This is about the individual vs. the common good.
I read an article today in The Oregonian titled "Climate Change: the sacrifices we face". http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/04/climate_change_the_sacrifices.html
It's really not that great of an article, but it touches on something about the issue of climate change. I don't want to talk about if global warming is happening. This is about sacrificing and if it is constitutional and in the best interest of the government.
In the article Mr. Robert Everhart talks about how their is a need for everyone to sacrifice in the fight to stop global warming. "Indeed, in the long term, both the economy and the environment will demand genuine sacrifices." also he writes,
"Yes, we need an economy that supports every citizen, but we cannot return it to a level that desecrates the very planet within which all economies exist.
Our lives, and especially the lives of those who follow us, depend upon an Earth in balance, an Earth wherein we have a sustainable economy that enhances rather than strips the Earth. All of us need to think this through, then loudly and forcefully tell our leaders that we will not accept a return to the economy of the past at the expense of the home of all living things."
He doesn't go into the specifics of what kind of sacrifices that need to be made, just that sacrifices are to be made. Granted the article is more about not losing focus on the issue of global warming, than it is to explain what needs to be done.
Here is my issue with this sacrificing. Mr. Everhart is saying that we can no longer live at the same standard-of-living that we used to. We must cut back on everything or most things for the safety of the environment. I get it, but is it legal to force someone to change their life-style? The global warming issue has turned into a battle between the individual and the common good, and that is where I draw a problem.
Example: Mark likes to buy coffee at starbucks every morning to wake him up and to calm his nerves about the arriving day. He puts some half/half in and some sugar to give it a nice sweet taste to go along with the acidic taste of the coffee. He goes up-stairs to his desk and has a good 15 minutes before he has to start work. He enjoys his coffee. However, for every 1 liter of coffee brewed, it takes 1,110 litters of water (from growing the crop to roasting to brewing). So the production of coffee is very hard on the already drying planet. (a side note 1 litter of beer takes I think only 6 litters of water, beer is always better) (got the stats from The Econmist) In addition to the water, coffee is not grown in New York City, nor the United States. So the coffee has to come from Asia, Africa or South America. That takes energy to get it to NYC. In addition to his coffee he puts milk in it. He is only one guy, but for starbucks its a few million and the demand for milk is through the roof. Cows, livestock in general, is by far the worst for the planet. Cars emit CO2, while livestock emit methane, which is 10 times worse of a greenhouse gas. There are no cows in NYC so they have to move the milk from the surrounding area. One has to keep milk cold so that takes energy. Mark also puts sugar in his coffee. NYC doesn't grow sugar. So again sugar must be grown somewhere else and then shipped to NYC, which takes energy. I know this is a long story, but I hope you get the point.
Coffee is a luxury, and if consumed on a mass scale can be harmful to the environment. Should Mark be forced to give up coffee? Along with other things that today seem like they are normal everyday items? Does Mark, if money providing, have the right to buy whatever he wants? Should items be illegal if they damage the earth? In Australia one representative proposed a child tax on families that have more than two children. But doesn't this go against the right of the parents along with the right to life? These sacrifices that have to be made infringe on peoples' rights. Should the government even tax items based on the sole fact that they damage the earth or emit CO2? I find people don't really know what they are saying when they say we need to sacrifice. That might mean giving up that banana you eat everyday or that SUV you drive or eating meat 3 times a week, or having only one child, or being denied distant goods or travel.
I'm against global warming legislation because it attacks the individual. Individual rights before the nation's and before the earth's. Does this mean not doing anything and having the earth warm up? How important are the rights of the individual?
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I would like to start by stating the obvious: the reason the article was "not the great" was because it was in The Oregonian. Oh The Oregonian, how i do not miss thee. I would also like to take this time to apologize in advance for my obscene us of colons in my comment.
ReplyDeleteOn to sacrifices. I think we can all agree that sacrifices are a part of instituting a government. In order to sustain a government, even a small and/or democratic government is going to involve sacrifice. Anarchy is the only possible way to avoid the types of sacrifices one must make to create and sustain a government. So of course it comes down to the theme the is in everyone of these discussions on government: balance.
I didn't read the article that you quoted but from the excerpt it seems that the guy is talking about the effects of population growth. (...Looking up statistics...) Global warming or not, we have a growing population and limited resources. So i looked up some statistics. We are currently at about 6.8 billion people in the world adding roughly 80 million a year. A couple different places estimated us somewhere around 9 billion by 2050. Its not hard to see the natural consequences of population growth on the world.
