Tomorrow, April 22, is Earth Day 2018. It may be useful to recall the gross inaccuracy of the predictions made on the first Earth Day in 1970, and to wonder how the predictions of environmental doom in 2018 will stand up 48 years from now.
In 1970 the primary emphasis was on the risks posed by overpopulation. This has become much less fashionable in recent years, perhaps because many European nations are now suffering from the opposite problem–falling populations. The 1970 Earth Day predictions hypothesized numerous other calamities, of course, most of which have also failed to materialize.
It is now clear that most environmental problems are primarily caused by poverty and related lack of concern, not economic progress, but technological progress is often blocked by environmentalists. And it is technological progress which is the key to economic progress and thus environmental progress. Affluent countries have the resources and public concern to address such problems while less affluent ones do not. Socialist and Communist countries are often the worst in this regard, so increasing the role of the state in their economies may result in particularly bad problems with environmental issues. The environmentalists uniformly propose increasing the roles of government in their economies as the solution to environmental problems they identify and often blame insufficient state intervention for the problems.
So the only constant over the last 48 years is that the “environmentalists” have misunderstood the underlying causes of environmental problems, predicted dooms that have not materialized, and proposed solutions that have not worked. I find it unlikely that they will learn from their mistakes. The only question is how much damage they will do in the next 48 years in attempting to implement their solutions to their misguided predictions.
In recent decades “environmentalists” have increasingly emphasized climate issues rather than population problems. I argue that these climate issues are not “environmental” issues at all, but rather fake issues since there is very little evidence that there is more than the usual climatic variation due to natural causes like El Nino Southern Oscillations (ENSO) and solar variations. Apparently increasing affluence also encourages people to indulge in increasing speculation without careful attention to the application of scientific methodology despite increasing educational attainments.
Nice to see comments from Trump and Pruitt in commemoration of Earth Day 2018.
The President renewed his commitment to cut Federal environmental regulations.
Meanwhile Administrator Pruitt phoned into a New York City radio station am 970 to report the war on coal is over. Also said he will be requiring Scientific studies upon which regulations are based to be transparent and to disclose underlying data. This policy should have profound practical effects moving forward. It makes so much sense it should be hard for future administrators to repeal. Since a lot of past regulations were premised on secret and unaccountable scientific studies, it will be interesting to learn if Trump and Pruitt will have rationale to revoke these.
Wow, mr Pruitt will end the era of justifying regulations based on secret science purported by scientists unwilling to disclose their raw data and be fully transparent as to methods. this should have a massive impact on the rigor of federal Epa regulations henceforth.
Bringing a halt to regulatory Secret Science could serve as a worthy topic for an upcoming essay by doctor carlin.
It used to be argued all politics is local, or by voting district. Al gore decided his politics included global.
Pruitt is headed in a sensible direction by encouraging more policy leadership among the 50 States. Each can chart its own environmental course. This will foster more competition of ideas. competition can gradually reward enlightened Thinking. Monolithic decision making from Washington does not help the environment.
If the purpose of environmental groups is to influence politicians, then they exist to obtain money and publicize causes. As gross air and water pollution have been prevented, successor causes must tend to be more obscure. There has always been lots of bad Eco science (eg Rachel Carson), but it’s trending vaingloriously worse. So in future will they continue to be untethered from reality? The trends are inauspicious.
One economic effect of NAfTA and international trade agreements has been to move more private enterprise and practical work outside the US. This may have reduced respect within the US for the private sector and for manufacturing.
Left wingers seem to think the US should be devoted to design engineers who outsource all manufacturing and pollution outside the US.
Add in federal financing of much medical care and universities and the scope of the public sector in the US swells. So even though a capitalist economy in principle, Government participation within the economy is very great. Our intrinsic economic advantages over avowedly communist nations may be narrowed.
If technological progress is a key to economic progress, and if environmentalists resist many technologies, their agenda may serve a general leaning toward big government and toward obstructing economic growth. This is generally unhelpful for any nation.