Loading ...
Where we find a kindred spirit blog in Canada.
The term just occurred to us. It made sense. We’re Eco-Libertarians. So we thought it would make for a great domain. Lo and behold, it was already registered to David Reevely, who’s an “editor and sometime writer for the Ottawa Citizen” according to his blog, EcoLibertarian. Indeed, Reevely’s blog is dedicated to this unique nexus of libertarianism and environmentalism. Unfortunately, it’s been idle since November of last year. We reached out, and Reevely responded.
“I’ve pretty much stopped updating EcoLibertarian.com,” he wrote. “I found I was keeping two blogs poorly rather than one well, and decided to focus on the other one — but I’m still plenty interested in the subject and I do have hopes of taking it out of dormancy at some point.”
We look forward to that day. In the meantime, we’re re-posting the EcoLibertarian About Me section because it speaks so well to the dichotomy of valuing both personal freedom as well as laws to protect that freedom by protecting the ecosystems on which we depend for our health and survival.
I’m a libertarian. Not the angry dogmatic kind who believes that public funding for the fire department is theft, but I do believe that almost every problem that governments try to solve they either make worse or fix only at much higher cost than anybody planned. Not because public servants or politicians are bad people, but just because it’s built into any system that acts on a large scale but with imperfect information. As a rule, the less government we can make do with, the better.
I’m also an environmentalist. I believe we as a species are making the earth a worse place for ourselves to live by polluting the air and water, emitting enough greenhouse gases to warm the atmosphere, and allowing our cities to expand unchecked. I don’t
necessarily believe in preserving greenery for its own sake; I like a walk in the woods as much as the next person, but I don’t think I deserve a legislated right to have a stroll in somebody else’s forest. I do believe we as a society and a species are too dependent on non-renewable resources, that much of our development is unsustainable in its present form. The question isn’t the survival of the planet — the earth has withstood much worse than what we’re doing now — but the survival of our prosperity, particularly for those of us lucky enough to have been born in the industrial world.
So I think that we as a species have to stop doing a lot of the things we’re doing, and I not only dislike government regulation, I think it doesn’t usually work. This blog is where I try to reconcile these two principles I think are so important.
I look for market-based solutions to environmental problems. I think it’s crazy that a big factory is allowed to spew pollution into my personal air without asking me first, or paying for it, and even crazier that we use public money to subsidize objectionable behaviour, such as urban sprawl.
I try to figure out what’s both good and realistic. I pay attention to what politicians, especially Canadian ones, say about the environment, and either praise them or smack them, whichever they deserve. I respect honest differences of opinion and values, and criticize B.S., political or commercial, whatever the source.
Sometimes I rant.
Music to our ears. It’s also a fine coincidence that EcoLibertarian and Max Gladwell both use Cutline WordPress templates by Chris Pearson.
Mr. Reevely, you have an open invitation to guest blog on Max Gladwell whenever you’d like.
1 response so far ↓
1 Ricky // Mar 12, 2009 at 10:23 am
I use the term Free-Market Environmentalist, but EcoLibertarian sounds smoother on the tongue.
I was watching Earth 2.0 on discovery, and one of the solar entrepreneurs said “I’m a capitalist first an an environmentalist second”. I cheered at the statement and wondered what sort of progress we will have until more people start having this attitude.
You can be a “hardcore environmentalist”, recycle everything, eat only organic, use carbon neutral everything, and yet, never see any of the effects of your efforts.
While certainly one possible solution is to convince the vast majority of humanity that the cumulative effects of their actions will result in a net benefit, and have everyone engage in dramatic lifestyle changes, I hardly think that’s a SMART goal.
The effective alternative that I see, is to make environmentalism the logical choice. When BioDiesel is $1/gallon cheaper than gasoline, that will be the logical choice. When wind energy costs less than coal, that will be the logical choice.
Leave a Comment