Download
1 / 25
250 likes | 312 Vues
Global Warming, Free Markets, and the Role of the State A Debate Sponsored by The Federalist Society and the National Lawyers’ Guild Chapman University School of Law Orange, California January 31, 2008.
E N D
Global Warming, Free Markets,and the Role of the StateA DebateSponsored by The Federalist Society and the National Lawyers’ GuildChapman University School of LawOrange, CaliforniaJanuary 31, 2008 Donald J. KochanAssociate Professor of LawChapman University School of LawOne University DriveOrange, California 92866Phone: (714) 628-2618Fax: (714) 628-2576kochan@chapman.eduwww.donaldjkochan.com
Alarmism “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” –H.L. Mencken
Goals of Presentation • Reject Fears • Embrace Facts • Embrace Dialogue • Reject Chilling • Embrace Markets • Reject Foreign Influence • Reject Regulation
Outline for Dscussion • Fear as Contagion: Why Hype and Hysteria Make for Hysterical Policies • We Didn’t Start the Fire (or are we even burning): Facts v. Falsehoods and Fallacies • Friction With Free Markets: If They Want It, They Will Buy It, i.e. If You Want to Buy a Prius, Profit Predicts You Will Have That Option • A Convenient Political Proxy for a Cornucopia of Control • Foreign Facilitators: Kyoto and Its Gang and Why Sovereignty Matters • Freezing Debate: If You Question, You Must Be Ignorant, Right? • Reject “Rights” Talk • The Warming Wisdom of Wealth: Greed is Good – The Indisputable Benefits of Advancing Development
Power and Good Intentions “Good intention will always be pleaded for every assumption of power . . . [T]he Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.” Daniel Webster
Fear and Rationality • Fear is an internal reaction to external influences. But the mere concept raises significant questions about the rationality of behavior and, therefore, the assumptions that underly much of law and economics literature – including our understanding of the responsive, preemptive, and proactive actions of nation-states in the area of international relations. • Environmental regulations are largely the result of powerful rhetoric by environmental lobbying groups proclaiming the planet’s impending doom. The environmental “crisis” has been used to justify numerous increases in state power over personal property, from restrictions on uses of private property to costly and inefficient regulation on productive economic activities.
Fear Defined • “1a : an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of a danger b (1) : an instance of this emotion (2) : a state marked by this emotion; 2 : anxious concern: solicitude; 3 : a profound reverence and awe especially toward God; 4 : reason for alarm : danger; Synonyms : Fear, dread, fright, alarm, panic, terror, trepidation” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary • “a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid. a specific instance of or propensity for such a feeling . . .” www.dictionary.com. • “Fear n. 1. dread, fright, foreboding, terror, panic, threat, horror, affright, apprehension, alarm, dismay, trepidation, consternation, disquietude, quaking, perturbation, qualm, anxiety, worry, concern, fearfulness, cowardice. 2. qualm, phobia, apprehension, source of anxiety, dread; nightmare, bugaboo, bugbear, specter, bogey; worry, concern, care. 3. reverence, awe, reverential regard, wonder, veneration, esteem, deep respect.” Roget’s Thesaurus 224 (Joyce O’Connor, et. al. eds., Ballantine Books 4th ed. 2001) (1984).
The Only Thing We Have To Fear is Folly • “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” Franklin D. Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address (March 4, 1933), reprinted in The Era of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933-1945: A Brief History with Documents at 39, 40 (Richard D. Polenberg ed., Palgrave Macmillan 2000). • “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature 12 (Courier Dover Publications 1973). • “In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly” Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge 111 (1836).
“Souvent la peur d'un mal nous conduit dans un pire.” “Often the fear of one evil leads us into a worse.” The International Encyclopedia of Prose and Poetical Quotations from the Literature of the World 269 (William Shepard Walsh ed., 1908) (quoting Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, L’ArtPoetique).
Fear, Panics, and Contagion “[F]ear is contagious . . . Panics can have powerful psychological and physiological consequences: people fall ill when other people fall ill as a result of false beliefs about exposure to toxic agents.” Eric A. Posner, Fear and the Regulatory Model of Counterterrorism, 25 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 681, 685 (2002) ((citing, among others, Steven P. Schwartz et al, Environmental Threats, Communities and Hysteria, 6 J. Pub. Health Pol’y 8, 63- 65 (1985)).
Fear and Risk “Fear is a complex psychological phenomenon, and it sits uneasily with the rational actor premises of standard accounts of risk regulation. One can, without fear, recognize a danger, appraise the risk, and take steps to minimize the risk; this is a purely cognitive response. But a person confronted by a danger frequently has an involuntary emotional reaction. The fearful person experiences a narrowing of attention toward the threat and a disagreeable feeling that he can alleviate only by yielding to the urge to flee.” Eric A. Posner, Fear and the Regulatory Model of Counterterrorism, 25 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 681 (2002).
Fear and the Dangers of Misperception “Although the psychology of fear remains mysterious, some things about fear are relatively well understood. First, a fearful person typically misperceives, or acts as though he misperceives, the magnitude of the risk. Fear interferes with normal Bayesian updating: one can feel fear about, and react disproportionately to, a threat that carries with it small probability of harm. People also treat different but equally frightening risks as though they were the same.” Eric A. Posner, Fear and the Regulatory Model of Counterterrorism, 25 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 681, 684-85 (2002) (citing, among others, George F. Loewenstein et. al, Risk as Feelings, 127 Psychol. Bull. 267 (2001)).
