Why Liberals Are Wrong About Environmentalism

If Chipotle were the biggest polluter in your neighborhood, would you ever even consider throwing more money their way? Of course not, you’d rather see them go out of business. If Best Buy were the biggest polluter in your neighborhood, would you ever take out your checkbook and say we need to invest more money into this travesty? Of course not. You would instead say that they need to learn from their mistakes and face market repercussions.

Yet despite the fact that the number one worst polluter on earth is the US Federal Government, liberals continue to call on Americans to throw more dollars its way, instead of holding these polluters accountable for their actions. As we celebrate Earth Day this Friday, liberals need to understand that by asking the government to increase their control over the environment, they are letting the worst polluters on earth grow their powers.

If the best solution you can think of to keep the earth clean is to give the biggest polluters more power, it’s time for a new solution. Wishing to minimize pollution is an honorable cause, but to let the number one worst polluter in the world have control over this is highly illogical.

A liberal’s position on this is understandable, since they believe that using the state to increase the cost of pollution will lower a business’ incentive to pollute. But if we give this authority to the state, who then holds the government accountable when they pollute?

Since the US Federal Government continues to get away with being the number one polluter in the world, it seems that a new plan is needed, because the government is evidently not using the EPA to regulate itself.

Liberals are economically proficient enough to understand the incentive structure behind minimizing pollution in the private sector. If raising the cost of pollution lowers the incentive to pollute, then we will see that the best model for combatting pollution is one handled by the free market. Market incentives prove to be much more effective than threats of violence from the state in disincentivizing unethical behavior.

If you are truly committed to protecting the environment, then we need to focus our efforts on stopping the worst polluters in the world, the government. We must also be prudent in considering the best method available to quell pollution. Using the state to accomplish this is senseless, and throwing more power and money at the world’s largest polluter will only exacerbate the problem.

As presidential candidate Austin Petersen said in the Libertarian Party Forum on the Fox Business Network, “Whether global warming is true or not, government should play no role. The government is the biggest polluter.”