I am personally not bother by the HYPOTHETICAL idea of making sacrifices to my individual liberties for the common good. There would be a decision to be made when the actual sacrifices come up but i think that unless we make adjustments to the way we live, given the population size and future growth, we cannot continue to consume at the same rate. That being said, we can always wait until there is a more immediate need. Maybe that will keep out liberties fully intact. When the time comes we can rely on more advanced science to provide us with artificial alternates to many of the things we take for granted today but the sooner we make adjustments the longer we can enjoy life as it is.
I would like now to apologize for the sermon i just gave. i had no intention of writing that comment with such a preachy tone.
Preach away Father Nathan.
ReplyDeleteAt some point, sacrifices are going to become necessary if we keep pumping people into this world (provided we don't wipe a few out with a nuclear holocaust). I know its human nature not to fix something until it breaks completely, but man, I'm sick of it. We have some control over this situation, so why not try to institute some sacrifices now so that it's not as hard to make other sacrifices later. I'm not a big science guy and couldn't tell you if global warming is really happening. But what is the down side to making sacrifices? A cleaner planet in general, even if global warming isn't happening? I understand what you're saying Scott and I don't advocate taking away a man's coffee. But like Nathan said, science will advance at some point and give us a helping hand. In the meantime, can't we ask people not to buy a huge SUV that could double as a house?
Both of you bring up population. And I would agree that it is an underlining issue of global warming. If there were only 1 billion people in the world, we really wouldn't be having this conversation. I understand why both of you see there to be a need to control the population growth/or use advancement in tech to off-set the population growth. But I can't get myself to agree that there needs to be forced sacrafice in controling, through laws or taxes, people in how many children can they have. It seems such a violation to our individual rights. Some religions believe that any form of birth control is wrong (you may think that is foolish, but they do have a right to their religion) Would not laws controling birth-rates be infringing on the rights of some religions? Does not the right to give birth, a right to life, a natural right of every human?
ReplyDeleteAlso these sacrifices that would have to come, who would they hurt the most? Would they hurt the rich (whose life-style is far worse for the planet) or the poor? If carbon was taxed, it would make the rich have to pay more, but they can afford it, while the poor would lose out big time. The cost of energy would rise, the cost of heating would rise, the cost of food and goods would rise. It would be a regressive tax in society.
I have issue with "sacraficing" for the planet becuase it attacks Liberty and attacks the poor. In addition it creates larger government. Most environmental laws shift power away from business and the People to centralized government. Also because of the global nature of the issue it brings a more globalization of power. Every part of our lives has now been linked to global warming; How we drive, how we eat, where we visit, the size of families, production of energy, health, and so on. The governments could use anything and everything to regulate the Public because of global warming. I may be just panicing, but you give the government an inch and they take it to a mile.
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ReplyDeleteI have two main problems with your argument. The first one is only debatably relevant and may launch a side conversation. How far does someone have the right to freely practice their religion? In Oregon a few years ago there was a case where a family was charged with negligence and reckless endangerment (if i remember correctly) because they had a child who was ill and conveniently they held religious beliefs that encouraged prayer and faith in those prayers. So i think you can guess what happens next. They don't take the kid to the hospital and he dies. Are they really free to practice their religion at such a harm to another life? The courts said they were not and i would agree with that ruling. To say that birth control is wrong is equally negligent and irresponsible. Sure it may be a religious belief but it comes at the price of the global well being. There are so many kids all over the world who need to be adopted. Instead, we continue stretching the resources of the earth by adding more people rather than taking cares of the ones that already exist. There are 1 billion Catholics in this world (the only religion i know that condemns birth control). Thats a significant chunk of the world population who are ignoring the effects of sex and population growth. I said all that to restate my ever present theme that not all rights/liberties can be exercised to there fullest extant at all times.
ReplyDeleteSecond, i agree that sacrificing for the planet "attacks" our Liberty, but at what cost? To reiterate what dan said, it comes at the cost of a cleaner planet, healthier living, more resources available to developing nations, etc. Secondly part two, the sacrifices hurt the poor only if we were to institute the tax plan you proposed. So what happened there was you created a problem and then objected to it. Lets not institute the tax. Problem solved.
I am not involving global warming in this discussion at all. We are trying to avoid that discussion. So my take is more one of global responsibility. We need to be cognizant of the scarcity of resources on the planet, increasing population, and the effects that is going to have on the lives of this planets inhabitants. If global warming is not happening, we can make efforts to keep it from happening or at least delay its arrival (not to mention the positive effects that would grace the world even if global warming as a concept is false and would never happen no matter what). If it is happening then we should do something.
