There are at least three groups of people who love high oil prices: energy companies, investors, and environmentalists. Companies because it allows further incentive for exploration; investors because it means record profits for oil companies and a better return for the pension funds they manage. And environmentalists because it means they can punish consumers.
Punative behavior modification is considered politically incorrect when it comes to rearing children, but for environmental jihadists it is the tool of choice: it will punish those least able to afford higher energy costs but have the salutary effect of forcing them to change their wasteful behavior. Consumers thus become the pawns in the eco-war on carbon.
Along with the threat of climate change, which is a big stick eco-jihadists wield to bludgeon corporations, high energy costs can be used to bludgeon consumers. In combination the blunt instruments of behavior modification can be flashed in the corridors of government where regulatory and legal reforms must be made immediately if we are to fulfill the eco-jihadist fantasy of control: how else can we get working mothers to give up their car and cycle to work? I'm sure this is possible. When I lived in Holland many mothers picked up their children from school on bicycles. There would be no difficulty applying this model to, say, downtown Phoenix.
The eco-jihadist war on carbon is a war on middle-class values and the aspirations of all people seeking a better life. In the name of some globalist reverie about "responsibility" to emerging countries, of some notion of "saving" the planet, they dream a dream of global governance where people would be accountable not to their neighbors or their communities but to a class of rootless cosmocrats promoting every kind of politically correct behavior imaginable.
Ultimately, then, the war on carbon is an assult on the values of freedom and responsibility. It is an attack on the profitable and efficient companies that deliver energy. Eco-jihadists, of course, deny that they wish us to change our lifestyle; they merely want us to behave and do it their way, with "alternative" energy supplies (now supplying less than one percent of US energy requirements) and sacrifice. The costs of change will be underwritten by the "excess profits" of oil companies. Actually, these "excess profits" are very attractive for my investment portfolio, and I wouldn't consider for one minute holding stock in a company that gives in to the hostile demand to relinquish profits and punish shareholders.
Like other forms of jihad, eco-jihad is a war on our way of life, on private property and ownership, and on individual responsibility for the environment. Roger Scruton makes similar points in a brilliant essay, "Conservatives Are Conservationists" the link for which is here: http://www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/articles.aspx?article=577&theme=home&loc=b
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Punishing the Poor
Environmental jihadists want to punish you. They look mirthfully upon oil at $135 a barrel and squeal with glee. At some undefined point petroleum products will become so expensive that people will change their behavior, quit driving cars, change to energy-efficient light bulbs, and bunker down with the thermostat at 50 degrees. There is nothing like punishing people to get them to change. This is why environmental jihadists love rising energy prices.
Contrast this with the approach of most consumer-driven business. The prices of clothing, electronics, and home goods are now lower than ever, thanks to Gap, Uniclo, Wal-Mart, and Dell. Despite lower prices, people have changed their behavior--they buy more. I'm sure we long to be punished with higher prices, so we won't consume so much, but no one will offer to raise prices! Fortunately, there is the war on carbon to ensure that those struggling to make ends meet will be suitably beaten down.
Notably, the rise in the price of a barrel of oil has nothing to do with environmental jihadists and their longed-for policies. They didn't cause the rise, much as they would like to find a way to do so. There is no shortage of ideas to keep the cost of energy going up: carbon cap-and-trade markets, new regulations and laws, international agreements designed to curb free markets. Compared to this global guerilla war, the invasion of Iraq is a mere bagatelle.
We are scolded that we are addicted to "cheap" energy. Cheap compared to what? There is absolutely not a shred of evidence that energy has ever been cheap, because no one has defined what cheap means. I recall in the 1970s when the great benchmark of disaster was gasoline at $1 a gallon. That milestone, along with Y2K, came and went, and the economy continued to grow, and the sun rose each morning. However, there is bad news: more governments promise more intervention in energy markets. This will no doubt cause an outbreak of good behavior! Because with the double whammy of rising prices and government regulation, there will be no need to drive, take buses, or fly. With our hunting clubs in hand, we'll just walk everywhere.
We'd like to take public transporation to the re-education camps, of course, but somehow the same governments that are keen to regulate can't muster the will or resources to build a transportation infrastructure worthy of the most advanced economy in the world. Families who choose to live in the suburbs in order to provide a decent quality of life and good schools to their children must suffer and pay more.
The great thing about paying more for energy is just how much it benefits the developing world. In the hitherto blighted economies of the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia, citizens no longer have to sacrifice. Awash in cheap money, they can now afford to construct megacities, buy automobiles, and fly on jets to distant vacation spots. The recent promising discovery of tar sand oil in the Congo means that the jungle will soon be abuzz with extraction. The single-mother computer technician at Dell can take great comfort that her children will no longer leave green vegetables on their plates knowing a little Bedouin is starving, and that she can happily drive to work knowing that she's supporting educational opportunities for children of sheiks. How could that be punishment?
