CUTTING DIESEL POLLUTION

As a libertarian, I can rarely see much good in government regulation but, being a libertarian conservative rather than a doctrinaire libertarian, I do think there are some occasions where the market fails in significant ways. So I welcome this announcement:

"The Bush administration will finalize rules on Tuesday to cut air pollution from tractors, bulldozers and other off-road diesel vehicles by over 90 percent, the Environmental Protection Agency said on Monday."

It has always bothered me to see diesel-powered vehicles and machinery puffing out their characteristic clouds of black smoke into the air I need to breathe and it has been happening for around a century without much sign of the market doing anything to ameliorate it so I think this is one case where the State has a welcome role.




TREE LAW IDIOCY

"As an attorney I am sometimes consulted by property owners who want to remove trees without fear of tree regulations. As an attorney I cannot advise my clients to ignore laws (though often tree laws seem easy to ignore). I can tell clients what a lot of people do: they don't plant any tree that is covered by tree laws. And any tree protected by tree laws that is still small enough to be legally killed, is killed.

Tree laws can be amended to include other trees, so that under modern government every tree is a potential risk that a property owner will be restricted in the future use/alteration of his property. Tree laws make treeless property the safest route.

Tree laws kill trees, as every libertarian knows. And rightfully so, because tree laws violate private property rights by "socializing" trees. All freedom is founded on private property. The joke about the endangered species act is: shoot, shovel and shut up. Under "tree-preservation" laws it is: chop, chip and chill.

Tree laws illustrate the fatal conceit of socialism via its unintended consequences. Tree-huggers must have fallen out of a stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down. If public officials were any more stupid, they'd have to be watered twice a week. If their antidisestablishmentarianism continues then more "protected" trees will die.

Tree laws prove that socialism is environmentally disastrous. Government built roads through forests, straightened rivers, drained wetlands, cut canals, and subsidized other agricultural uses with taxes and other socialism. The government has already done more environmental damage than private enterprise could ever have afforded to do.

Capitalism saves trees from socialism's destruction. Capitalists farm trees for paper, and other uses. Capitalists created alternative forms of power to replace the burning of wood.

The best environment is a capitalist environment. Trees prove that the color of a healthy environment and the color of money are the same. Mother Nature is a capitalist. Capitalists are the true greens"

*****************************************

Comments? Email me here or here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

*****************************************