The People’s Climate March has arrived!
Set to inaugurate a week-long conference on climate change in New York City, it will show politicians from all over the world that “the people” still care about climate change and that it should be listened too.
But even if we admit that there is a climate crisis, which is far from being agreed upon, the solutions proposed by most participants will only make matters worse for them and for the environment.
Indeed, by looking at some posters promoting the march, it is clear that many want us to switch to “green” energies like solar and wind so we can move away from fossil fuels – the city of Burlington, Vermont, is doing just that.
People fill the street during the People's Climate March, Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014, in New York. Tens of thousands of activists walked through Manhattan on Sunday, warning that climate change is destroying the Earth — in stride with demonstrators around the world who urged policymakers to take quick action. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)
Unfortunately, this solution is far from being Earth-friendly.
First of all, we need fossil fuels to build solar panels and windmills. And even when these sources of energy are ready to use, they almost inevitably need a backup source of energy (usually fossil fuel) because their energy production is very unreliable.
And second, solar and wind are causing a bird Holocaust far, far worse than what can be said against the oil sand industry. But bird-killing aside, the present state of technology makes solar and wind highly inefficient because of the land area they need to produce as much energy as a nuclear power plant.
Socialism, the Anti-Green Solution
Alongside inefficient environmental solutions, marchers also advocate inefficient economic policies. The aforementioned poster and this one too suggest that people want socialism to replace baby-killing, puppy-eating, planet-destroying capitalism.
No, it’s not a conspiracy theory. At least a dozen socialist and communist organizations are marching and no one bats an eye. Can you imagine a Tea Party march where Neo-Nazis would be marching without having a public outcry?
This agreement against capitalism is high up. An official from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change explicitly said that climate summits are about wealth redistribution and the ultimate expropriation of private property. Even the Environmental Protection Agency boasts itself as a lighthouse of the progressive agenda.
Left-wing statist favorite Naomi Klein is also on board with the anti-capitalism bandwagon. She claims that (inexistent) unfettered capitalism can only worsen the (inexistent) climate crisis and that only socialism can save us. Notwithstanding the irony of seeing a socialist using capitalism (intellectual property, free speech) to denounce capitalism, she’s all wrong.
AFP PHOTO/Tony KARUMBA
In fact, capitalism is what saved the environment thanks to the innovations it encourages. Can you imagine the amount of firewood that would be necessary to heat the 300 million people of the U.S.? The clear-cutting of forests necessary if we only had organic agriculture? How much landfill would be needed for horse manure if the automobile hadn’t been invented?
Without the freedoms coming from the Enlightenment, this is what we would deal with. People would neither have accumulated enough money to dare trying to innovate nor had the motivation to change since their efforts wouldn’t have been justly compensated.
Besides, socialism is the worst economic system for the environment. Many ecosystems were completely destroyed beyond the Iron Curtain where private property did not exist. Even today, the worst polluter can be found within the public domain, with the U.S. government coming first.
It shouldn’t be surprising; when something is owned by “everyone,” it’s therefore owned by no one in particular and there is no incentive to maintain it. Would you voluntarily burn your house? Vandalize your car?
If environmentalists truly want to protect the environment, then they should advocate for more capitalism, especially better property rights. Some of you might have heard about the Love Canal as an example of private property gone wrong and that it should be strictly regulated.
That’s the official story. But the true story is this: Hookers Chemicals, under the menace of eminent domain, had to sell the land around the canal. The city didn’t maintain the canal properly, which caused toxic infiltrations everywhere. But of course, Hookers in the bad guy…
In short, the People’s Climate March should be called the “March to Serfdom.” Despite the marchers’ good intentions, they will in fact be like turkeys voting for Thanksgiving. And let’s of course not mention the many famous green hypocrites advocating for less oil consumption… for the others.
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