Here's just one pithy view from Nat Keohane of the Environmental Defense Fund: "If electricy prices don't rise, people don't have the incentive to conserve or to buy energy-efficient appliances". Of course, people will have "options", such as using revenues generated from new regulatory regimes to lower taxes and provide rebates. "If you raise prices and don't people options, all you are going to get are complaints. We don't advicate raising the price of food as a cure for obesity."
If there is a bigger crock of shit than this, it's hard to know where to find it. Now we have environmental jihadists using decision economics to engage in more social engineering. Next they'll want to rewire the brain to reject SUVs.
In the end, it's the same story: those who are impatient for the rapid overthrow of the existing order inflict violence on those who are least capable of mounting an effective defense. American political leadership from McCain to Obama to every governer wanna-be climate change jihadist is failing to represent the consumer. Environmental elites are free to continue their war on carbon, mounting continual assaults on energy companies via shareholder resolutions, demanding punative and wasteful regulatory regimes based on questionable science, and promoting "solutions" at the expense of people.
No one questions the need for prudent energy use, conservation, and the strongest possible environmental protection for animals, the oceans, and the forests. No one questions rational approaches to conservation such as the framework established by the Marine Stewardship Council, a partnership with business. And no one should have any hesitation about investing in all manner of "alternative" energy, along with carbon, one of nature's great gifts to the planet. Meantime, I'm quite certain that no one driving an SUV filled with $5 a gallon gas would dream of running down the behavior modification specialists over at the re-education camps.
Contrast this with the approach of most consumer-driven business. The prices of clothing, electronics, and home goods are now lower than ever, thanks to Gap, Uniclo, Wal-Mart, and Dell. Despite lower prices, people have changed their behavior--they buy more. I'm sure we long to be punished with higher prices, so we won't consume so much, but no one will offer to raise prices! Fortunately, there is the war on carbon to ensure that those struggling to make ends meet will be suitably beaten down.
Notably, the rise in the price of a barrel of oil has nothing to do with environmental jihadists and their longed-for policies. They didn't cause the rise, much as they would like to find a way to do so. There is no shortage of ideas to keep the cost of energy going up: carbon cap-and-trade markets, new regulations and laws, international agreements designed to curb free markets. Compared to this global guerilla war, the invasion of Iraq is a mere bagatelle.
We are scolded that we are addicted to "cheap" energy. Cheap compared to what? There is absolutely not a shred of evidence that energy has ever been cheap, because no one has defined what cheap means. I recall in the 1970s when the great benchmark of disaster was gasoline at $1 a gallon. That milestone, along with Y2K, came and went, and the economy continued to grow, and the sun rose each morning. However, there is bad news: more governments promise more intervention in energy markets. This will no doubt cause an outbreak of good behavior! Because with the double whammy of rising prices and government regulation, there will be no need to drive, take buses, or fly. With our hunting clubs in hand, we'll just walk everywhere.
We'd like to take public transporation to the re-education camps, of course, but somehow the same governments that are keen to regulate can't muster the will or resources to build a transportation infrastructure worthy of the most advanced economy in the world. Families who choose to live in the suburbs in order to provide a decent quality of life and good schools to their children must suffer and pay more.
The great thing about paying more for energy is just how much it benefits the developing world. In the hitherto blighted economies of the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia, citizens no longer have to sacrifice. Awash in cheap money, they can now afford to construct megacities, buy automobiles, and fly on jets to distant vacation spots. The recent promising discovery of tar sand oil in the Congo means that the jungle will soon be abuzz with extraction. The single-mother computer technician at Dell can take great comfort that her children will no longer leave green vegetables on their plates knowing a little Bedouin is starving, and that she can happily drive to work knowing that she's supporting educational opportunities for children of sheiks. How could that be punishment?
Here's just one pithy view from Nat Keohane of the Environmental Defense Fund: "If electricy prices don't rise, people don't have the incentive to conserve or to buy energy-efficient appliances". Of course, people will have "options", such as using revenues generated from new regulatory regimes to lower taxes and provide rebates. "If you raise prices and don't people options, all you are going to get are complaints. We don't advicate raising the price of food as a cure for obesity."
If there is a bigger crock of shit than this, it's hard to know where to find it. Now we have environmental jihadists using decision economics to engage in more social engineering. Next they'll want to rewire the brain to reject SUVs.
In the end, it's the same story: those who are impatient for the rapid overthrow of the existing order inflict violence on those who are least capable of mounting an effective defense. American political leadership from McCain to Obama to every governer wanna-be climate change jihadist is failing to represent the consumer. Environmental elites are free to continue their war on carbon, mounting continual assaults on energy companies via shareholder resolutions, demanding punative and wasteful regulatory regimes based on questionable science, and promoting "solutions" at the expense of people.
No one questions the need for prudent energy use, conservation, and the strongest possible environmental protection for animals, the oceans, and the forests. No one questions rational approaches to conservation such as the framework established by the Marine Stewardship Council, a partnership with business. And no one should have any hesitation about investing in all manner of "alternative" energy, along with carbon, one of nature's great gifts to the planet. Meantime, I'm quite certain that no one driving an SUV filled with $5 a gallon gas would dream of running down the behavior modification specialists over at the re-education camps.
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