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Environmentally Profitable
lemmingEffect writes: "Came across this NYT article about how many companies are finding unexpected cost-savings for using more environmentally-friendly manufacturing processes and materials. Kinda like getting paid to clean your room--sure would have made me happier as a kid. =)"
As long as you don't go beyond what technology can reasonably accomplish, environmentally friendly processes are usually going to be more efficient. And more efficient processes are usually going to be cheaper, at least over the long term.
The problem is when you try to get too far ahead of existing technology. Then you wind up with kludged-together stuff that doesn't work right. A good example is the too-early adoption of electronic engine controls by Detroit in the 1970s. In principle, it was a great idea. In practice, the technology wasn't robust enough yet, and U.S. cars suffered reliability problems for years as a result.
(They're still behind Japanese and German cars, but not by much -- in fact, a crappy Chevy today is considerably more reliable than the "bulletproof" Toyotas of the late '80s.)
InstaPundit! Ahead of the Curve Since 30 Minutes Ago
The reason for this is simple - usage of anything is environmentally damaging to some degree. By reducing waste we reduce environmental damage. Once these big gains run out, and we are faced with the hard decisions about cutting usage, not just wasteful usage, it will actually start costing money to be more environmentally protective.
Its a bit like the UK record on CO2 emmissions - by closing all the coal fired power stations we cut billions of tonnes of CO2 emmissions. But our energy usage continues to rise - to cut further we need to cut usage - MUCH harder than simply switching fuels. Sending the HP toner carts back is one thing - using less of them quite another.
The world is not saved because a few corps stop throwing out all the half full cans of solvent at the end of each day. We're dooomed! we're all dooomed.
This is a good step in the right direction, the maximizing of profit at all other costs is terrible. Still we have a long way to go, in my local community a battery plant is run with a bare minimum staff so that the EPA will not do a massive inspection after the plant closes. They moved operations to mexico and decided it was cheaper to keep the plant open with a skeleton crew than to do the cleanup costs involved :-(
"Contact with my own species has always disappointed me. Solitude gives me a freedom of mind and an independence of action." -Captain Nemo
Link that doesn't need an account, etc, etc.
WTF is with this "Lameness filter encountered.? It disappeared as soon as i put this text below the link...
Here's the real link.
Do you know why steel is outlasting aluminum in cars and even regaining ground?
Steel is more environmentally friendly to produce! Just ask the folks behind the Ultra-Light Steel Auto Body project. Steel releases a lot less CO2 during its manufacture than aluminum. Once again, established big industry maintains its edge over new fangled competitors.
Because a desktop machine is not well-suited for producing the entire side of a car in a single stamping operation from steel sheet and repeating that 300 times an hour. Big, messy industrial processes replaced cottage industries for a reason: they're cheaper in the long run.
As desktop manufacturing gets cheaper, so do the big industrial processes. A desktop machine that can produce some make believe "diamondoid" economically can also produce a lot more steel even more economically and easily! Operating temperatures are lower, formability requirements are lower, ability to rework the steel product is higher, etc. And since steel does the job just fine, why switch over to a more expensive, troublesome, low production rate material like diamondoid?
Does this mean that Bush is going to sign the Kyotto deals? Now he can profit from cleaning up!
42 + 1 = 42
Environment is changing because of the human activity. It's irrelevant whether it's cooling down or warming up. The fact remains: we've fucked up the environment and soon it's too late to do anything.
Drastic actions are required and since the industry and private car ownership are the most to blame for the shit we're now in, they should be punished severely.
Just because an idea is "left wing" doesn't make it wrong. Too bad you people have been brainwashed to believe that since childhood.
Too bad that, in most cases, companies don't clean themselves up; they convince local government to establish c o r p o r a t e 'wealthfare' programs that force the public's tax money to foot the bill for whatever maintenance and equipment is needed to reach standards set by environmental regulations.
"The Kyoto protocol will arm US economy"
yeah yeah right...
... the European Union managed to persuade so many countries to sign up to the Kyoto Treaty even though the US & its minions (Canada & Australia) did not.
i take anything i read in the new york times with a grain of salt. remember the article about the north pole melting awhile back?? that was a ridiculous slant on a natural occurence every year. they had to correct themselves after while, but of course you never heard about it. plus, they hate gwb, and basically oppose everything and anything he does.
