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It seems that every form of government, regardless of how despotic or libertarian, must perforce grant its subjects the freedom to do what is necessary for survival; for to do otherwise is to invite open rebellion and the certain downfall of that government.
Where true freedom lies is in the freedom to do what is unnecessary: to travel as widely and frequently as one's budget can stand; to experiment with new forms of association, both business and personal; to love whom you will and reject the strictures of uninformed morality except where required to avoid real damage to others.
But it seems increasingly certain that, if the prophets of climatic doom and energy shortage are correct (or even if they manage to be acknowledged as correct and their prophecies are acted upon with enough vigor) that the actions we will be forced to take threaten to put such a stranglehold on precisely this freedom to do the unnecessary, that mankind will be forever impoverished as a result.
If these folks have their way, we will all be living quite circumscribed lives, unable to leave our tight-knit communities, freezing and starving ourselves in the name of impact-free living. Folks, impact-free living is an impossibility. Carbon dioxide is not the enemy; it is a byproduct of nature, produced by every living, breathing thing. And its effects are dwarfed by those of water vapor, which is not so easily demonized as the byproduct of human industry and is, in fact, impossible to control.
We need to come up with common-sense solutions to our economic issues. One of these common-sense solutions is: make stuff closer to the people who use it. Every time I visit the waterfront here in Seattle I see at least one of those ginormous container ships coming in with stuff made overseas because we can't afford to make stuff in the US anymore. And yet, the only way to create jobs that pay well enough is to make stuff here.
Raw materials need to be shipped hither and yon to support local manufacturing, but anyone can make stuff close to home so it doesn't have to be shipped yet again as finished goods. By decentralizing manufacturing, and allowing every nation to take responsibility for its own, we could create enough high-value work in every country that there would no longer be a need for mass migration for economic reasons alone. (Sadly, much mass migration is the result of political intransigence and outright warfare. It's difficult to set up infrastructure when your country is being blown to smithereens.)
Another common-sense solution might be to bring back rail travel, both medium and long-distance. Rail can be run on electricity which comes from renewable sources. It would be nice if aircraft could be powered in the same way, but most electric systems for locomotion, not to mention the batteries that must feed them, are just too danged heavy to power aircraft.
But we cannot let the doomsayers cripple human society in the name of trying to stop a natural process that is unstoppable. We can certainly be wiser in our energy use, but in the end it will not matter, and we should not enslave ourselves in the name of ineffectual attempts at impact-free living.
Where true freedom lies is in the freedom to do what is unnecessary: to travel as widely and frequently as one's budget can stand; to experiment with new forms of association, both business and personal; to love whom you will and reject the strictures of uninformed morality except where required to avoid real damage to others.
But it seems increasingly certain that, if the prophets of climatic doom and energy shortage are correct (or even if they manage to be acknowledged as correct and their prophecies are acted upon with enough vigor) that the actions we will be forced to take threaten to put such a stranglehold on precisely this freedom to do the unnecessary, that mankind will be forever impoverished as a result.
If these folks have their way, we will all be living quite circumscribed lives, unable to leave our tight-knit communities, freezing and starving ourselves in the name of impact-free living. Folks, impact-free living is an impossibility. Carbon dioxide is not the enemy; it is a byproduct of nature, produced by every living, breathing thing. And its effects are dwarfed by those of water vapor, which is not so easily demonized as the byproduct of human industry and is, in fact, impossible to control.
We need to come up with common-sense solutions to our economic issues. One of these common-sense solutions is: make stuff closer to the people who use it. Every time I visit the waterfront here in Seattle I see at least one of those ginormous container ships coming in with stuff made overseas because we can't afford to make stuff in the US anymore. And yet, the only way to create jobs that pay well enough is to make stuff here.
Raw materials need to be shipped hither and yon to support local manufacturing, but anyone can make stuff close to home so it doesn't have to be shipped yet again as finished goods. By decentralizing manufacturing, and allowing every nation to take responsibility for its own, we could create enough high-value work in every country that there would no longer be a need for mass migration for economic reasons alone. (Sadly, much mass migration is the result of political intransigence and outright warfare. It's difficult to set up infrastructure when your country is being blown to smithereens.)
Another common-sense solution might be to bring back rail travel, both medium and long-distance. Rail can be run on electricity which comes from renewable sources. It would be nice if aircraft could be powered in the same way, but most electric systems for locomotion, not to mention the batteries that must feed them, are just too danged heavy to power aircraft.
But we cannot let the doomsayers cripple human society in the name of trying to stop a natural process that is unstoppable. We can certainly be wiser in our energy use, but in the end it will not matter, and we should not enslave ourselves in the name of ineffectual attempts at impact-free living.
