Quote of the Year (so far)

"Really, we're happy to be rich now," said Majid al-Mansouri, who heads the environment agency serving Abu Dhabi.

That is from this journalistic abortion; article by the Associated Press about the United Arab Emirates and their topping of the world index of global footprints, by the World Wildlife Federation (Sorry, whenever I see WWF, I think wrestling).

Al-Mansouri's comment pretty much sums up what the developing world thinks of global environmentalism. It's one thing for all of these environmentalists to want everyone to live under one giant green umbrella. But what it comes down to is that the environmentalists are saying to developed countries "We don't want you to reach our standard of living unless you do it on our terms." Of course, what the environmentalists don't mention is that developing countries CANNOT reach higher levels of development right now because the technology isn't there for clean growth. The other thing that isn't mentioned is that no matter what the Greens demand, suggest, or imply, citizens of LDCs would rather make the trade-off of environmentalism for growth. Thus, you get comments like those above where people would rather be enjoying their lives in splendor rather than an environmentally friendly subsidence existence.

Unfortunately, the Greens in the West still think that Kyoto is still going to work despite the unworkable paradox of:

* The Developing world refusing to have brakes put on their growth.
* The US refusing to implement any kind of agreement that "did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States"." according to the Byrd-Hagel (Note the bi-partisanship!) saying that the US Senate would not ratify Kyoto as currently written.



The obvious solution to this would be some sort of Pareto improvement by giving the developed countries a shit-ton of money in exchange for environmental controls on their growth. The problem with this is that the US would probably be opposed to the one-two punch of having to put big costs on their economy while transferring gobs of money to developed countries to buy them off. The second, probably more problematic issue, is the lack of any kind of enforcement mechanism. There is basically no way for one nation, or even a group of nations to enforce the rules of the treaty. That is without... (and this will be my final point).

SUPER-NATIONAL AUTHORITAH!

Basically, what it comes down to is that the environmental lobby is much more closer to a Green Communism than most environmentalists would like for people to believe. The reason is that when push comes to shove, most people don't place alot of stock on the distant consequences of their future actions. (Note: The empirical evidence would belie the belief of the Stern Report that there is a zero discount rate on future costs of environmental degradation). In short, while most people would say that they would do stuff "for the children/grandchildren" their actions suggest otherwise. Thus, in order to get any kind of environmentalism done, you need to force people to do it. Thus, environmentalism is very statist in their goals. For any kind of global initiative, you would need a global enforcer, thus the idea of a super-national organization. Which is why there isn't going to be any kind of global environmental policy until there is global government. And God-willing, that isn't going to happen for a long, long time. (It's in Revelations people!)

But the hypocrisy of the environmental movement amuses me just that much.

(Oh, and even Yahoo is apparently not immune to media liberalism. Just check out the URL on the link to the AP story... if they think that's an ecological nightmare, then nobody show them Russia. They might spontaneously combust.)