We’ve already discussed how business, or better yet private individuals, can be the best way to help, but now we need to learn why government does not, and cannot, save the earth.
At the start of this project, I said that I wanted to write about ways to save the earth that didn’t require government regulation, but I would also like to explain why. The argument that to save the earth we need the government to implement more rules and regulations is very overused and in my opinion lazy. Saying ‘the government should take care of this problem’ not only minimalizes the severity of the situation, but it shifts responsibility off of the individual. I think we owe it to our planet to take responsibility and use our greatest gift, intelligence, to come up with better solutions.
Let’s dig into the reasons that government does not help the earth, and in fact, contributes to destroying it. Many things that can be seen as positive at face value are actually quite harmful upon further inspection. The book “The Politics of the Earth” by John S Dryzek outlines some good examples of this phenomenon.
“In practice, as economic rationalists argue, these agencies often act as conduits for the abuse of land at the hands of special interests. Ranchers can graze their cattle on public land at below-market prices, and have little incentive to care for this land, because they do not own it. Logging companies gain heavily subsidized access to national forests, as the Forest Service constructs roads at public expense. Often, the Forest Service receives less money for a timber lease than it pays to construct roads into the lease area. This amounts to publicly subsidized wilderness destruction. Wilderness lovers for their part get free and often subsidized access to the back country, leading to overuse and degradation. Tourists get heavily subsidized roads and facilities in the more accessible parts of national parks, which again become overused and abused. Mining companies can make use of antiquated nineteenth-century laws that allow them to stake claims to minerals on public lands while paying virtually nothing.”
I wont make the argument that all government regulations are harmful, but there are clear issues with relying on the government to solve this problem. If we have these obviously harmful examples of things that the government currently does that harms the earth, I don’t believe we should exacerbate that problem anymore. This is something that could be considered provably detrimental. We should also consider that even if government solutions were somewhat reliable, we still should not rely on them. It is lazy to pass such problems off to a third party. If everyone thought that the government would solve all their problems no one would want to solve the problems for themselves. This is the reason I believe in looking for alternative solutions. There are billions of individuals on this planet and all of us have a vested interest in its prolonged existence. Some of the billions of people are bound to have some good ideas. Humanity has prevailed due to our innovation and intelligence, and in order for us to keep doing that we need to raise awareness of this problem and collectively start thinking of how we can continue our existence more intelligently.
