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The case for doing (almost) nothing about climate change

Jesse Kline: There is no question human activity is accelerating climate change,

but to solve it, governments need to get out of the way

Author of the article: Jesse Kline

Published Sep 28, 2023  •  Last updated 1 day ago  •  36 minute read

National Post, 1684 Comments

Human activity is causing drastic changes to the Earth’s climate, but that doesn’t mean we should upend our lives and stop emitting carbon altogether.

That’s the type of statement that’s sure to ruffle a few feathers. Yet that’s only because the climate debate has been hijacked by extremists on both sides. One side would say that any promotion of a moderate and tempered approach to cutting emissions is only aiding and abetting the planet’s destruction, while the other extreme denies that the greenhouse effect exists at all.

On the left, the radical climate agenda has been mainstreamed. The media routinely pushes a faulty narrative about climate change leading to global destruction, without providing any historical context, and without ever mentioning that fewer people die from natural disasters nowadays, thanks to our own industriousness and creativity.

Part of the problem is that many on the right spent decades disputing the science of global warming, rather than proposing solutions that could harness the power of human ingenuity and free markets to create positive change.

People participate in a climate protest on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Sept. 16. PHOTO BY SEAN KILPATRICK / THE CANADIAN PRESS

Today, the ever-expanding use of coercive state policies to achieve environmental aims makes it hard for those who value capitalism and individual liberty to get on board with climate action.

Unfortunately, the voices who have come to dominate the climate debate largely reject the idea that mankind should find ways to adjust to changing climactic conditions, or that global warming can be solved by anything other than the total elimination of carbon emissions.

They would have us follow the Soviet model of centralized government controls, which has historically made people less free and less well off. Yet history also offers another blueprint for solving big problems — one that encourages innovation and ingenuity, that allows people to make their own decisions about what is in their own best interests and that has built some of the most successful societies on Earth.

Raise the city

In the mid-1800s, the opening of the Illinois and Michigan Canal and numerous rail lines transformed Chicago into an economic powerhouse that attracted people and businesses from across the country and around the globe, making it the world’s fastest-growing city for a time. But its sustained growth created, well, something of a human emissions problem.

Raising of a block of brick buildings on Chicago’s Lake Street in 1857.

PHOTO BY CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY

The city was built about a metre above the shoreline of Lake Michigan, meaning that storm water and sewage would flow into the centre of town, leading to outbreaks of cholera, typhoid and other communicable diseases. What was the city to do?

Its low elevation meant that simply digging sewers would not be enough, as they wouldn’t drain into the river. Raising the cost of using the latrine in order to limit the production of human excrement or tanking the economy to make Chicago a less attractive place to live — the equivalent of what climate activists want to do today — surely would have seemed crazy. Instead, an industrious engineer was brought in who recommended raising the entire city.

Over the next 20 years, streets and buildings were slowly elevated upwards of four metres. Structures were jacked up and laid to rest on new foundations; sewers were built on top of the muddy streets and surrounded by dirt. Another innovative engineer, George Pullman, came up with a method of lifting large structures that involved hundreds of men turning thousands of jack screws simultaneously.

This is a lengthy article and worth every minute to read. I have a couple of issues with it but they are fairly minor and not worth mentioning at this point. The overall concepts and the conclusions he comes to are fascinating for those who sometimes think outside the box.

Continue reading at: Although it was a long and costly undertaking

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