There's no hysteria at least on the behalf of the scientists who agree that the climate is changing to the worse. Just facts. If anybody, it's the "whaaa! don't spoil our business even though we are fucking up the world" types who are hysterical.
In the late 60's and early 70's, the auto industry tried to prevent or forstall the imposition of pollution controlls by insisting that cleaner engines would be less efficent, and that it would be impossible to actually improve their engine technology. The same year that GM and Ford vehigles took a huge penalty in gas milage and performace because the companies were forced to install catalytic converters, Honda introduced a car that met the pollution restrictions without a converter and with excellent gas mileage and reasonable performace for its displacement. But despite the facts, the result of this public relations temper-tantrum is that ever since, enviornmentalism has been linked with sacrifices in prosperity. This is evident in Bush's energy plan, and the US reluctance to cut CO2 emissions.
It has everything to do with corporate (and occasionally individual) resentment at being told what to do. It has nothing to do with the realities of the industries in question. The association of concervation with decreased prosperity is classic FUD.
It's really sad that this realization is news, but I'm glad a few people are finally waking up to it.
In spite of the suggestions and all the tests that I have made, I have not cavato a spider from the hole.
The key factor that everyone misses is that we obtain our resources from the environment. The amount of resources on the planet will never get larger, but the amount of people will always increase. This means less resources per person as the population increases. To add to this problem, when people waste resources by throwing them into landfills, etc, this decreases the amount of resources per person even more.
Supposedly the basic law of economics will save us from running out of resources. The less resources there are to spread around, the more expensive they will be. The price will get exponentially great, like a y=1/x curve. Eventually this will get to a point where only the rich can have basic resources.
So, our economy needs to become more efficient, reusing resources in order to keep from falling into this future problem.
Has anyone read the book Red Mars? I like this book as it shows a good example of what happens to an economy with no respect for the enviroment and it's limited resources.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
the new york times is an avowed left-wing rag....
michael is a known greenie tree-hugger
...is it any surprise he would be trying to advance his agenda with favorable articles?
Try this on for size:
The NYT is an avowed big-business-and-corrupt-politics-friendly rag, bought and paid for by advertising dollars, not citizen voices.
So is it any surprise that this article should come out now, now that people are finally starting to freak out about the vast environmental damage done by large corporations run with nothing in mind but their precious, almighty dollar? You mention the hysteria yourself--well, suddenly we're starting to see a rash of media pieces in which the Corporations Aren't The Bad Guys Anymore. No, Really, We're Environmentally Friendly. Now Give Us That Dollar.
The tactic is to keep people from realizing that allowing businesses to get out of the people's control--like we have for the last hundred years--IS the evil, it IS the reason for things like the shitty environment, the unfair economics, even the lack of AIDS medications in poor countries. And it'll only get worse as long as we allow it to go on.
What you're seeing in this article is the scrabbling of the fatcats to make sure that people don't pin them, and their absurd "free trade is free" rhetoric, as the cause of all these awful, pressing problems. This article wasn't advancing the "tree-hugger" agenda, you twerp, though I guess we can't blame you for falling for the angle they obviously wanted you to fall for. No, this piece, and the glut of others like it you'll probably run into, was propping up the big-business agenda--or as they say in Fight Club, "polishing the brass on the Titanic." 'Cause it's all comin' down, baby.
Sara Thustra
"Insustainable" does not mean "can go on until the rich feel they're rich enough".
This is all a byproduct of a new system called "environmental accounting." For years, corporations have been used to applying standard accounting techniques to manufacturing processes to maximize profits and process efficiency, but nobody ever thought of applying those accounting methods to environmental issues. The classic EA example is a company that uses mercury in manufacturing. The accountant measures the mercury the co. buys, and subtracts the amount that ends up in the product plus the amount reclaimed from waste. For example, they buy 20 tons a year, and 15 goes into the products, 3 are reclaimed from waste. 2 tons are unaccounted for and are presumed to go directly into the environment. To plug the mercury leak, you just go through the process and see where it's not accounted for.
