Climate Liberalism Doesn’t Work
The classic American “liberal” values – freedom of individual choice, minimum government interference with a citizen’s decision-making process – may be obsolete in the coming world of climate change.
There has always been the limitation that one’s freedom stopped at another person’s nose. We are not free to steal or to assault another person without cause. The environmental tide of recent decades has been to somewhat limit freedoms – one cannot dump his garbage on the sidewalk or in the water supply. We face the reality that our collective survival depends on expanding and enforcing greater stops.
The man deriving a “gas-guzzler” car may believe that no one should be able to restrict his choice to drive such a beast around town, but the reality is that his generation of greenhouse gasses delivers a small harm to the planet and to each of his neighbors. In the future, government will impose tight restrictions on a great variety of activities which are now unrestrained.
How can this happen given our culture’s strong emphasis on individual freedom? Society will become more authoritarian to restrict each person’s ability to harm or to consume natural resources. Nuisance law should greatly expand, and government should be given greater powers to compel. This government expansion will not fit well with some of America’s proud traditions, but will be necessary to advance the common good.
