By Walter E. Block
September 1, 2017
Bret Stephens, who wrote “Hurricanes, Climate and the Capitalist Offset” for the New York Times, is an economic ignoramus.
He opines:
“Climate activists often claim that unchecked economic growth and the things that go with are principal causes of environmental destruction. In reality, growth is the great offset. It’s a big part of the reason why, despite our warming planet, mortality rates from storms have declined… Death rates from other natural disasters such as floods and droughts have fallen by … staggering percentages over the last century.
“That’s because economic growth isn’t just a matter of parking lots paving over paradise. It also underwrites safety standards, funds scientific research, builds spillways and wastewater plants, creates “green jobs,” subsidizes Elon Musk, sets aside prime real estate for conservation, and so on.”
Stephens also writes as follows: “Why do richer countries fare so much better than poorer ones when it comes to natural disasters? It isn’t just better regulation. I grew up in Mexico City, which adopted stringent building codes following a devastating earthquake in 1957. That didn’t save the city in the 1985 earthquake, when we learned that those codes had been flouted for years by lax or corrupt building inspectors, and thousands of people were buried under the rubble of shoddy construction. Regulation is only as good, or bad, as its enforcement.”
They can have all the regulations and “safety standards” they want in poverty-stricken nations such as Bangla Desh. Either these bureaucratic rules will be ignored, or, if they are rigidly upheld and enforced, then virtually no new houses will be built, and almost all extant houses will have to be torn down. Why? Since this country is so poor, it cannot possibly live “up” to these modern, western, regulations and “safety standards.” And, why, you may ask, are these people so poor? Answer: because they have too much government, too many “safety standards,” too little respect for laissez faire capitalism, for private property rights, etc. In advanced countries, “safety standards” are rampant, but we are safe not because of them but rather in spite of them. Stephens implies that had only the Mexicans not “flouted” the rules, had the “building inspectors” not been so corrupt, then things would have been better for these people. Not at all. Under these conditions, many more them people would have perished from lack of housing in the first place! Hey, storms only come once in a while. People need housing all year around.
“Green jobs?” Like Solyndra? They are a waste of time and money. Don’t you just enjoy the perplexity of the greenos who support windmills and birds, and yet the former kill the latter? Don’t you just love the hypocrisy of Al Gore jetting around the world like it is going out of style, all the while whining about the overuse of natural resources?
Our warming planet? Who can trust “climate activists” and left-wing environmental “scientists” when they think there is such a thing as “settled science”; when they try to put in jail those with whom they disagree under criminal RICO statutes, meant for organized crime (see below on this).
Funds scientific research? Here is what Murray N. Rothbard had to say about that debacle.
Continue reading…
From Lewrockwell.com, here.