This article just cites examples where the gov't has mandated environmental accounting and gives disincentives to inefficient processes. If only we could get people to use EA just because it's good for the environment!
This is nothing new. If you look back at the Reagan erra, that was when a lot of controls ran their course. Businesses found that many things were cheaper to produce. In fact, it was enough that you don't hear the crap you did 10-15 years ago about 'environmental controls' costing too much and making a company go out of business.
'Cause it's all comin' down, baby.
I'll take the tyranny of The New York Times and their corporate fatcat sponsors over your brand of "revolution" anyday, since, even though you didn't mention it, your idea of rule by "citizen voices" is to hand power to exactly those few citizen voices who assent to *your* idea of what is right and just, and to hell with anyone else.
We've already tried it that way a number of times--China under Mao, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. It got pretty ugly, to say the least.
but trying to damage the environment is like trying to put a hole in the ocean. Sure, the air might get a bit warmer and people and animals alike might feel a little bit uncomfortable for a while, but freaky changes in climate and the food chain have happened many times in the past without "destroying the planet." Or even noticeably damaging it.
:)
The rhetoric of environmentalism, as you said, always seems to be to cut out more and more of the frills like electricity, treated water, flushable toilets, all of which seem to make sense when you explain them the right way, but which in the end only serve to deterorate our quality of life.
And we take it in the bum every time
This article correctly points out that some new techniques that nobody would have thought up, had greenies not stepped in and started picketing and lobbying, would save money after all. I think its safer to call them Alternative, however.
"Look at me, I invented the stove!" -- Ben Franklin
http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_0801/mcd /index.html
About architect William McDonough who's designing 'green' factories for Ford and offices for Adidas.
He's also (with chemist Dr. Michael Braungart) been reponsible for technological feats such as a swiss textile factory waste water is actually cleaner than the tap water that comes in and a few buildings so energy efficient that they actually produce a surplus.
He's of the belief that it's not enough to minimize environmental impact -- one must maximize environmental (and cost) benefits. The savings that his energy-efficient designs provide them companies he builds them for can pay construction costs in a matter of a year or two.
I sincerely hope this kind of thinking represents the future of big business.
IO had to clean my room, and I ended up finding a confirmation card from long ago with a $20 bill in it.
Aluminum weighs 35 to 40% less than steel, when manufactured to the same strength requirement.
Steel endures much more flex without failure, whereas aluminum reaches its flexibility endurance limit faster. The failure mode of aluminum (bend some and break and absorb energy) is actually safer in the realm of automobile construction.
Aluminum space frames can be manufactured in a single piece, which makes prediction of their real-world behavior much easier to predict through computational models, requiring less physical testing.
Aluminum's lower weight makes it cheaper to transport throughout all phases of automobile manufacture.
If and as the cost per pound can come down enough that the benefits outweigh the costs, or the benefits become more important, we can expect aluminum to have a stronger presence in automotive manufacture.
recently, aluminum has gained ground in niche automotive products like pickup truck tailgates, hood assemblies, engine blocks (with GM introducing their first aluminum block truck engine in 2002)... areas where consumers can see the direct benefits.
I'm not an aluminum grandstander by any means. I just think the "steel is cheaper" argument is way too simple... it's really just a matter of time.
I'll take the tyranny of The New York Times and their corporate fatcat sponsors over your brand of "revolution" anyday
ROTFL
Ok, let's humor Ms. Thustra for a moment and assume she's talking about democracy rather than _The Killing Fields_ here. Maybe you think it's a stretch, but then again, you could tell that "citizen voices" referred just to her and a "few" ideological allies. How observant! Sarcasm aside, by implying that the choice at this point is only between different tyrannies, do you think you're opposing her point, that we the people have allowed our democracy to be influenced to a disproportional degree by large, private interests?
I disagree.
First off, who says the amount of people will always increase? Many industrialized nations have seen great dorps in population growth. Some places have even fallen so far that the birth rate doesn't match the death rate and thus they are actually shrinking. (IIRC, Italy was the leading example of this) All environments produce limits on what a sustainable population size is. It just happens that humans are capable of occupying an incredibly large environment.