I needed a place to vent, so I figured this would be the right place. I just learned the Treasury is giving GM another 2 billion dollars. How do you guys feel about this? My thought is enough is enough. You're done. We can't get it together because you haven't had a good or original idea since the company was founded. I'm sorry for all the jobs connected to the industry and I feel for all the familes that are being affected by this, but enough is enough. I'd rather pay taxes that go to unemployee for 3 million workers than give more money to these fat cats who can't meet a deadline or figure out why they are so terrible. Scott, please make me feel better about this.
ReplyDeleteAbout nathan's post.
ReplyDeleteI believe the law should step into a religion when that religion is physically hurting someone. So in your example that faith killed the child, therefore the law should step in. However, the issue with global warming is the religions are for creating life. The catholics are outspokenly against birth control, in addition, I'm taking a good guess that muslims are not for it as well. If not, the muslim culture encourages large families, just like hindus, and tribal religions in Africa. The Latin American culture encourages large families too (but that maybe the culture of catholics more than the secular culture.) China has already taken the Liberty of the number of children away from women. Women in china are only allowed to have one child. Isn't this a direct attack on their LIBERTY? (I'm capitalizing the word LIBERTY from now on.) Another problem with the government getting more involved, even if it is to help the planet, China's one-child caused many parents to abort or kill female babies so they could raise a son, which in the culture is valued higher. This created a 40 million gap between pairing up females with males in our generation.
An arugement might come up about how although religions should be protected, their stance on anti-birth-control is hurting the planet and therefore hurting others. The government should then step in. I would desagree. One cannot be charged with a crime for inderectly helping the criminal. If a man stabs another, the knife company isn't responsible, even though the company made the weapon. We cannot charge religions and their values on family because it may inderectly be causeing globalwarming. Altough this issue in the case for global warmind doesn't count. It seems global warming is so over-arching that even if you inderectly cause the problem you are to blame for the problem.
Global warming is the greatest pet-project for those who want a strong centralized government, and maybe even a global government. It reminds me of the crusades in the turn of the century a thousand years ago. Europe needed a common enemy to banned together and unify Europe and consolidate more power to the church and higher lords. They used to the issue to push down religions within Europe like judism. the crusade were not really about gaining control of Jerusalem as they were more to gain power in Europe. This is the same case for global warming. It is a common enemy for the world to unite and for large governments to consolidate power. I truely beleive this is the main motive behind the issue, and not to save the planet. If they really wanted to save the planet, they would decentralized the governments and trade, causing everyone to buy and work local. This would cut down on transportation, travel, large scale farming.
About dan's post.
I read that today too. I argee with you. I see economies as forests. A healthy forest must go through a fire now and then. It sucks, but that's what creates new fresh soil and room for other new planets and trees to grow. I feel with this economic downturn, the government isn't allowing the forest to burn a little. Bush did the same in 2002-03 and in 2008. So this fire will be put-out leaving enough fuel for an even worse fire later. This happened in Oregon with their real forests. They would doe everything to end the forest-fires, stoping the natural accurance of fires, cuasing the old trees (littered with fuel) to cause massive insane fires. With forests, that means houses will burn. With economies, that means a revolution (where a lot of the cases houses burn too). Big business demands big government, and big government demands big business. This is a perfect example. I feel most americans are with you on this issue, dan. But the government doesn't care. It needs the big business (and big unions). The roof, the roof is on fire, we don't need no water. Let that "jerkface" burn.
with dan's rant, and nathan has had a few too (all of them great ones). I have come up with an idea. We have different opinions which is great! With different answers and conclusions comes different questions. So I think what I will do is every Monday, I will have an open post. I will set up a post and then anyone with a question or a rant can submit it and can start a debate. That way it won't just be me dictating where the conversation goes.
DEAR SCOTT,
ReplyDeleteMy question is where do we draw the line? The death of the child is an obvious case where religion has gone too far but where do we draw the line? Anything up to the point of death? To oppose birth control is to force the growth of families for those who cannot afford it and thereby decrease their quality of life, in some cases significantly. I would like to stress again the reach of the Catholic church: they have 1 billion adherents. Granted there is a portion of those people who don't need to worry about the amount of money it costs to add children but i would guess that for the majority of Catholic families it is a factor. On top of that, it affects the lives of those outside of the Catholic faith who are forced to compete with an enormous population for land, water, jobs, etc. All that to say, where do we draw the line? How adversely can a religious policy affect the population before we deem it unethical? (PS i looked into it, muslims don't have any codified laws against birth control. Most allow it, some discourage it but none outlaw it.)
