ALS: thoughts on freedom

Australian Libertarian Society Blog

AGW, Immigration and Aid.

I’ve been thinking about the gaping inconsistencies of lowering-emissions policies and the whole gab bag of all the other government policies that contribute to AGW.

If the government was really serious about lowering emissions because high carbon emissions are dangerous to the planet’s future then why are they also promoting or rather maintaining a high level of immigration from poor countries that are obviously low carbon intensive? I’m not for a moment suggesting we should close down immigration as I normally range from open borders (if matched by low welfare) type to low restrictions but choosey from which countries we select from.

Pushing this barrow a step further, if warmers were also sincere about following their intellectual argument to it’s natural progression shouldn’t we also be following a zero aid policy to the poor countries and pulling out, or rather closing down/withdrawing financial support aid agencies like the World Bank and preventing the IMF from lending money to the poor (and obviously low emissions countries)?

The point I’m making is that if AGW is the “moral dilemma of this generation” and our success at cutting emissions is imperative to ensure the survival of the planet and the species etc. then there should also be a quick and total retreat in such areas of aid and lending to the poor countries as well as total moratorium on immigration from the poor countries as new immigrants would invariably raise their carbon foot print to our present average levels.

Now , I don’t advocate these policies of course , although aid is problematic from another perspective, however I would think that intellectual consistency from the doomsayers would eventually have to lead them to these sorts of policies.

August 9, 2009 Posted by | General | 9 Comments

   

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