Secondly, our most important resource is energy. Fossil fuels, wind, hydro-electric and solar power all ultimately derive their energy content from that big ball of fire in the sky. The sun will be with us for a real long time and technology has been moving it to be cheaper not more expensive to harness the energy as it comes out. Fusion (if it ever works) may provide virtually limitless energy supplies as well.
This is a general trend, the amount of resources available doesn't change much over time, but the cost to use them goes down because technology improves. Perhaps someday we will resort to mining landfills for raw materials but right now we are no where close to being critically short on most resources. For many raw materials the amount harvested from the environment still exceeds the amount consumed and discarded each year. Often we find alternatives to anything that is suddenly in short supply.
Coexisting peacefully with our environment is a good thing and we have been slowly moving in that direction. Don't think however that resource limits are going to cramp our lifestyles anytime soon.
This is excellent. I hope the US follows this enlightened path which its founders intended.
That is a wonderful piece of propaganda. I don't doubt that the examples cited are true; I just notice that they don't cover the vast majority of cases where complying with evironmental regulation costs the company money but the only payback is that they don't get fined by the EPA and one of the company's executives doesn't risk going to jail. It seems to me that the article is obviously attempting to make more environmental regulation tolerable to businesses by offering the false hope (most of the time) that it will help their bottom line. "A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down." The article does admit that not all companies are lucky enough to turn a profit on environmental compliance, but it says it with the same amount of emphasis as a lottery commerical that briefly mentions the real odds of winning.
I want to be clear that I am not against keeping the environment clean, I am just against deluding ourselves into thinking that it is cheaper to have high environmental standards than it is to have low ones (unless you start playing with the accounting system like the article suggests and assigning dollar values to intangible things*). Such delusions are not helpful. I will admit that the article is probably right about environmental groups being more effective at dealing with businesses when they learn to talk the language of businessmen; that was an informative tidbit. Any change a business makes, they will tend to try to find a way to make it profitible, so I am not surprised that as an UNINTENDED SIDE EFFECT of environmental regulation, some businesses have figured out a way to make money off their compliance efforts.
Having made the radical claim that high envirnomental standards cost more to achieve than low standards in most cases; I will admit that there is a link between profit and a clean environment, but in my experience it usually goes the other way. Companies looking for ways to make the most profit tend to also make the most efficient use of raw materials and energy. I have written plenty of capital justifications for changing processes or buying new equipment based on just such efficiency improvements. While the pursuit of profit will help the environment we cannot count on profit alone to keep the country clean. There are too many times where the cheapest thing to do would be to improperly dispose of your waste products. We have to have some judicial, legal, or regulatory measures to prevent abuse of the air and water as waste depositories, but we should not pretend that there is no economic cost to such environmental pursuits.
While they are doing articles on the economics of environmental compliance, I would like to have seen an article on how premature or bad environmental regulation costs money and jobs and consumes extra resources (isn't that what money represents?) and mis-prioritizes dangers. Like the billions of dollars and increadible amounts of man-hours wasted when useful materials like non-amphible asbestos** are banned or restricted because of ignorance (or sensationalism and pandering) in the newsmedia and the regulatory authories.
* I do think we, as a society, need to figure out how to put a dollar value on the cleanliness of our envirnoment so that we can more accurately determine what evnironmental regulations can be justified and which ones will have the most benifit per dollar invested. It seems unusual to me that this is actually being done on a corprate level; but I am happy that someone is thinking about it. I wonder if this is the Megacorp. equivilent of those businesses that sell all sorts of products on the basis that they cost more but "help the rainforest" or the electric companies whose power costs more (i.e. consumes more resources) but don't release as much pollution. Something like, "Well, our stocks don't pay as big a dividens but you can feel better yourself by owning our stock because we consider community issues in our business decisions."
** which was banned along with the "bad" asbestos.
How come this isn't maked down as a troll? I'm pretty sure that comparing someone (or their opinions) to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge is up there with comparing them to Hitler and the Nazis, which I believe is the official definition of "troll" at this point :)
There's a really good book that gives several hundred pages of real world cases where being environmentally friendly proved to be significantly more profitable than not being environmentally friendly. It's called "Natural Capitalism". I forget the authors names, but the bibliography is about 50 pages long. Very good book, very well researched. I highly recommend reading it if this subject interests you.
