Last week, Dr. Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic, published an editorial in The Financial Times regarding the politics of climate change. His thesis was that "the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity [is] now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism".
While I agree that radical environmentalism can be bad, I think that other threats to democracy (terrorism?) might be a bit bigger. When was the last time an environmentalist slammed a plane into a skyscraper, set off a suicide bomb, or lived by the credo that the West must be destroyed?
The problem is that Dr. Klaus incorrectly assumes that all people who lobby for more environmental preservation are radical authoritarian leftists who would hijack a whaling boat or start a riot at a WTO conference. This simply is not true.
Those who believe in radical and extreme change are in the minority. Too often, environmentalists are unfairly portrayed as extremists who make unreasonable demands, such as a bans on coal and oil combustion. The same is true on the other side.
Oil barons are also often unfairly perceived as money grubbing tycoons who would sell Mother Nature for a quick buck. These perceptions lead to black and white political debates or opinion articles where readers are unfairly forced to choose between one extreme side and the other.
Dr. Klaus falls into this trap as he seems to believe environmentalism "wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning". Such perceptions are dangerous because the never lead to meaningful consensuses or effective governing policies.
Additionally, he goes on to applaud the virtues of economic development and how the resulting technological growth can alleviate any future problems that humankind might have with climate change.
In a previous essay, I articulated why this line of argument is flawed. It assumes that the environment can withstand the temporary strain of industrialization and recover later. Historically, this may have been true.
But urbanization is happening at a faster pace than ever before and it is becoming more apparent that the earth cannot support such a negligent growth of industry. The most important point, however, is that even if it was uncertain whether industrialization can cause lasting negative impacts, developing countries do not have to choose between an agrarian lifestyle and economic prosperity.
As I argued earlier, our world is becoming more and more interdependent, making it more of a reality that economic growth and environmental preservation can go hand in hand.
Finally, Dr. Klaus proclaims that we should not scare ourselves with catastrophic forecasts and allow "everyone to live as he wants". Unfortunately, this empowering prescription simply is not pragmatic.
While it is good to maximize individual freedoms, our rights have understandably always been curbed when it involves actions that harm other people (and sometimes even our own selves).
Specifically with climate change, environmental harms know no political borders. Waste dumped in one country's river and flow down the same river into another nation. Even worse is long range transport air pollution, which can travel to the other side of the world.
It is clear that environmental damages (let alone climate change) can hurt those who have no part in initiating those actions. As a result, Dr. Klaus' call to fight potential environmental harms individually (rather than an overarching policy) simply will not work.
Environmentalism is not a threat to freedom. Those who seek to radically curtail individual rights in the name of the forests and oceans will never be elected because the majority of the world does not believe that New York City will be underwater in 50 years. Rather, we (including Dr. Klaus), should pay attention to those who advocate moderate adaptation to sustainable growth.
While I don't believe in catastrophic doomsday pictures that radicals paint, I am convinced that if we want to continue to increase our standard of living in a limited resource environment, responsible development policies need to be implemented.
Reach the columnist at: uven.chong@asu.edu.