This article by Michael Lewyn is part of a collaboration with Planetizen, the web’s leading resource for the urban planning, design, and development community.
Some of my acquaintances believe that climate change may end human life (or at least civilization) and that the only way to save humanity is to massively reduce economic growth and consumption. Other acquaintances believe that climate change is, if not an outright hoax, a minor problem—and that even the slightest attempt to regulate emission-creating industries will itself destroy American civilization.
Whole lotta head-shakin’ going on.Most of these people are not scientists (let alone scientists specializing in climate-related science), so I strongly suspect that their opinions come from Al Gore’s movie and Rush Limbaugh’s talk show, rather than from a comprehensive review of the footnote-filled scientific papers addressing climate change. Nevertheless, they are as certain in their opinions as real scientists are. How come?
A plausible explanation was supplied by a Harvard Law Review article I recently read. The article links disputes over technical issues to clusters of values that form competing cultural worldviews, most notably “egalitarian” and “individualist” worldviews.
The article asserts that egalitarians are “naturally sensitive to environmental hazards, the abatement of which justifies regulating commercial activities that produce social inequality.” In other words, egalitarians are predisposed to be hostile to large-scale capitalism, and will thus naturally believe any theory that supports this predisposition. When capitalism failed to deliver economic growth in the 1930s, some intellectuals supported communism as more likely to do so (and perhaps more likely to enhance the status of intellectuals by dragging down corporate elites that outrun them in the race for wealth and power). And when capitalism has delivered economic growth, modern egalitarians decided that growth wasn’t so great after all.
By contrast, the article notes, “individualists” generally “dismiss claims of environmental risk as specious, in line with their commitment to the autonomy of markets.” In other words, individualists believe that (1) government should only regulates transactions that cause harm to others, and (2) this no-harm rule justifies a small government that does not interfere with commercial activity except to prohibit force and fraud. But proposition (2) makes sense only if most commercial transactions in fact do not cause significant harm to nonparties (or to use an economic term, “externalities”). But if nearly all commerical transactions do in fact create dangerous greenhouse gas emissions, proposition (2) fails, which means that the entire ideology of individualism is based on a falsehood (the idea that business activity does not generally create externalities justifying regulation). Because climate change appears to threaten the core idea of individualism, individualists will engage in considerable intellectual gymnastics to avoid climate regulation.
In sum, most people (other than a few scientists and economists who actually know what they are talking about)* with strong opinions on climate policy are responding less to objective reality than to their cultural values. As a practical matter, this means that Americans are going to have a great deal of difficulty reaching a popular consensus on climate policy; because the issue is so technical, ill-informed public opinion is likely to be impervious to new scientific evidence. The stalemate can only be broken through policies that appeal to both sides.
Indeed, the climate change stalemate provides a lesson for policy entrepreneurs in other fields, such as planning-related issues. Policies that attract broad popular support will be policies that attract support from both egalitarians and individualists. For example, zoning (despite its many flaws) is popular because it appeals to both egalitarians’ desire to bridle developers and to individualist homeowners’ desire to protect their property rights—since even individualist homeowners often see their neighborhood as part of their property.
*I make no claim to be part of this group.
Michael Lewyn is an assistant professor at Florida Coastal School of Law in Jacksonville, FL, where he teaches a seminar on sprawl and the law, as well as numerous other courses.
With climate legislation flat on its back, Collin Peterson goes in for the kill
Comments
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skitters Posted 10:48 am
15 Oct 2009
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sindark Posted 1:23 pm
15 Oct 2009
One example is economic globalization. At one point in time, it would have been considered reasonable to argue that economic activity on one side of the world has no morally relevant effect on the other. Now that markets are more linked, products and capital flow, and awareness of linkages exist, that becomes very difficult to argue. Before, it is as though the chooser was alone in a room with a light switch. It is of no particular moral consequence whether they choose to have it on or not. Now, it is more as though that light switch also reduces the function of the equipment in a hospital across town when it is pulled. Whereas libertarianism previously permitted free choice, the inter-linked example includes a moral obligation to act in a certain way.
Climate change may be the ultimate force diminishing how liberating libertarianism can be. Not only do nearly all of our life and economic choices impact innocent third parties around the world, they also contribute to a problem that will have a huge long-term impact on future generations and the natural world. Arguably, this makes the doctrine of “do what you like but do no harm” impossible to follow in practice.
It is not clear if or how the appealing aspects of libertarianism can be maintained in a world full of important material interconnections. The most plausible answer seems to be a combination of working hard to create situations where multiple moral choices actually do exist (light switches that don’t shut down breathing machines) and accepting those situations where the tradeoffs are real and making a determined effort to choose the least harmful option.
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neosapiens Posted 5:03 pm
16 Oct 2009
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Dave from Canada Posted 7:54 pm
16 Oct 2009
Huh?!
The *consensus* positions of serious climate scientists are actually an important part of "objective reality." And those who beleive the serious scientists are actually responding to objective reality, not their own cultural values.
Consider the question of whether the earth revolves around the sun or vice-versa. Or the question of whether there are atoms. Who actually has direct observation in these realms? We (rightly) rely on serious science to tell us that sort of thing.
This article has a major intellectual gap, which is also common to the he-said / she-said relativist garbage that has almost completely replaced serious journalism. Science actually has a reliable intellectual underpinning (evidence combined with logic) that allows us to legitimately rely on its findings.
Religious faith and cultural values, in contrast, do not.
There is a fundamental difference in kind between valid scientific conclusions on the one hand, and religious faith and cultural values on the other. You can rely on the former to tell you the truth about things you couldn't observe on your own. Not so with the latter.
The climate change deniers, who ignore the serious science, are the only ones in this debate who are divorced from reality and relying on their cultural values. Those who accept the science are not.
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