From: C
Sent: Monday, March 11, 2019 2:35 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Global Warming

Prof,

Suppose that global warming is caused by carbon emissions and is harmful to mankind.

Is there any free-market solution?

Without any government role.

Best,

C

From: Walter Block [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, March 11, 2019 11:00 AM
To: C
Subject: RE: Global Warming

Dear C:

Yes, let us assume, arguendo, it is proven that carbon emitters are akin to polluters. They are indistinguishable from people who shoot guns up in the air, and the bullets hit planes; that what carbon emitters do is the same as the acts of those who punch innocent people in the nose.  Then, yes, the free market solution would be that carbon emitters should be treated like the criminals they would be. Under anarcho-capitalism, private courts would do this. Given that there is a government, it should treat carbon emitters just like these other criminals?

Have any of these claims been anywhere near proven? Hardly. The very opposite is the case. Attempts to deny global warming due to carbon emissions have been characterized as hate speech, as offensive, as micro aggressions, etc. We are very, very far from proving anything of the sort.

The best essay ever written on this issue is this one; I highly recommend it:

Environmentalism: Rothbard, Murray N. 1982. “Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution,” Cato Journal, Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring; reprinted in Economics and the Environment: A Reconciliation, Walter E. Block , ed., Vancouver: The Fraser Institute, 1990;http://www.mises.org/rothbard/lawproperty.pdf; http://mises.org/story/2120

The Best of Walter E. Block