Climate change.
Paul's position:
- 'The science is still being debated'.
Look, I'm not a scientist. Ron Paul is not a scientist and I doubt anyone here is, but if you are looking at the academic zeitgeist, the climate change skeptics seem to be the ones at the fringes. I am a skeptic all my life, but given I have personally done nothing to discover what the deal is, its only logical thing to do is base my opinions on the world's top scientists and the scientific community.
I personally liked the arguments of two of the candidate's last night - I can't remember which it was, I think one was huckabee. This has also been my position for a long time.
Basically, what if the climate change agenda is pushed nationally and globally? We might sacrifice what? a few percentage points of GDP growth investing in more expensive green technology.
If climate change is real then it was all worth it, we've saved the only planet we've got.
If climate change is not real, then all we've done is 'wasted' taxpayer money, but ended up with greener technology and infrastructure for our children. Big deal.
The sacrifice to curb emissions does not seem like much. But the benefit to being right about it is huge. The cost of being wrong (i.e. climate change not true) is only marginal.
Paul's position:
The best way to solve environmental problems is to respect property rights. I agree with this to the extent of the libertarian rivers argument. I cannot pollute your river, I cannot pollute your land. If a factory opens next to a town and its fumes make everyone sick, property rights would dictate the factory compensate for damages.
But how can this argument extend to emissions? If BHP in Australia produces X emmissions and contributes X% to the causation of hurricane katrina through destabilisation of weather cycles, how can the victims be compensated? We know there is a link between human activity, and the damage caused by the environment, but it is impossible to isolate that link and thus enforce property rights.
I personally think the market can solve the global warming problem best, not centralised planning, but market interfernce is still required. The most effective way is to introduce tradable emission permits.
