July 25th, 2009 - 05:51
Your scenarios are a little far fetched I believe. Your comment in Scenario 1 about new resources being opened up is somewhat optimistic, akin to not worrying about deforestation because you believe some resource will materialize if we chop all the trees down. More facts are needed to back up this claim. Also, the people most adversely affected are always the poor, and they are poor because the wealthy nations abuse them in order to gain more wealth. What improvements are they to have made to change this? Rub a lamp to summon a djinn?
Scenario 2 ignores the fact that the economy in its present form requires endless growth in order to maintain itself. As we all know this is clearly impossible in the long term which is why all economies go through periods of recession, with or without carbon laws. The solution to this is to remove the need for continuous growth, not remove limits on pollution.
July 26th, 2009 - 18:30
However you parse it, mandatory carbon restrictions will, by definition, reduce economic growth and standards of living, almost certainly leading to conflict, while the threat of conflict induced by a postulated climate change is not even close to certain.
As for the poor nations, they are poor in part due to their own anti-market economic policies. As for the part of their poverty caused, as you say, by wealthy nations, I’m all for getting rid of our own anti-market policies like regulations, subsidies, and trade restrictions that impede the economic growth of other countries. But even absent such changes, why would you want to put them in an even worse position by retarding their economic development?
And I honestly have no idea what you mean by removing “the need for continuous growth” of the economy. Free individuals always strive to improve their situation, which can only happen through production and exchange of goods and services. I can only assume that your desire to remove this need for continuous growth must mean that you want to forcibly prevent people from trying to improve their standards of living.