Since the 1970s, we’ve been bombarded by predictions of climate catastrophe. From global cooling, to sea levels rising, to droughts, to famine, to global warming, we’ve heard it all by 2016. In 2008, ABC news predicted that gas would be over $9 per gallon, a carton of milk would cost $12.99 and, oh yeah, New York City would be under water by 2015. It’s now 2016.
We’ve been told that that the apocalypse is on the horizon for the past 40 years, and it simply never comes. While I support cleaning up the environment, there’s something about using the kinds of scare tactics that ABC used in 2008 that are reprehensible and dishonest.
You may have already thought to yourself that I’m someone who regards science as witchcraft or perhaps even voodoo, for whatever reason. I should point out that I don’t deny climate change. The climate is always changing. Arctic ice samples show that the earth’s climate has been constantly changing for its entire existence. I’m simply asserting that current models are unable to retroactively match recorded weather data, let alone accurately predict the future. I am, however, highly skeptical of anthropogenic climate change alarmism. Allow me to say briefly that I am aware of the statistic that states 97 percent of scientists agree that anthropogenic climate change is real. This statistic was falsified using misrepresentations of scientific articles. James Taylor wrote a good opinion article for Forbes on the subject.
While I am skeptical of anthropogenic climate change as the dominant model, I can concede that over-consumption and pollution are both closely related and undesirable. Something should be done to reduce these. I have a solution that, if implemented last year, would have cut consumption in the United States by $474 billion in 2016. Imagine how much pollution and environmental damage could have been avoided. My plan is very simply to pass a resolution to make deficit spending illegal for the U.S. Congress.
Our government prints and borrows hundreds of billions of dollars every year to prop up over-consumption and make the economy artificially look like things are better than they actually are. When it floods the economy with money that shouldn’t actually exist in the first place, people buy more things, which signals an increase in demand, which ramps up production, which increases pollution on a national scale. Essentially, this flood of money and consequent low interest rates screw up market indicators, and most everyone thinks that spending/borrowing more and saving less is a good idea. The various organizations of the green movement should try measuring the carbon footprint of the federal budget and continuing resolutions instead of monitoring how many trees I’ve used via campus printers.
But let’s not stop there. Government can print money and distribute it so as to increase money supply and artificially increase tax revenue that will increase their spending capacity before going into debt. This would allow the government to continue to finance its deficit spending habits without ever having to borrow money. It’s the same spending problem; they’ve just shortened it by a few steps. Competition in the money supply, such as bitcoin or anything else, would incentivize the dollar to become a physically backed currency again, which deters printing, in order to maintain its value and remain competitive. Repealing legal tender laws and getting rid of things like money transmitter licenses would be good ways to begin this process. After we’ve accomplished all of this, over-consumption will be drastically diminished along with the rate of pollution as the market becomes less dependent on low-interest debt.
If you were looking for the biggest enabler of pollution in the U.S., look no further than our own federal government. Its ridiculous spending habits have allowed the U.S. economy to produce more than that for which the market has called for many years. We currently have an economy built on debt, malinvestments, over-consumption and the promise of more printed money. If you care about the environment, you can’t ignore excessive pollution spurred on by deficit spending.
