One of the curious implications of the current downturn has been to decrease slightly the prominence of environmental issues on the political agenda and in the media. Nonetheless, Climate Change is still widely seen as humanity’s greatest threat, and further legislation to address this is inevitable. Beneath the hyperbole and hysteria, the scientific consensus that emerges is hardly apocalyptic. Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change itself predicts a fairly modest 1.8 to 4°C rise in global average temperatures this century. Of course, this is not insignificant, but the action taken in response must be proportional and effective. There is a real risk at the moment that governments use the issue of climate change in a pseudo-Orwellian way as something we need to fight collectively, and therefore use it as an excuse to pass legislation that severely curtails our liberties.
For example, introducing limits on the amount of flying or driving we could do each year are potential future policy responses. Not only would these infringe our rights to lead our everyday lives, but in enforcing measures like these, vast amounts of data on our movements and activities would need to be collected, stored and analysed to assess our ‘carbon footprint’, eroding our right to privacy. Draconian measures such as these are not just undesirable threats to our liberty, they are also impractical and unnecessary. Fossil fuels are finite resources, a fact reflected in their cost. We have already seen that as oil prices rise because of a simple supply-demand relationship, companies and individuals pro-actively seek out alternatives, whether that may be reducing their use of a type of transport or equipment, increasing the efficiency of existing technology or investing in new technology. Furthermore, public recognition of the need to reduce fossil fuel use is a powerful incentive for corporations to do so: many companies already attach great prominence to environmental credentials to help differentiate them from their competitors.
Therefore, a free-market based solution is by far the most effective way of making the transformation from fossil fuels to cleaner, renewable energy sources. We must then remain vigilant against attempts to infringe our liberties under the premise of environmental issues. The really inconvenient truth for governments is that the most effective solution relies on individuals and corporations acting not as a result of compulsion, but in the logical pursuit of their own self-interest.
A very inconvenient truth is written by James Freeland, winner of The Young Writer on Liberty 2009.
