The Environmentalist Left’s Remarkable New Principle

If we destroy the energy base needed to produce and operate the construction equipment required to build strong, well-made, comfortable houses for billions, we shall be safer from bad weather, environmentalism alleges, than if we retain and enlarge that energy base.

If we destroy our ability to produce and operate refrigerators and air conditioners, we shall be better protected from hot weather than if we retain and enlarge that ability, environmentalism claims.

If we destroy our ability to produce and operate tractors and harvesters, to can and freeze food, to build and operate hospitals and produce medicines, we shall secure our food supply and our health better than if we retain and enlarge that ability, environmentalism asserts.

There is actually a remarkable new principle implied here, concerning how man can cope with his environment. Instead of our taking action upon nature, as we have always believed we must do, we shall henceforth control the forces of nature more to our advantage by means of our inaction.

Indeed, if we do not act, no significant threatening forces of nature will arise! The threatening forces of nature are not the product of nature, but of us! Thus, speaks the environmental movement.

(The above passages are adapted from p. 88 of the author’s Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics, now available in hardcover, paperback, and Kindle editions at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001KCWY0Q.)