by Václav Klaus
Václav Klaus is president of the Czech Republic. This essay is based on a speech he delivered at the Cato Institute on March 9, 2007...
Environmentalism
I see the third main threat to individual freedom in environmentalism. To be specific, I do understand the concerns about eventual environmental degradation, but I also see a problem in environmentalism as an ideology.
Environmentalism only pretends to deal with environmental protection. Behind their people- and nature-friendly terminology, the adherents of environmentalism make ambitious attempts to radically reorganize and change the world, human society, our behavior, and our values.
There is no doubt that it is our duty to rationally protect nature for future generations. The followers of the environmentalist ideology, however, keep presenting us with various catastrophic scenarios with the intention of persuading us to implement their ideas. That is not only unfair but also extremely dangerous. Even more dangerous, in my view, is the quasi-scientific guise that their oft-refuted forecasts have taken on.
What are the beliefs and assumptions that form the basis of the environmentalist ideology?
* Disbelief in the power of the invisible hand of the free market and a belief in the omnipotence of state dirigisme.
* Disregard for the role of important and powerful economic mechanisms and institutions, primarily those of property rights and prices, in an effective protection of nature.
* Misunderstanding of the meaning of resources and of the difference between potential natural resources and real ones that can be used in the economy. Malthusian pessimism over technical progress.
* Belief in the dominance of externalities in human activities.
* Promotion of the so-called precautionary principle, which maximizes risk aversion without paying attention to the costs.
* Underestimation of long-term income growth and welfare improvements, which results in a fundamental shift of demand toward environmental protection and is demonstrated by the so-called environmental Kuznets Curve.
* Erroneous discounting of the future, demonstrated so clearly by the highly publicized Stern Report a few months ago.
All of those beliefs and assumptions are associated with social sciences, not with natural sciences. That is why environmentalism — unlike scientific ecology — does not belong to the natural sciences and can be classified as an ideology. That fact is, however, not understood by the average person and by numerous politicians.
The hypothesis of global warming and the role of humanity in that process is the last and, to this day, the most powerful embodiment of the environmental ideology. It has brought many important "advantages" to the environmentalists:
* An empirical analysis of the global warming phenomenon is very complicated because of the complexity of the global climate and the mix of various long-, medium-, and short-term trends and causes.
* Environmentalists' argumentation is based not on simple empirical measurements or laboratory experiments but on sophisticated model experiments working with a range of ill-founded assumptions that are usually hidden and not sufficiently understood.
* The opponents of the global warming hypothesis have to accept the fact that in this case we are in a world pervaded by externalities.
* People tend to notice and remember only extraordinary climate phenomena, not normal developments and slow long-term trends and processes.
It is not my intention here to present arguments for the refutation of that hypothesis. What I find much more important is to protest against the efforts of the environmentalists to manipulate people. Their recommendations would take us back into the era of statism and restricted freedom. It is therefore our task to draw a clear line and differentiate between ideological environmentalism and scientific ecology.
Charles Krauthammer: The new socialism
In the 1970s and early ’80s, having seized control of the UN apparatus, Third World countries decided to cash in. OPEC was pulling off the greatest wealth transfer from rich to poor in history. Why not them? So in grand UN declarations, they began calling for a “New International Economic Order” (NIEO). The NIEO’s essential demand was simple: to transfer fantastic chunks of wealth from the industrialized West to the Third World.
On what grounds? In the name of equality — wealth redistribution via global socialism — with a dose of post-colonial reparations thrown in.
The idea of essentially taxing hard-working citizens of the democracies in order to fill the treasuries of Third World kleptocracies went nowhere, thanks mainly to Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. They put a stake through the enterprise.
But such dreams never die. The raid on the Western treasuries is on again, but today with a new rationale to fit current ideological fashion. With socialism dead, the gigantic heist is now proposed as a sacred service to the newest religion: environmentalism.
One of the major goals of the Copenhagen climate summit is another NIEO shakedown: the transfer of hundreds of billions from the industrial West to the Third World to save the planet by, for example, planting green industries in the tristes tropiques.
Politically it’s an idea of genius, engaging at once every left-wing erogenous zone: rich-man’s guilt, post-colonial guilt, environmental guilt. But the idea of shaking down the industrial democracies in the name of the environment thrives not just in the refined internationalist precincts of Copenhagen. It thrives on the national scale too.
On the day Copenhagen opened, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claimed jurisdiction over the regulation of carbon emissions by declaring them an “endangerment” to human health.
Since the U.S. operates an overwhelmingly carbon-based economy, the EPA will be regulating practically everything. No institution that emits more than 250 tons of CO2 a year will fall outside EPA control. This means over a million building complexes, hospitals, plants, schools, businesses and similar enterprises. Not since the creation of the Internal Revenue Service has a federal agency been given more intrusive power over every aspect of economic life.
This assertion of vast executive power in the name of the environment is the perfect fulfillment of the prediction of Czech President Vaclav Klaus, pictured, that environmentalism is becoming the new socialism — the totemic ideal in the name of which government seizes the commanding heights of the economy and society.
Socialism having failed spectacularly, the left was adrift until it struck upon a brilliant gambit: metamorphosis from red to green. The cultural elites went straight from the memorial service for socialism to the altar of the environment. The objective is the same: highly centralized power given to the best and the brightest, the new class of experts and technocrats. This time, however, the alleged justification is saving the planet.
Not everyone is pleased with the coming New Carbon-Free International Order. When the Obama administration signalled a commitment to major cuts in carbon emissions, Democratic Senator Jim Webb wrote the President protesting that he lacks the authority to do so unilaterally. That requires congressional concurrence.
With the Senate blocking the President’s cap and trade carbon legislation, the EPA coup d’état served as the administration’s loud response to Webb: The hell we can’t. With this EPA finding, we can do as we wish with carbon. Either the Senate passes cap and trade, or the EPA will impose even more draconian measures.
Forget for a moment the economic effects of severe carbon chastity. There’s the matter of constitutional decency. If you want to revolutionize society, you do it through Congress reflecting popular will. Not by administrative fiat of bureaucrats.
Congress should not just resist this executive overreaching, but Trump it: Amend existing clean air laws and restore their original intent by excluding CO2 from EPA control and reserving that power for Congress and future legislation.
Do it now. Do it soon. Because Big Brother isn’t lurking in CIA cloak. He’s knocking on your door, smiling under an EPA cap.