A Stitch in Haste

No, not Scientology ... Scientocracy:

Perhaps the most significant news last week on the climate change front was the announcement that plastic shopping bags will be banned in China in six months' time.
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The ban in China will save importation and use of five million tons of oil used in plastic bag manufacture, only a drop in the ocean of the world oil well. But the importance in the decision lies in the fact that China can do it by edict and close the factories. They don't have to worry about loss of political donations or temporarily unemployed workers. They have made a judgment that their action favours the needs of Chinese society as a whole.

Of course, these same wizened autocrats also decided that "the needs of Chinese society as a whole" required at least 300,000 people to be forcibly relocated so their "environmentally conscious" dictatorship could host the 2008 Olympics. And how exactly China's suppression of expression and its criminalization of dissent helps to fight global warming remains unaddressed. Maybe in a future op-ed...

Liberal democracy is sweet and addictive and indeed in the most extreme case, the USA, unbridled individual liberty overwhelms many of the collective needs of the citizens. The subject is almost sacrosanct and those who indulge in criticism are labeled as Marxists, socialists, fundamentalists and worse. These labels are used because alternatives to democracy cannot be perceived!

"Unbridled individual liberty overwhelms many of the collective needs of the citizens"? We should be so lucky. Meanwhile, how exactly would these (strictly hypothetical) non-megalomaniacal autocrats decide what constitutes a "need" of the collective or how best to "bridle" individual liberty? Blank-out.

(And is the author suggesting that China is not "Marxist" or "socialist"? I'm sure its rulers would have something to say about that.)

Meanwhile, speaking strictly in terms of oil consumption, why does the U.S., qua consumer of oil, get blamed for its "addiction" to liberal democracy, but Saudi Arabia, qua producer of oil and one of the most illiberal anti-democracies in the world, garner nary a peep from this blame-spewing malcontent? Blank-out.

Reform must involve the adoption of structures to act quickly regardless of some perceived liberties.

So "collective needs" are unarguably self-evident, while liberties are merely "perceived"? How convenient.

The Chinese decision on shopping bags is authoritarian and contrasts with the voluntary non-effective solutions put forward in most Western democracies. We are going to have to look how authoritarian decisions based on consensus science can be implemented to contain greenhouse emissions.

So ignore Acton, and ignore every shred of evidence, from around the globe and across the centuries, that authoritarianism conserves nothing but its authoritarians and contributes nothing to the environment but corpses. Instead use one (utterly asinine) data point to propose a whole new theory of global slavery. Condemn the whole planet — which you pretend to love — to bloodshed, poverty and death, and dare to call it "science," because you happen to think banning plastic bags is neat-o.*

Kip's Law: Every advocate of central planning always — always — envisions himself as the central planner.

(Via Life, Liberty Pursuit.)

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(*It isn't.)