Passions and Constitutional Change “The Constitution is the rock of our political salvation; it is the palladium of our rights; . . . [but] when the [government] pursues a favorite object with passionate enthusiasm; men are too apt, in their eager embrace of it, to overlook the means by which it is attained. These are the melancholy occasions when the barriers of the government are broken down and the boundaries of the Constitution defaced.” —JuniusAmericanus, 1790 JuniusAmericanus [pseud.], letter, N.Y. DAILY ADVERTISER, July 23, 1790 (quoted in CHARLES WARREN, CONGRESS, THE CONSTITUTION, AND THE SUPREME COURT 105 (1930)).
Crises, Emergencies, and Constitutional Change “[C]hanges less than revolutionary, but nonetheless changes, will be worked in the permanent structure of government and society. . . . Alterations in the structure of a constitutional government may be wrought and made permanent that do not represent the mature and collected judgment of the representatives of the people, alterations that in their nature are far more difficult to disestablish than they were to institute. Federalism and free enterprise will serve as examples of institutions easy to break down in crisis and infinitely more difficult to restore thereafter.” Clinton Rossiter, Constitutional dictatorship 5 (1948). “With every emergency, constitutional protections are reduced, and after the emergency is over, enhancement of constitutional powers is either maintained or not fully eliminated, so that the executive ends up with more power after the emergency than it had before the emergency. . . . The other argument is psychological: During an emergency, people panic, and when they panic they support policies that are unwise and excessive.” Eric A. Posner & Adrienne Vermuele, Acommodationg Emergencies, 56 Stan. L. Rev. 605, 626 (2003) (citing Editorial, A Panicky Bill, Wash. Post, Oct. 26, 2001, at A34; Jon Elster, Ulysses Unbound: Studies in Rationality, Precommitment, and Constraints 129-41, 157-61 (2000)).
Facts v. Fallacies • I am not a scientist and I will not pretend to be one • Either way regulation is unwarranted • BUT, I am more convinced by the science of those that find that historical records and science support a non-crisis conclusion and that even infinitesimal changes have little significance and causation issues lack scientific support. I do believe that there are dynamic and cyclical changes in climate that sufficiently lack causal support for governmental intervention. • For some further information, I recommend: http://www.cei.org/pages/ait_response.cfm
From Marlo Lewis, Senior Fellow, Competitive Enterprise Institute“And in recent years the rate of increase has been increasing. In fact, if you look at the 21 hottest years measured, 20 of the 21 have occurred within the last 25 years.” (AIT, p. 72) • There has been no increase in the rate of warming since the mid-1970s, when the second 20th century warming period began. • For the past 30 years, the planet has warmed at a remarkably constant rate of 0.17°C (or 0.31°F) per decade. Source: World Climate Report. • Most models predict a constant warming rate. We can reasonably expect ~1.7°C of warming in the 21st century.
A Cornucopia of Control • Global Warming/Climate Change have become convenient justification for regulatory intervention of every kind. From driving my Rover to eating my hamburger, to traffic jams people claim I need to be regulated because every or such action leads to global warming. • Attenuated connections range from unjustified to absurd • There is a serious catch-all danger for the attempt at justifying new regulation. • Please listen to my debate with Dean Tim Canova where he blames everyone who is not a vegan for the destruction of our planet: http://www.townhall.com/MediaPlayer/AudioPlayer.aspx?ContentGuid=caae025e-bae7-40b0-b630-641a99a6069e • My main point is that there is a high correlation between social agendas attempting to control human activities and the use of “climate change” as the justification for restrictions on human freedom. It is becoming the catch-all justification for social control
The “Right” To Be Free From Global Warming • There has never been a serious recognition of a right to an environment free of global warming. • Nor should there be. • Why? Let’s save that for the Q&A.
Sovereignty Issuesand Foreign Influence • The Kyoto Protocol and other international efforts are designed to eliminate Westphalian sovereignty and interfere with the dominion and right to exclude that we typically grant individuals and corporateentities. • Such international controls are inefficient and anti-competitive. • There is a significant and pervasive differential between the regulatory views and acceptabilties between nations, and we should not succumb to more socialist perspectives. • Again, greater detail can be provided during Q&A.
Free Markets Work • Consumer Preferences • Market Demands • Spontaneous Order • Inevitability of Innovation • Development Brings Progress • Excessive Regulation Deters Progress • The Direct Correlation Between Development and Wealth and Environmental Progress
Wealth is Good/Greed is Good/Development is Good “Every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command. It is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of society, which he has in view. But the study of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily, leads him to prefer employment which is most advantageous to the society . . . . [H]e intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. “ Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, bk. IV, ch. 2, 397, 399 (D.D. Raphael ed., 1991) (1776). • Because private property rights encourage exchange, and exchange permits specialization through the division of labor, the market works to ensure that most property (including skills) is put to its highest and most economically beneficial use. (SeeF.A. Hayek, Law, Legislation, and Liberty, vol. 3 (1979); Ludwig von Mises, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics 257-326 (3d rev. ed. 1963). See alsoRichard A. Epstein, Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (1962). (SeeBryan T. Johnson & Thomas P. Sheehy, 1996 Index of Economic Freedom (1996). Johnson and Sheehy's empirical study “demonstrates unequivocally that countries with the highest level of economic freedom also have the highest living standards.” Id. at ix.)
Freezing Debate: Need We Join the Herd? • Increasingly, Global Warming Skeptics are seen as unreasonable. Rather than engage in such vitriolic banter, a responsible dialogue is preferable. “Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.” Bertrand Russell, An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish, in The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell 73, 98 (1992) ().
Conclusion • Reject Fears • Embrace Facts • Embrace Dialogue • Reject Chilling • Embrace Markets • Reject Foreign Influence • Reject Regulation
