Tag: industry

Categories
general freedom international affairs

Denial Is a River in Argentina?

“In the history of the Earth, there is a cycle of temperatures,” said Javier Milei during a presidential debate in 2023. “We are not going to adhere to the 2030 Agenda [a United Nations list of dozens of goals for curtailing countries’ use of resources]. We do not adhere to cultural Marxism. We do not adhere to decadence.”

Now Argentina’s President Milei is acting to formally withdraw from accords requiring countries to become poorer in order to “save the planet,” etc.

Although Milei has axed many government departments, his government still has a chief environmental officer. This personage had been leading the Argentine delegation attending the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, happening November 11 – 22, 2024. But Argentina had told the delegation not to participate.

Now Milei has pulled them from the summit. Why? That was not immediately announced. But “Milei has consistently denied the existence of a climate crisis,” moans the Buenos Aires Herald.

Denialist Milei doubtless recognizes hurricanes, tornadoes, and other incidents of drastic weather. He’d probably add, though, that planet earth has seen plenty of crisis-​level weather before carbon-​emitting industry arrived to take the blame.

Milei’s decision to exit COP29 came a day after his meeting with President-​elect Donald Trump, of like mind on environmental and other questions.

Trump is expected to re-​withdraw the U.S. from the 2015 Paris agreement, another anti-​industrial environmental accord. We don’t know yet whether Argentina will also withdraw. 

But if you’re betting Yes, I like your chances.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with Midjourney

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
general freedom nannyism too much government

Wealth Versus Disaster

Nepal Earthquake

Poverty kills.

In “The Tragedy of Nepal,” aerospace engineer Rand Simberg explains why industry-​deniers striving to block economic progress in the name of blocking “climate change” do no favor to the poorest countries of the world.

Human beings cannot prevent disasters like the earthquake that recently struck Nepal. We can, though, mitigate their destructiveness … by being as economically free as possible and, therefore, as rich as possible.

And thus able to afford more durable — even antifragile — structures and infrastructure.

The same capital-​intensive achievements that protect us when Mother Nature is quiescent also protect us when she’s at her worst. Buildings are more likely to withstand a quake when constructed of the best possible materials and designs. But the most robust safeguards can be the norm only when we are free and wealthy enough to engage in the industrial processes required to produce them.

This is a familiar point. But it bears repeating because it is not familiar enough to discourage foes of a vague threat called “climate change” — nothing new in earth’s history — from also ranging themselves against industrial production.

Industry-​deniers assert that we can manipulate climate trends for the better if only we radically curb our carbon-​emitting impact on the atmosphere. But attempts to enact this fantasy will only make it ever harder to grapple with vagaries of nature commonplace long before the rise of civilizations.

Human survival requires the opposite policy. It requires full freedom to build nature-​transforming industries — and buildings, and all the other man-​made bulwarks of our lives and future.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

Printable PDF

Nepal Earthquake

 

Categories
free trade & free markets national politics & policies

The Right Stuff Needs No Subsidy

When the president, in a rare fit of fiscal sanity, proposed cutting back on NASA, the subsidized sector of the high tech industry — the military-​industrial complex — felt a shiver. 

The first, I hope, of many. 

NASA has long had a special, high-​toned place in that hierarchy of government-​funded industries. It’s the civilian wing of the military’s industrial juggernaut. As if to prove that government can accomplish things, NASA actually landed men on the moon. And it kept an ungainly shuttle program going long after its rightful expiration date.

But it’s time for private enterprise to take over in the space industry. 

High time.

Still, questions remain — at least in the public mind. As a fascinating MSNBC article put it, “Can private companies build and operate space vehicles safe enough to carry astronauts?” The article’s author, James Oberg, focuses on the emerging market of space taxis, but does ponder the possibility of putting real astronauts out in space, privately. He consulted skeptical NASA engineers, who wondered how unsubsidized, for-​profit businesses could mimic NASA’s record.

Where’s their collective experience?

Answer: Let most of NASA go, and that experience would be up for hire.

Our hopes for the future conquest of space depend, in part, on ceasing to subsidize it. Congress and the president should embrace that future, and realize that it is time to relinquish their control over another whole industry.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.