“People have to start living a life that’s commensurate with reductions in greenhouse gases,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said while discussing the recent global deal to limit the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) used in air-conditioning and refrigeration.
Says who?
People should be free to make their decisions about energy consumption in the marketplace. If they do something wrong, the market will correct them with higher prices based upon the law of supply and demand. If people use too much fuel, prices will go up, and consumption will go down.
What about pollution or other concerns? Those are private property issues. If a provider of energy services violates property rights, they can be sued or criminally prosecuted. Beyond these factors, the EPA has no business getting involved. It’s not the government’s job to decide, arbitrarily and unilaterally in one-world-government-fashion, how much energy billions of the planet’s inhabitants may use, and to impose those rules on the entire population. It’s not only economically insane; it’s morally wrong as well, because people have the right to choose this for themselves!
The whole case for global warming and/or climate change is based on two things.
One, on the assertions and theories of some (not all) scientists that mankind, who cannot yet predict with certainty the local weather or temperature 3 weeks or even 3 days from now, can predict with global certainty the weather and temperature 3 decades or 300 years from now.
Two, on the unchallenged assumption that fossil fuels only harm human beings, while in fact fossil fuels have saved and preserved millions of lives, making the standard of life on planet earth far superior to 100 years ago.
When you weigh the costs and benefits of how fossil fuels have raised the standard of living for everyone versus any costs imposed, it’s the most lopsided balance sheet in all of human history.
Are cleaner and more efficient fuels desirable? Of course! But these will only come from a combination of scientific development and free enterprise. Government has no role to play, other than to ensure these two sectors of life may continue unimpaired.
It’s madness to assume we know things that cannot possibly be known, given the limited capacity of human beings to control or forecast the weather. It’s beyond madness – and in fact, tyranny – to impose limits on human productive capacity with the arbitrary edicts like those of President Obama, Hillary Clinton and this narcissistic dimwit currently running the EPA.
Donald Trump has called for curbing the EPA while Hillary Clinton wants to continue expanding its power. Trump is right, and Clinton is wrong. However, the better solution would be to shut down the EPA completely and permanently. This would not solve all our problems, but it would be a gigantic step in the direction of letting human beings themselves, outside the constraint of government edicts, decide what makes the most sense.
We’re told, over and over, that without our government masters, human beings will drive civilization and the planet itself into oblivion. The undisputed premise is that human beings are inherently irrational, stupid and flawed. Yet if human beings are inherently irrational, stupid and flawed, then by what means are the human beings who run the White House or the EPA to save us all from ourselves? It makes no sense on its own terms.
Human beings are fallible, to be sure. Some are more fallible than others. “Fallible” does not mean intrinsically and inevitably evil. It simply means capable of error. The people most fallible — and least accountable — are those given unearned power and responsibility for determining what energy we may or may not use, what new technologies may or may not be developed, and how much energy we may use to live our lives in the way we see fit.
The people least likely to be fallible are the producers and consumers – the ones with the most to gain or lose by acting in a responsible, reasonable way.
The human beings who inhabit and run the EPA are the least morally and intellectually qualified to determine anything. Given that we’re on the verge of elevating a known criminal into the White House as their boss, the stakes have never been higher.
Get the government the hell out of the realm of business, including energy production and consumption. Once and for all.
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