no third solution

Blogging about liberty, anarchy, economics and politics

Category Archives: environmentalism

Environmental Questions

September 15th, 2008

Two environmentalist questions from the aggregator, just begging for a cynical response:

1. Why do people pay extra for bottled water?

There are probably plenty of arguments one could offer up contra bottled water (see below). But the “it’s not useful” argument (c.f. the diamond-water paradox) isn’t one of them. I’m going to, for the sake of brevity, choose “convenience.”

You can’t take your tap water with you, at least not very easily, on a long road trip and expect it to stay cold. Bottled water is simply convenient, and besides, if you put the kibosh on bottled water, people will just go back to unhealthy sodas and juices which use the exact same amount of resources. If you want to ban all of those, too, then you’re demonstrably a fascist.

2. How can we reduce global fuel consumption?

The author argues that we might choose to reduce fuel consumption by mandating ridiculously low speed limits.

The problem is that people see a shorter travel time as an advantage, while it has no ecological value whatsoever.

One oblivious commenter even goes so far as to suggest,

Maybe if cars go only 60km/h people would realise that on many occasions a bike or a train is a better alternative.

I’ve addressed the ideological problems with the straw-man argument in favor of lowering speed limits to save gas before: violence is not the answer. But this is a more technical question, I guess. All other things being equal, the “better alternative” is chosen by the person most closely affected by the decision. For many of us, a shorter commute, an easier or more enjoyable vacation, etc., is the “better” alternative, and that’s why we choose it.

Look, you can certainly try to make the argument that the costs of driving or even that the costs of driving excessively fast are not fully internalized, and to such extent that these costs are forced upon others, they constitute a negative externality which needs to be corrected. Then, I could drop a Coase-bomb on you: where commons problems exist, property rights are often poorly defined (see also: What would Coase do? or The Lighthouse Problem.)

The strongest argument is probably that most of what we’ve grown accustomed to (in terms of transportation) is the product of an economy which is anything but free, and so it’s no wonder the incentives are all warped.

In this case, the true costs are so far divorced from reality that we don’t really know what we’re choosing and can’t be reasonably held accountable for the consequences, about which we aren’t certain because we’ve swallowed hundreds upon hundreds of years of complete and utter bullshit, spoonfed to us by monarchs and tyrants and kings and princes and presidents and prime ministers.

The most severe environmental threat is government.

The solution to whatever ails the planet will certainly not come from the fucking cancer that’s strangling it.

Speed Limits and Straw Men

August 27th, 2008

Adam Williams is kind of upset that someone called him a “commie” for supporting the Drive 55 initiative.

Perhaps “commie” isn’t the right word. But if you’re advocating that it’s the Federal Government’s prerogative, or if you’re advocating that the Federal Government ought to lower the speed limit on freeways to 55mph, then at the very least you’re a mild authoritarian. Blame government schools for failing to teach the kiddies the subtleties of political organization.

Now, Mr. Williams does say that he’s not in favor of such laws, but he wholeheartedly admits that he doesn’t oppose them, either. Behold, apathy; a scoundrel’s last refuge!

In any event, I’d like to preface this by pointing back to one of my earlier posts on anarchism and environmentalism:

[G]government is the largest impediment to the preservation of nature. Surely there are many reasons I could give in support of this thesis, but several come to mind immediatetly and without much effort on my part…

  1. Outright expropriation of title to land and/or resources
  2. Meddling in the financial markets through inflationary credit expansion
  3. Prior expropriation of all open, (generally) unowned land.

Governments continue to do all of these things. Yet the activists still believe that government is the way to preserve the environment! Clearly, it is not.

In response to a recent post of Adam’s at Sustainablog, it seems that several commenters were upset about further erosion of their liberties as manifested by a potential reduction in speed limit. Of course, they weren’t the most well-spoken individuals, but that doesn’t change the tune.  From this single data point, Mr. Williams draws the conclusion that, “If you aren’t OK with a federal speed limit of 55mph, then you are a nihilist.”

