What (If Any) Role Does Government Playing in Leading Us to Environmental Sustainability?
In a recent comment, frequent contributor MarcoPolo makes a couple of interesting points to which I’d like to respond:
MP: I agree that blind and unreasoning patriotism is often used as a excuse an excuse for xenophobia and a justification for acts of intolerance, aggression and rejection of new ideas. However, the converse is also true. There are always those who hide envy and spite born from personal inadequacies and failures behind a mask of noble sentiments.
CS: There is no doubt this is true. If there weren’t truth in the Aesop’s fables like “The Fox and the Grapes,” i.e. sour grapes, we wouldn’t still be talking about this author millennia later. Having said that, I doubt this is a large contributor to the ranks of progressives. Not all of us with progressive values are billionaires like Tom Steyer, but lots of us are people like me, a guy whose company at one point had 200+ employees and Fortune 100 clients all over the world.
MP: It’s no value berating your government for not squandering public money extracted from your fellow citizens implementing vast, impractical and often unworkable schemes, while you revile oil companies etc, even as you enjoy the benefits their products provide.
CS: This is where you run into trouble with your writing, with angry tirades so lacking in basic fairness and logical presentation that you actually tend to destroy the very point you’re trying to make.
Literally no one wants his government to:
• squander public money
• invest in vast, impractical and often unworkable schemes
• “do it all” for us, or
• replace the responsibility of personal choice.
Everybody on Earth benefits from the products the oil companies provide, since they gave us a huge percentage of the energy we consumed in the last 150 years. That, however, is totally irrelevant to their value in the world of today and tomorrow. It also doesn’t given the oil industry a pass for its malfeasance and negligence in causing spills and other pollution, covering up the truth about climate change, etc.
MP: Every consumer has a personal choice. That’s the essence of freedom. In the end, it’s up to you.
CS: This is interesting. Most Americans, though not all, understand that there is an important role that government plays in our lives.
We do have the Libertarians; Charles Koch, for instance, who, when asked about to define “fairness,” replied, “I get to keep my money.” In other words, he feels no obligation to contribute to the government that, for most of us, occupies an extremely important and valuable part of our lives: public safety, education, mass transportation, national defense, social security, medicare, a safety net for those who need one, etc. That, fortunately, is a fringe position, though I admit that it’s gained momentum since the onset of the current presidential administration.
So what about environmental regulation? What about public policy that serves to aggressively restrain companies and individuals from dumping pollutants and greenhouse gases in our atmosphere?
Anyone who thinks this can happen without the force of government is completely naive–and clearly hasn’t been paying attention to exactly what happens in the absence of environmental restrictions.
This is not to say that the consumer has no voice in the outcome. Obviously, you’re absolutely right when you say that government can’t do it all. Without individuals “voting with the wallets” and investing their own resources in a better tomorrow, this civilization is doomed.
Craig,
Thank you for your response, although I’m a little baffled as you seem to be in agreement with what I wrote, yet desperate to find objections.
Just to clarify, I certainly agree with the opinions you have expressed in your response.
As I’ve repeatedly stated I’m by no means a ‘libertarian’ in the US political sense.
I agree governments are essential stakeholders in any economy or social structure. Governments play a useful role as regulatory authorities (or umpires) and perform those tasks in the public weal. Governments provide services which, by the nature of those services, are beyond the remit or interest of the private sector.
It’s the duty of legislators to ensure the bureaucracy operates efficiently, fairly and within the bounds of any remit provided. The executive must be vigilant to ensure public money is spent prudently and responsibly.
What is baffling is your claim that oil companies are “totally irrelevant to their value in the world of today and tomorrow “. !
Oil companies produce more than 350,000 products without which no nations, not even the most backward,could survive. Now I’d say that makes them pretty relevant today, and in the foreseeable future don’t you ?
From the Aircraft you catch to your ‘green conference’, to the black top you drive on etc, these are all oil products.
The ambulance that saves a child’s life, the fire engine that saves your house, suddenly the fuel in these vehicles becomes very relevant when needed. In fact in your home there are at least 1000 oil product you couldn’t live without.
Consumers don’t just vote with their wallets ! Most consumers possess the right to vote (well, maybe not in Cameron’s beloved Peoples Republic of China). As voters, consumers elect governments and in doing so determine public policy.
It’s a matter of balance. Citizens who abjure their liberties and responsibilities to governments in return for security and prosperity discover all too late they gain neither. Bloated and repressive bureaucracies need weak legislators or complicit tyrants to survive, but most of all they need apathetic or overly idealistic voters to allow massive debt and the suppression of initiative, innovation or alternatives.
As I say, the trick for any society is attaining the right balance of competing political philosophies and objectives.
Point to consider: Consumers can only ‘vote with their wallets’ to the extent that there are known, commercially available, viable, lawful and affordable options.
Entrenched interests have all too often acted to suppress competitive and disruptive technologies and resources. The state-by-state pre-preemptive legislative efforts to prevent municipal broadband are merely some of the more well-known examples.
Cameron,
You raise valid point, although it’s often not the result of sinister “entrenched interests” but necessity of scale the determines the economics of technology.
Not being a resident of the US I’m not familiar with the issues surrounding Municipal Broadband.
my initial instinct is alarm for the taxpayer when Municipalities report horror stories like the failed municipal $39 million iProvo network and sold to Google for $1 dollar !
Equally alarming is the estimate of over 60% of municipal fiber systems fail to generate enough revenue to cover their ongoing operating costs, and creating massive public debt.
Burlington, Vermont is an excellent example the municipal network (much touted by Bernie Saunders) destroyed the city budget and solvency, causing Moody’s to downgrade Burlington’s credit rating to junk bond status.
As I say, I’m not an expert, but it does seem at first glance there’s more to the issue than simply “entrenched interests”.
Check out Chattanooga TN.