The main issue with the federal government’s attempts to regulate the environment is that—as with all things in which the federal government—there is a large degree of corruption, inefficiency, and overall impracticality inherent to their approaches. Take, as two examples, the current administration’s plan to make half of all vehicles on the road electric by 2030 and the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) hatred of nuclear power plants.
At face value, these might seem like good ideas. However, regardless of how they may appear on the surface, neither of these ideas are good. When it comes to electric cars, their batteries require rare earth metals, which require a lot of water and other costly inputs to mine, therefore, their production contributes to a ton of soil contamination and/or water table pollution. Furthermore, the manufacturing process for these batteries also creates a lot of negative byproducts, not the least of which is carbon.
As to how much carbon, there is some conflicting information, but overall, the consensus seems to be that manufacturing an electric car battery in a factory—which is over 1000 lbs—when it is finished, will release somewhere around the same amount of carbon as a fossil fuel vehicle burns over the course of 8 years. At any rate, if you add all of that up, and then factor in the fact that disposal of these batteries is a complete nightmare due to all of their toxicity, you quickly see that electric cars, technically, aren’t really all that “green.” In other words, they may seem like they make a huge impact on greenhouse gas emissions and the overall levels of pollution, but the reality is that they don’t.
Concerning nuclear, when it comes to the Environmental Protection Agency’s outright disdain for this type of energy, their anti-nuclear position doesn’t make much sense either, even from an environmentalist standpoint. We have all been taught to be deathly afraid of nuclear energy because who wants another Chernobyl?
Put plainly, the reality is that well-regulated nuclear plants are one of, if not the, cleanest and safest forms of energy that we have. Additionally, as a bonus, they are also far more efficient than your average green energy source. In fact, it takes 300 square miles of renewable energy sources (windmills and solar panels) to make the same amount of energy that only one square mile of nuclear plant makes. And the nuclear plant, I might add, does all of this without needing any of the rare earth metals that windmills and solar panels rely on.
More than all of that, 90 percent of all of our goods here in the US are transported by ship during at least some point in their production or sale. These vessels account for around 3 percent of our overall C02 emissions. From my point of view, it seems like one option might be to convert these ships into vessels that—instead of diesel—run on clean and efficient nuclear energy. This is something many ships already run on, and quite successfully.
All of this is to say that, frankly, many of the government’s current environmental efforts do not actually remedy the problems that environmentalism seeks to solve. Rather, it seems like they are more often than not an exercise in futility that is plagued and/or driven by political theater and governmental corruption/incompetence.
As a side note, the biggest causes of carbon emissions around the world are: electricity and heat (25 percent); agriculture, forestry, and other land use (24 percent); industry (21 percent); transportation (14 percent); other energy (10 percent); buildings (6%). According to my analyses, most of these sectors, if not all, would be far cleaner and more efficient if the goal was to incorporate nuclear energy into them instead of electric/renewable energy sources because this would decrease fossil fuel emissions, and subsequently greenhouse gas emissions, while also giving us reliable and predictable energy. This also applies to the second item on the list —agriculture, forestry, and other land use—in that nuclear power would have a much smaller impact (1/300th) on the land environment than renewable energy sources (solar panels and windmills), thus decreasing carbon emissions from that source.
We are left in a little bit of a conundrum here, at least when it comes to finding a sane position. On one hand, the federal government, as well as us, should care about protecting the environment. However, on the other hand, we see that the environmental legislation getting proposed and/or passed by the federal government is ineffective at best and counterproductive and harmful at worst. So what is a sane position on environmentalism?
In lay terms, the sane position is that we absolutely do need to ensure that corporations and/or manufacturers or governments are not violating property rights through imposing negative externalities onto others. Believing this doesn’t make you a “tree hugger,” or a “bleeding heart liberal.” Laws regarding the environment ought to be based on honoring self-ownership and property rights and voluntary social cooperation. Pollution, for example, is a violation of another’s property rights.
There must also be immediate removal of all unelected bureaucrats running the EPA and other environmental regulators. Obviously, that is easier said than done, but be that as it may, it should still be what we advocate.
In closing, let me leave you with just a few things to remember. As sane citizens, we should all care about the environment in terms of property rights, human flourishing, and even individual subjective appreciation of beauty. Environmental harm could inhibit enjoyment of property and violate the rights of others. Let us, the sane citizens, stop this issue from becoming a partisan weapon that can be used by corrupt actors pursuing sinister means.