Think I’m guilty of hyperbole? In his most recent post, he elaborates on the straw man of a rebuttal he left in the comments there. All I hear is, “Blah, blah, blah.”

That means no traffic lights, no lanes painted on the roads, no road signs, no laws against theft, murder and abortion,

That means no law enforcement to call when the neighbors are acting out late at night, no prisons to house the criminals,

That means no control of our national borders, no war against terrorism,

That means no free, public education for the kiddies who become adulties, no military to kill our enemies,

LULZ!

If government didn’t build the roads, someone would. Doubt me? The Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor is privately owned and operated. Honestly, the whole, “who will build the roads” argument is getting tiring. It is indicative of someone who doesn’t know what he’s talking about, because anyone with five minutes and access to Google could tell you that privately provided roads have thrived in the past, and continue to thrive (ever hear of “subdivisions” or “shopping malls” or “parking lots”?) in the present.

No police? Like Officer Rivieri, who threatened to “fucking kill” some kids, for skateboarding?

No prisons to house the criminals? You mean, like the millions of people who are in jail or dead because they were smoking something that the government says they’re not allowed to smoke? Do you have any idea what it costs to house an inmate in our growing police state? In Michigan, the explicit costs are over $30,000 per. The true cost is probably closer to $100,000.

No border control? No War against Terrorism? Adam, maybe you are a “commie.” Border control is the systematic exploitation of people less fortunate than yourself.

No “free” (i.e., paid for by everyone else) public education? The same type of public education that has demonstrably failed to teach the kiddies where America is on a map, or the difference between authoritarianism, communism and fascism, capitalism and free-markets? Is that strike three?

No Military to kill our enemies? Wow. If, by enemies, you mean the imperialistic mass-murder of lots of brown-skinned foreigners who are not, nor were ever, a credible threat to your existence or mine, just, wow. The fact remains that America’s chief export is war. No wonder “they” hate “us”.

i continue to wonder, what if people who get so bent out of shape over a simple discussion online about driving 55 mph channeled some of that fiery passion into world issues that actually matter?

I can sympathize with you, Adam. There are certainly bigger fish to fry and, generally more pressing concerns.

But government, the single greatest threat to humanity, isn’t the solution. Enforcing your ideals on other people, at gunpoint, never is.

Build Your Own Earthship

August 22nd, 2008

The earthship, as proposed on the official earthship website, is just a luxury hobby for yuppies who were able to buy out at the top, and who have embraced a greener, eco-friendly lifestyle. (My previous post on earthships.)

Most people can’t buy out at the top, instead, they need to figure out how to buy out at the bottom.

Someone did. He built a low-impact woodland house for his family, in Wales. With a little bit of know-how, for the amount of money it costs to buy the floorplans ($5,500) to build an “official” earthship, you can probably build your own, too.

The earthship, as opposed to the Simondale.net version, does appear to be a little bit more symbiotic, and has a few more creature comforts, especially since it allegedly works in the arid deserts of New Mexico, fortunately, however, most people don’t live in the arid deserts of New Mexico. The simondale.net version also looks more like an actual Hobbit-hole than the earthship. This low-impact house takes many of the environmentally friendly, end-the-cycle aspects of the Earthship, and melds them with low cost-of-ownership.

  • Anything you could possibly want is in a rubbish pile somewhere
  • I am not a builder or carpenter…[T]his kind of building is accessible to anyone.
  • Cost: about $6,500 for 60m2

If you can’t find (or afford) a stove to put inside your very own earthship, consider using a rocket stove in conjunction with some other methods. To build a rocket stove, you basically just need a few bricks. The stove works by burning twigs and other kindling, so you don’t need to take down enormous trees in order to cook. In fact, I could probably use something like this to get rid of the twigs and vines that fall in my yard, instead of paying for compost tags from the city.

There’s a wealth of information on the interwebs about this sort of thing, if you look for it.

no third solution

Blogging about liberty, anarchy, economics and politics