By Henry Lamb
(November 19 2000)
More than anything else, the world needs an abundant supply of affordable energy. Energy transforms life from hard, brutish, and short, to easy, prosperous, and long. The millions of dollars being spent by the thousands of delegates assembled at the Hague this week, might be better spent discussing ways to get energy to more people, rather than discussing ways to deny people the energy they need.
The Climate Action Network (CAN), consisting of the world's most powerful environmental organizations, has declared that the use of fossil fuel, nuclear energy, and hydro electric dams, are not sustainable. Therefore, these energy sources are not to be used in the future.
If the environmental extremists get their way, not only will the developing world be denied the use of affordable energy, the developed nations would have to curtail their use of energy from these sources.
Casual observers might scoff at the idea of reducing the energy supply in America. Better take another look. The dams on the Columbia river produce electricity for much of the Northwest; they are under severe attack by environmental extremists - to protect the salmon. The world's largest supply of low-sulphur coal lies under the Escalante National Monument, which can never be converted to affordable energy - to protect the environment. These same environmental extremists have prevented any expansion of nuclear energy for nearly two decades.
Whether or not the casual observer has noticed, the environmental extremists represented at the Hague by CAN, are curtailing the use of affordable energy, and they are trying to write into international law, a prohibition of its use for all time.
More than 95% of the world's energy comes from the sources on CAN's hit list. If this energy is not sustainable, and therefore, not available, what is left?
Solar panels, and windmills, are all that is available at the moment, and promises of future technology that could transform the world without pollution. Environmental extremists believe that a supreme government (the U.N.) must ban the use of unsustainable energy sources, and use whatever money it takes to force the development of new, clean energy sources. There is not a whisper of concern about the economic and social implications of such a policy between the time it is adopted, and the time the fantasy technology is developed.
The world needs energy now, without a reduction in its availability or a substantial increase in its cost.
What the world doesn't need is a supreme government (the U.N.) dictating what the people of the world must, or must not, do - even if those dictates are informed by the supreme wisdom of the environmental extremist elite such as CAN.
The world didn't need a government mandate to teach horses how to pull more that a man can pull. The world didn't need a government to outlaw the use of whale oil in order to develop the internal combustion engine. Free people, using their own ingenuity, do whatever needs to be done. They do it at their own risk, for their own benefit, and the rest of the world is the better for their efforts.
The pursuit of personal profit is by far a better motivator than is a government mandate. The reason the fantasy technology for energy has not been developed yet, is the absence of profit. Exotic energy - solar, wind, whatever - costs more than the energy readily available from traditional sources. There is no valid need to use costly exotic energy sources - yet.
The global warming hype, generated by these same environmental extremists, is supposed to be the need that justifies the policy actions they recommend. Even if their claims of death and destruction were fully supported by scientific evidence, their top-down, government-mandated solutions are the wrong way to solve the problem. Free markets can do it better, faster, more efficiently, and with less cost, than any government program.
If there is a role for the United Nations in this global warming scenario, it should be limited to collecting and disseminating the best possible independent scientific research - without prejudice or political comment - so that nations, and individuals can act on that information in their own best interest.
If there is a market for new technology, free people will find a way to supply the market demand - unless government stands in the way. The discussions now underway at the Hague, appear to be constructing an enormous roadblock to affordable energy, which, if successful, will condemn the world to unnecessary hardship.