Government and the Environment

I was going through some old files on my hard drive and found an essay I wrote in 2005 for a college course called "Energy and the Environment: A Global Perspective". This was an elective for my degree in mechanical engineering. The professor was a flaming liberal and couldn't spout off enough about global warming et al. But when he gave out topics for the term paper, I couldn't resist but to choose "Government and the Environment". It goes against everything he stood for, but he still gave me an "A". Here it is:

Engr 302I Essay
Title: Government and the Environment
By: XXXXXXXXXX
Date: 07/07/2005

Abstract: The proper role of government in enforcing laws concerning protection of the environment.

Many people are concerned about the state of the environment. Daily we are told that humans are destroying the world with pollution. Many species of animals and plants are on the brink of extinction due to mankind infringing on their territory. Shouldn’t the environment be protected? After all, we all live in the environment and must share it with each other and nature. Should the government be the one to create and enforce laws protecting the environment?

In short, the answer is no. The proper role of government is to protect the rights of individuals, including life, liberty and property. And when speaking of the right of property, this refers to the right of the individual to do with his property as he wishes, so long as it does not infringe on the rights of others – others being other humans, not animals, plants or the environment. While all governments of the world, including the US, trample on these rights on a consistent basis, this does not excuse their behavior. Environmentalists have the singular goal of making slaves of mankind - slaves to the environment, which in their eyes should remain untouched and pristine, for no other reason than it should just exist. They have transferred rights that should be guaranteed to humans to plants, animals, mountains, rivers and the sky.

By nature, animals use their instincts to hunt, feed, gather, mate, etc. in order to survive. By contrast, humans do not use instincts but gain and use knowledge in order to survive. Humans must clear fields for agriculture, domesticate animals for food, and in order to improve the quality of human life, dam rivers, pave roads, burn fuel, use chemicals, etc., all things which may be harmful to some part of the environment. Manipulation of the environment is what sets humans apart from animals and is essential to our survival. Yet if humans were to stop these actions, or even curb them, we would slowly revert back to the Dark Ages, a time of no technological advances and complete stagnation. The more pollution that has been created in the world, the longer and better the lives of humans have become.

But of course governments have regulated mans use of the environment. In 1972, the US banned the use of DDT, mostly because of an environmental crusade triggered by the book “Silent Spring”, written by Rachel Carson, published in 1962. Her book claimed that DDT caused, among other things, cancer, which was unsubstantiated. DDT was used effectively throughout the world to eliminate mosquitoes that spread deadly malaria. In Sri Lanka, malaria victims fell from 2.8 million to only 17 between 1948 and 1963. Yet after the US ban, most of the rest of the world followed suit and DDT has not been used since. The founder of the environmental group Earth First declares “Ours is an ecological perspective that views Earth as a community and recognizes such apparent enemies as disease and pests not as manifestations of evil to be overcome but rather as vital and necessary components of a complex and vibrant biosphere”. Estimates for today’s occurrences of malaria are approximately 300 million cases and one million deaths annually1.

Another regulation has been the protection of so-called endangered species. In 1973, the US passed the Endangered Species Act, in effect putting the lives of animals before the lives of humans. The act has halted beneficial activities such as mining and damming. In a famous case, logging in the Pacific Northwest was almost completely shut down to protect the Northern Spotted Owl. A farmer in Bakersfield, Ca was arrested in 1994 for unknowingly killing five Tipton kangaroo rats while plowing his field. His tractor and plow were seized as “murder weapons”. He faced fines and prison time because of his heinous act. In the summer of 2001, farmland in the Klamath Basin in Oregon was converted to useless dirt as irrigation water was diverted from farms to an area where “endangered” fish existed. Entire crops were destroyed, and farmers were forced to sell livestock and many were driven into bankruptcy2.

In 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia exploded during re-entry due to a piece of thermal insulation flaking off of its external tank during launch. What makes this significant is that the foam used was a required design change mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The original foam was made with CFC-11, a pollutant banned by the 1987 Montreal Protocol. Although the new foam, first used in 1997, resulted in foam-induced tile damage ten times that of the old foam, the EPA would not allow an exemption from its regulation. Although 14 astronauts were killed, the environment was safe3.

The largest concern of people today is global warming. Yet many believe it to be a hoax. Research shows that the earth has been warming since the last Ice Age, but not rapidly enough to threaten mankind’s existence. Other research indicates that there has been a cooling period over the past 35 years. In the 1970’s, environmentalists even claimed that there was an oncoming Ice Age, yet when this failed to cause a public panic they changed their stance to global warming, which unfortunately has caught on with the populace, and world governments. Proposed regulations capping emissions would result in an estimated $331 billion loss in GDP in the US alone4. As a result of the acceptance of global warming by governments around the globe, the Kyoto treaty was proposed which would preside over all nations of the world, regulating emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. Since it came into effect early in 2005, the treaty has cost the world $58 trillion US, while the potential temperature saving by the year 2050 so far is 0.0006 degrees centigrade5. Author Michael Crichton believes that global warming is a hoax designed to harm the lives and economies of those living in industrialized nations6.

While many are concerned about the destruction of the environment, it is not the domain of the governments of the world to regulate its use. Environmental regulations create conditions for economic disaster and affect the lives of people the world over. Environmental regulations are not only wrong on a moral basis as they infringe on the basic rights of all humans, but they do not and will never work on a practical level.

References:
1. Lockitch, Keith (January 16, 2005). Reject Environmentalism, Not DDT. Capitalism Magazine, capmag.com
2. Woiceshyn, Glenn (July 24, 2001). Man: The Real Endangered Species. The Ayn Rand Institute, www.aynrand.org
3. Hacker, Hannes (July 11, 2003). Earth Worshippers Cause Death in Space: Environmental Dogma Has Lead to the Sacrifice of Fourteen Astronauts on the Space Shuttle. Capitalism Magazine, capmag.com
4. Caruba, Alan (June 23, 2005). Global Warming is More Scare than Science. Capitalism Magazine, capmag.com
5. Kyoto Count Up!, www.junkscience.com
6. Caruba, Alan (February 15, 2005). State of Fear by Michael Crichton: Exposing Global Warming Sham. Capitalism Magazine, capmag.com