Originally published on the CGS blog on November 2, 2009.
“No to climate government takeover!!!”
I never thought I’d agree with a tea party activist. And I’m not really sure if what I’m about to say actually qualifies as agreement. But that there might be any kind of common ground at all between me and this balding, burly, red-faced conservative spitting on my television screen is an endearing, if mildly frightening prospect.
For the record, I am a staunch supporter of a strong climate bill. But like the angry tea party activist, I heavily oppose a ‘government takeover’ of the climate change issue.
Climate change is completely different to any other problem that we face. It is not merely a case of curbing/banning certain forms of behavior, although that is definitely part of it. Nor is it merely about adaptation, although that too is surely critical. Ultimately, it is a total transformation of how our society thinks on a deeply fundamental level. In this case, it is our society’s relationship with the environment – after centuries of building up a wall in our collective conscience between our world and the environment, we are being forced to realize that we are actually part of it. Armed with this new mindset, we’re no longer capable of that perverse existential separation, where we see the universe through the lens of a single individual existing only in the present time. We are forced to transcend on some level, and to look through the lens of the world until the end of time. We must look at our everyday actions and ask “Is this an action which can be repeated indefinitely, by anyone, anywhere?”
Now unless we lived in a 1984-style totalitarian state where the government controlled how we think, this kind of change simply cannot be driven by the government. It is change of the incremental variety, the kind which can only truly come from the bottom up. Day by day, little by little, individuals and organizations will create the innovations which make our society more sustainable.
Thus a government takeover of climate change would be bad news not because it did too much, but because it did too little. The only way we can truly re-engineer society is to do so with the one thing which undoubtedly touches every one of us – the free market. I truly believe that ‘green innovations’ will become a massive source of profit over the decades to come.
Yet I mentioned earlier that I support a strong climate bill. Legislation will help curb the worst of our actions, and provide a broad framework in which a transformation can begin to occur. It is merely a catalyst, whose job is to merely make things easier for the innovators who will generate true change on the issue. Without this single piece of collective action, individual action is extremely hard – the system is simply not designed to think in environmental terms. Those individuals and organizations that do buck the trend and show environmental leadership may be doing so at their own expense.
This is why the whole free market versus government debate is truly missing the point. Both have absolutely critical roles to play in this process. The great champion of the free market, Ayn Rand, wrote that it is the unrestrained power of the individual which has always made society great. I agree. But I would respond by saying that it is the role of society to define what greatness is.
And so this is my call to the conservative wing of politics – to be a part of this process. Not to repeat tired lines of argument, such as denying global warming or support drilling and nuclear energy, but to be part of conceptualizing a new economy, one which is more profitable and sustainable than ever before. You have something to offer that many on the left do not – the ability to see great potential in the free market. By joining in the process of crafting and supporting strong climate change legislation, you can be part of ensuring core conservative principles – the ideas of self-reliance, competition and innovation – remain a foundational part of the new economy for years to come.
