Libertarian environmentalism

[Alcon]

Neither of the following arguments are necessarily intended to demand governmental action.  Some of them can just be ethical.  Tackle one, the other, or both.  Or none.  Talk about flyfishing, if you want.  That would be very anti-authority.

Arguments (not formal constructs, since those are stupid and long):

Argument "A":  Being unallocatable at least in part, the general concept of "environment" is a communal resource.  Individual actors bare responsibility of any damage they do to the communal.

Argument "B": The environment is not necessarily a communal resource, but it affects privately-owned resources.  One has no more "right" to damage this property environment than to blast loud music to the point of driving out a neighbor.

Libertarians and those who love them -- what say ye?

[dead0man]

I'm on board with A.  The environment can't be owned (an environment can be owned though....semantics, they aren't just for breakfast anymore!) by an individual/entity.  If an individual/entity through his own actions (accident or on purpose) damages the environment, they need to fix it.  If it is unfixable, they need to provide some kind of compensation to those most affected by it.

The problem is it can be difficult to prove fault and often impossible to come up with a price value.  How much does a Spotted Owl cost?  Who gets the money?

And thank you for not concluding that libertarians don't care about such things, we most certainly do.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     You can't own the environment, but you can own pieces of it. Strictly speaking responsibility for what happens would fall on the landowner (to do otherwise is injurious to the concept of property rights), though it may be that the landowner doesn't care if animals go extinct.

     I suppose if forced to justify the environmentalist perspective, I would recognize the validity of argument A, as animals are generally free to move between plots of land (unless they are fenced off). If one landowner decides to eliminate all squirrels on his property, a neighbor could take issue with that.

[dead0man]

If one landowner decides to eliminate all squirrels on his property, a neighbor could take issue with that.

Only if he could prove harm in a court of law, which would be amazingly hard to do.

[Associate Justice PiT]

If one landowner decides to eliminate all squirrels on his property, a neighbor could take issue with that.

Only if he could prove harm in a court of law, which would be amazingly hard to do.

     Which underlies a major problem with the concept of libertarian environmentalism. If someone decides that they don't give a damn about the environment, not much can be done about it.

[dead0man]

Aye.  You have to be able to prove harm and that can be hard.  How do you prove your neighbor is dumping used motor oil into the creek behind his house without removing some of his rights in the process?

[Nym90]

The environment is certainly a classic "prisoner's dilemma" situation that perfectly illustrates the need for governmental regulation of business.

It would never be in anyone's selfish interest to do good things for the environment, really. The amount of good or bad that any one person or one corporation can do would never be enough to offset the increased profits or individual gain from being environmentally irresponsible. However, if everyone acts responsibly, everyone benefits, whereas if everyone acts irresponsibly, everyone suffers and is far worse off.

Hence, government is essentially a mutual contract between everyone to act responsibly. Choosing to live in a country that has these governmental regulations is your de facto signature on the contract.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

The problem with argument B, the Libertarian argument and Libertarianism in general is that nature doesn't give a damn about private property. If we are all going to die, then we are all going to die. Individualism doesn't come into it.

[John Dibble]

I would say both arguments are applicable to some extent.

Argument A would apply to things like air pollution - air doesn't stay in one place, so it can be considered communal. What you do in the air in one area will more than likely affect the air in other areas as the air moves around. Air therefore could be considered a communal resource.

Argument B can apply to things like land based pollution on a localized scale. If I own five acres of woods, and I drop an aluminum can in the middle of it I have affected the environment, but only at a local level and on my personal property.

The problem with argument B, the Libertarian argument and Libertarianism in general is that nature doesn't give a damn about private property. If we are all going to die, then we are all going to die. Individualism doesn't come into it.

Nature doesn't, but man affects nature obviously. That's the issue these arguments regard - how we consider man's effects on nature.

In B, the libertarian case would be something like this - if you dump trash and waste onto your own property, one of two things will happen. The first is that it stays localized and does not affect any neighboring property, be it public or private. The second is that it does affect the neighboring properties. That could mean it makes a bad smell, that it creates a pest problem, the waste spills into other properties, or perhaps simply that it creates an eyesore that significantly lowers property values.

In the first case a libertarian wouldn't care that much. The second would call for some lawful action even to a libertarian.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I would say both arguments are applicable to some extent.

Argument A would apply to things like air pollution - air doesn't stay in one place, so it can be considered communal. What you do in the air in one area will more than likely affect the air in other areas as the air moves around. Air therefore could be considered a communal resource.

Argument B can apply to things like land based pollution on a localized scale. If I own five acres of woods, and I drop an aluminum can in the middle of it I have affected the environment, but only at a local level and on my personal property.

The problem with argument B, the Libertarian argument and Libertarianism in general is that nature doesn't give a damn about private property. If we are all going to die, then we are all going to die. Individualism doesn't come into it.

Nature doesn't, but man affects nature obviously. That's the issue these arguments regard - how we consider man's effects on nature.

In B, the libertarian case would be something like this - if you dump trash and waste onto your own property, one of two things will happen. The first is that it stays localized and does not affect any neighboring property, be it public or private. The second is that it does affect the neighboring properties. That could mean it makes a bad smell, that it creates a pest problem, the waste spills into other properties, or perhaps simply that it creates an eyesore that significantly lowers property values.

In the first case a libertarian wouldn't care that much. The second would call for some lawful action even to a libertarian.

And after that good post you ruin by the saying the big problem is significantly lowers property values". Libertarians can be quite amusing sometimes.

I was thinking more of big things like Global Warming (assuming that it is happening) rather some mere local concern. Say the doomsayers are right (and somehow I doubt it, but let's say they are) won't that mean that libertarianism and free marketism as an ideology... is a complete failure?

[John Dibble]

And after that good post you ruin by the saying the big problem is significantly lowers property values". Libertarians can be quite amusing sometimes.

I didn't say it was a "big problem", I said it was an affect that might warrant restricting the things you can do on your own property. After all, it negatively affects the property of others - in the context of argument B it makes perfect sense.

And you don't think it's a big deal to some people? If you buy a house and a piece of land for $200,000, and in six months your neighbor turns his back yard into a landfill which makes your property only worth $10,000, would you consider it no big deal to have your investment in a home become a massive loss? How is considering how other people's actions affect the finances of hard working people ruining a good post?

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1. My post considers big issues. Look at what I said about air - it's a communal resource that everyone on the planet shares. Pumping greenhouse gasses into the air is part of the global warming problem, right? But land based pollution isn't always large scale. You can ruin one environment without ruining the entire planet. That doesn't mean local pollution issues shouldn't be considered.
2. Absolute laissez faire free market ideology has already proven a failure, regardless of whether the doomsayers are right. You seem to have forgotten that I'm a moderate libertarian. I think the extremists in any ideology are nuts, libertarians included.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Yeah, I know you are moderate Dibble, just bashing Libertarianism is just what I do.

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I never said it wasn't an issue, though your example is rather extreme. I was just laughing at your focus; trust Libertarians to make every issue to be about "property rights" (a right I personally don't care much for.)

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Okay, fair enough, I agree with ye. And local issues are best solved locally. Probably just a miscommunication here.

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"Ideology" that is a strange thing 'to be' anyway. Personally I think everyone has an ideology, mine being "doomed romantic humanist" if that is a decent enough label.