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But why would I expect someone who is the chairman of a political action group whose title indicates that paying higher taxes is something to be assiduously against to come out on the side of better environmental stewardship?
What? Oh, yeah. You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you? How could you? Well let me give you a little back story.
I love the print media, regardless if it we're talking about some major city paper or some one-traffic-light town's local newsletter. Oh, don't get me wrong, most of it is just dried-out pap just as sanitized and spin-dried as any of the video options available to me. Have no illusions about that. But there is one thing, usually a page long at most, that is always entertaining: the op-ed page. With this, you can see just how frizzlebrained people around you really are.
Today I read a conservative "thinkpiece" by someone who's primary thrust was that environmental stewardship is all fine and good, so long as it doesn't have any palpable economic impact.
I'll spare you the gory details of his reasoning, but suffice it to say that if certain environmental legislation passes, Chicken Little will have been right. Economically speaking, the sky will ostensibly fall. Right on the heads of you and I, John and Jane Q. Public.
In not so much as a nod... but a bow, curtsy, high five and Masonic handshake to the Friedman principle of "The business of America is business", he states in a sentence of less than 20 words that when we talk of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Property... er... Happiness, of those three, only the third means anything. Should either life or liberty get in the way, they can be safely ignored or traded in for a lower energy bill and stock options.
Look, we all know that in the current day and age, that polluting industries... hell, in any industry of any sort, the endless pursuit of greater profits has seen those industries absorbing less and less of what is otherwise known as the "cost of doing business." We all know that if we expect these industries to foot the bill for cleaning up their own messes without somehow shifting that cost to consumers is the height of naivete.
But the facts are these:
1. Global warming is real.
2. While some have suggested that it is natural and cyclical, I find it peculiarly coincidental to have it happen during the moment in history where mankind has become sufficiently industrialized and technologized to be able to adversely affect his environment.
3. If you don't do something to stop it, it is likely to continue and with dire consequences.
4. While jobs may be lost and energy bills may become fatter, having a viable planet is much more important when you really look at the long-term picture. You can't play the game if you've demolished the stadium.
5. Environmental conservation is a selling point to an environmentally concerned population. Put another way, it's damn good business. So it doesn't need to be framed as an either-or principle.
What really irks me about this guy is that he doesn't even acknowledge the solution to the problem, that being for the companies who are doing the polluting to absorb this cost without passing it on. He shows no anger or vituperousness for the very people who are doing the polluting with impunity, sees within them no culpability for good business citizenship. He's just a lover of the side effects of the Friedman principle, profit over everything else. It is a maxim, unassailable and without serious challenge.
Friedman's principle has overseen the economic destruction of the very communities and people this guy claims to champion, the working people without near-infinite resources. It has seen the shipment of high-paying manufacturing jobs out of the areas he claims to wish to protect in the pursuit of cheaper labor costs. I'm willing to bet he didn't say a bloody word about that. It has seen big energy turn out their most extravagant profits during times, it is claimed, were hardships. I'll bet he was resolutely silent on that point.
Where was the outrage for these usurpations? Hmm...
Friedman was a joke. Someone should really let this yutz in on it.
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