So i guess i would like to reiterate that i am not talking about global warming or anything that might have an effect on it. In fact, for this discussion i am assuming that global warming it non-existent. It would seem i might have derailed this conversation into a religious rant. For that, i apologize. In any case, i can't stand when religions have policies that are superfluous and detrimental to the adherent's ability to live well.
DAN'S POST:
I agree with you both (in theory). If we keep feeding the companies who have forgotten how to run themselves successfully, we are destroying the system. The healthy but smaller companies are supposed to be able to use this opportunity (if the government would allow one to exist) to replace the dying companies and so help our economy to stay healthy. BUT, on the other side of it, enormous losses in jobs means enormous reduction in consumption and in a consumption driven economy that makes for a pretty bad situation. That is the idea behind the Keynesian economics (i am sure that both of you guys already know all this). It is a regular Catch 22. In the end, i can't make up my mind which way is better and am very glad that i don't have to but i do lean towards the first option.
PART 3
I love the idea about everyone getting a turn. I was trying to figure out how we could do that and your idea would work. You can also set up the blog so that all 3 of us have permission to start a post. But your way works too. I love this blog.
We may disagree with a group of individuals on issues, to the point where we find them at a fault. However, we must ask ourselves what is their LIBERTY? The global warming issue is about security and LIBERTY. In the name of security many claim there should be some form of regulation on the birth-rate, but with every security added LIBERTY is taken away.
ReplyDeleteYou may disagree with the church on this issue, but does it make it lawful to take away their LIBERTY for your security?
What regulation do you propose for the birth-rate?
We have to be extremly catious on what power we give up to the few in power. Global warming is a strong weapon for the few. It plays on fear, the greatest ally for security.
About your rant against religion, we have to be also careful to not use the law against religion. Religion in the past has used the law to attack the non-religious or other religions. We can't then go around and do the same to them when secularism has the power. I know you are frustrated that religions use their policies when going to vote, but we can't force them to vote a certain way. We have to trust the constitution that it will block away intrests groups and create a balanced set of laws.
about the blog, I will look into it. I'm nervous that if all of us are able to post, that we may post all at the same time creating three or even two topics at once, which is a little too much. but maybe instead of the monday thing, we could switch off so each get one week or what not. We'll figure something out.
i agree that there would be an invasion of someone's LIBERTY and that is where the tradeoff happens.
ReplyDeletei agree that religions and their adherents have the same rights as the rest of us. It is the obligatory practice and participation in religion that i object to. surely they have the right to freely practice, but not to infringe on others rights to not practice that religion. religion is, by its own admission, a personal thing.
I'm more less to give up someone's LIBERTY than you, I think. But I may be at the unhealthy extreme.
ReplyDeleteYou are right about religion being a personal thing. I agree with you on that. But I guess I see religions as just another intrest group. The environmentalists want us to change our lives, just like muslims want us to be muslims and christians want us to be christians. Can you fault each interest group trying to push for their cause? You may say well at least the environmentalists are basing it on science, and that maybe true, but they still have motives and they still want to change the lives of others for their cause. I just don't see much of a difference.
A funny thing happened when i was reading your commenting. You said, "But I guess I see religions as just another intrest group. The environmentalists want...Can you fault each interest group trying to push for their cause?" And i thought, "well at least the environmentalists are basing it on science!" You read my mind.
ReplyDeleteI do see religion as an interest group, and you're right, they're just another interest group vying for some attention. But i do believe there are distinctions. One, as you already mentioned is the difference between their means of attaining truth/information/policy/whatever you want to call it. That is not to say that the information that science provides is infallible (obviously, global warming is still a contentious issue) but it is at least falsifiable, which to me makes it more reliable.
Secondly, in the case of environmentalism, the subject matter is not a personal belief that one can choose to believe in or not. Some of the research and/or and findings of the environmentalist scientists is debatable but regardless of of those findings we all live on this planet are are equally responsible for its conditions and the care of it.
To that point i view (most) environmental statements as a sort of Pascal's Wager, which is basically what Dan said earlier in this thread. If the enviro's statements are true, we better do something, if not, what did we lose?
I do see your point, and cautiously agree with you, that it maybe an undue infringement on the LIBERTY of the people to require them to make the necessary steps. It would likely be better to encourage the necessary steps through incentive rather than compulsion.
That is a position i have come to through the conversations here about this issue as far as environmental decisions go as well as population growth issues. China did that, right? Where you had to pay extra or something like that for more than 2 kids?