We must green the market, or something like that

Thomas Homer-Dixon wrote what I thought was an excellently worded article in today’s Globe & Mail.

In response were comments such as this:

JD Strong from Oakville, Canada writes: I’m not willing to sacrifice my freedom of choice for environmentalist fear mongering. Especially after the brutal winter we had and the cool summer we’re having now.

Environmentalism is an excuse to impose state control and planning in place of individual freedom. It extends to every aspect of our lives: cars, lightbulbs, health, work, transportation, food, clothing… everything.

Keep your laws off my freedom.

This is clearly someone for whom “environmentalism” is a bad word.  Everything even remotely associated with the word must, by definition, be bad.  He/she is clearly pre-disposed to being against everything that those “loony environmentalists” support.

This is not to say that there are no environmentalists with whom I disagree, either on goals or methods or both.  There are actually many.  But heck, I’m struggling to come up with a single label for any group of people which I look at with such revulsion that I believe they are incapable of even a single good idea.  Not one.  I believe that even the most radical groups out there have reasons for their opinions, and I would choose to hear them before I dismiss them.  It is just not in me to be that close minded.  I’ve even found myself agreeing with Stephen Harper from time to time.  (George W. Bush, not so much, but I’d never say it’s impossible!)

Now I’m certain that JD Strong from Oakville, Canada likely has some strongly held opinions about the level of tax burden in Canada/Ontario/Oakville, and perhaps he/she could make some very strong cases as to how that money is spent by the particular level of government.  Fair enough.  He/she is entitled to those opinions.  We may disagree, but that’s what makes a healthy democracy, and I’d be willing to listen and consider the points.

But just for the sake of discussion, if I agree to stipulate to all of his/her points on both the size of the tax burden and the spending priorities, I still cannot come to grips with why anyone argues with the central philosophy of modern environmentalism (and for that matter the central philosophy underlying Green Party policy) which, in the words of Homer-Dixon, is to “tax things we want to discourage, such as pollution and resource waste, not things we want to encourage, like income, employment and investment.”

I will admit, this has to be my single biggest internal struggle with my involvement in politics.  This philosophy seems to me to be so obvious, so in-line with the long term interests of our society, that I can’t quite come to terms with how anyone can argue against it.

Even if you are one who thinks Climate Change is bunk.  Even if you believe that Peak Oil is a myth.  Fine, for this discussion only I will stipulate that.  Now please tell me how this philosophy, placing the tax burden squarely on the things we want to discourage, does not make sense?

And yet people continue to reject the idea out of hand and Canada has exactly one political party which holds this philosophy as a basic premise of economic policy.