If carbon emissions are a world-historical crisis, if they threaten the end of modern civilization, and if the only way to respond is to end those emissions, then we must all sacrifice, equally, the liberties and comforts that carbon emissions afford us – most especially those most loudly and aggressively demonizing carbon and demanding the end of emissions on rapidly approaching, activist-generated schedules. If those doomsayers are unwilling to make that sacrifice themselves, they have no business demanding anything at all from the rest of us.
As an initial matter, carbon emissions are not a world-historical crisis. The most accurate science suggests that we people make mild contributions to global warming through our collective activities, that many of the results of that warming are good, and that it can be reasonably responded to by human diligence and flourishing – which is supported not by decarbonization on activist schedules, but by reduced regulation and interference incentivizing increased inventions, productivity and flexibility. But that’s certainly not the view among too many government and corporate elites.
Photo credit: Greg Rosenke
