We really need to be very careful about creating policies and laws that go to extreme measures to reduce and eliminate carbon emissions, as such laws and policies have a huge potential to disrupt, implode, or destroy our economy if we’re not careful. And when that happens, that could lead to widespread destitution on a massive and widespread scale. And we know what that means – widespread environmental destruction, and of unprecedented proportions, that completely counteract any pro-environmental and anti-global-warming policies and laws we put in place.
The people that want to go this route – usually they lean politically to the left – are also the same people that claim that by going this route that it will bring more prosperity even though an analysis of this approach reveals that the opposite – poverty and destitution – is more likely to be the outcome.
How Protecting the Environment Can Lead to Widespread Destitution if We’re Not Careful
There are many people out there that believe that the term “climate change” is not good enough anymore because we’ve really reached a critical state that, to them, would be more accurately described as a “climate emergency.” These people believe we only have a few years left to fix our carbon emissions problem before disaster strikes, believing that we need to do a massive push to overhaul our society, particularly in terms of how we produce our energy, and then consume our energy. This includes the pushers of the more recent Green New Deal here in the United States. But, if you look at the massive cost associated with bringing into fruition these energy production/consumption overhauls, costing in the range of tens of trillions of dollars, it means pushing massive tax increases on everyone – all people and all business entities. This, to me, is a problem.
Raising taxes to pay for expensive government programs can put such a burden on the private sector that it hinders trade and commerce, potentially harming the economy. Massive taxes would burden the economy even worse, greatly increasing the chances of economic collapse.
If you don’t understand what I’m talking about, then I’d like to ask you to read my article: The Backpack Analogy. That article will help you understand the burden the public sector, and its funding through taxes, can put on the private sector, which is metaphorically carrying the public sector on its back.
A Caveat
Now keep in mind, though, that it is possible to use tax revenues to start new business sectors, like I talked about in my article about utilizing the untapped low-ROI sectors of the economy, but it needs to be done in a way that treats that particular federal spending like an investment. If the state gets a return on investment (ROI) that is greater than the amount of money originally put into that venture, in the form of new personal and business income taxes, etc., then that federal spending might be worth it.
On the other hand, if that federal spending is done in a way that destroys a private sector in order to create a new economic sector, then it is working against itself. Why? In this case, all that money is doing is offsetting one economic sector with another. They’re destroying one revenue stream to create another one. In this case, they’re not actually getting a “return on investment.” It’s also possible that the new economic sector created to replace an older one needs less people, and less local business interaction, than the old economic sector that it replaced, in which case the government is spending buttloads of money to replace one revenue stream with a smaller one, in which case they’re doing the exact opposite of getting an ROI.
Widespread Destitution
What happens if we’re not careful and push some strategies, such as levy high taxes, or creating new economic sectors that only offset older business sectors, or shrink the economy, rather than be an addition to those older business sectors? The answer is that you could cause high unemployment rates, which negatively effects the economy. This negative impact caused by the high unemployment could lead to even more unemployment and more shrinking of the economy. These two things, unemployment and shrinking economy, could build on each other, causing a snowball effect that ends up being catastrophic to the general well-being of all members of society.
How Poverty and Destitution Can Wreak Havoc on the Environment
In the end, we’ll see widespread destitution if we’re not careful, and this widespread destitution has a terrible potential to be catastrophic to the environment.
How does that work? Imagine people are freezing in the winter, but can’t afford to properly heat their homes because they’re destitute; instead, they cut down trees to use that wood in their fireplaces to stay warm. The only other option for them would be to freeze to death, and I don’t think people are going to go with that option. Imagine tens of millions of households staying warm, and not freezing to death, by cutting down trees to burn that wood to stay warm – it means widespread deforestation.
Another thing that can happen when there’s widespread destitution is the creation of shantytowns. Those of us that come from developed countries, such as the United States, tend to write off these shantytowns as something that you see in poor, developing countries. But, if you look at the United States during our Great Depression, you’ll see that there were many shantytowns here in the States. And how are these places bad for the environment? Just think about how they get rid of their sewage – they won’t have an official sewer infrastructure in place, so all of that waste gets fed into nearby streams or lakes, thus degrading the water quality in those places.
These are just a couple of examples, but the problem is clear. If you raise taxes too much, or replace old economic sectors with new ones that need less people, it could lead to economic desolation. And that economic desolation would lead to environmental desolation. If the goal is to do things to improve the environment, doing it wrong, or with extremely high taxes, has a very high likelihood of backfiring, leading to the opposite effect from the one intended.
I believe that using the private sector to fix our environmental problems is a much better solution than trying to do it through massive government intervention.