-D
I just finished reading a book called _The_Next_200_Years_ by Herman Kahn (the same guy who wrote "_Thinking_About_the_Unthinkable_), that talked about these issues specifically. It was written in 1976 (hence the title), but took a much more thorough apporach than most of the Malthusians of the day. It guessed that the increase in population growth would continue to decrease (second derivitive of growth is negative) and result in a global population peaking around 15 billion (plus or minus a factor of 2) in the 22nd century. It also made very good arguments along your lines as to why we won't likely run out of resources on Earth.
My personal belief is that just to be sure, we should go ahead and start expanding out into space anyway.
Interestingly, the book also predicted that around 1985 there would be the potential for dangerous internal political issues on the subject of computerized records, computerized surveillance, and improved techniques for preventing disturbances as well as improved means of terrorism and "agitprop".
My point was to bring up examples from history of the terrible consequences of ideologically driven revolutions conducted in the name of "the people," but based on a concept of justice decided on unilaterally by an enlightened few. Railing against The New York Times as a tool of the capitalists, and threatening that "it's all comin' down, baby" is a lot closer to the ideals of Maoist revolutions than to democratic ideals of freedom and participatory government.
If you want to ignore history, that's your prerogative, and you do so at your own peril, but the "troll" label is not supposed to be used to silence opinions you disagree with.
I sure hope for your sake that you give good head, because you need some skill to get by in life. Obviously with your defective cognitive faculty, you can not make a living at anything that involves thinking. I am not going to waist my time illuminating the errors in your statements because I don't have the time to do it in a way that you might understand. Maybe your boyfriend will explain it to you if you promise to swallow.
My point was to bring up examples from history of the terrible consequences of ideologically driven revolutions conducted in the name of "the people," but based on a concept of justice decided on unilaterally by an enlightened few. Railing against The New York Times as a tool of the capitalists, and threatening that "it's all comin' down, baby" is a lot closer to the ideals of Maoist revolutions than to democratic ideals of freedom and participatory government.
I see your point, now that you're stating it clearly. I don't agree, though. Every revolution is an ideological one, and most large ones are "for the people". You don't think the American Revolution wasn't about political and economic ideals, and wasn't "for the people of the colonies"? (Whether or not that revolution actually was about the common folk is another issue)
And while I agree that arguing that the NYT is a tool of the capitalists sounds Maoist, I don't see how it's undemocratic. If we're all participants in government, shouldn't we have access to the least-adulterated information we can get? Is "the tyranny of The New York Times and their corporate fatcat sponsors" really freedom? Is it really sufficient for a participatory government? There's a real debate here.
If you want to ignore history, that's your prerogative, and you do so at your own peril, but the "troll" label is not supposed to be used to silence opinions you disagree with.
Liek I said before, there's a real debate here. Comparing someone to Pol Pot because they use the phrase "it's all comin' down, baby" is not participating in that debate. You did notice how the first paragraph intentionally mirrored the tone of the post being replied to, right? Are you sure the guy wasn't being satirical? Not even in part?
As for "troll", that is the word for exactly those people who launch into Pol Pot comparisons instead of actually debating against the opinion they disagree with. I didn't see any arguments by you for why the NYT isn't a "capitalist tool" just like this guy says. Considering that it is in fact supposed to make money (like all newspapers), the argument that it may alter its content to suit its sponsors isn't at all an inappropriate claim, and is one that's been made many times before in many, many situations. How many times have I heard complains about objectivity in reporting? Anyway, instead of discussing this, you decided that the guy was a Communist (in part by making assumptions about him, may I add) and attacked that, mainly through name-calling.
Then, when someone (me) points that out, you accuse them of "ignoring history" (as though you didn't present a one-sided version yourself) and of misusing the label "troll". I'm not a moderator, but your first reply did get one vote for "Troll" from someone who is, whereas the article you were replying to did not. Not only am I quite sure that I have correctly labelled your post a "troll", but I've even been backed up by a moderator. So much for that.
Perhaps your first reply should have sounded more like this second one (the one I'm replying to now). This second post states a point clearly and could lead to an interesting discussion. The first isn't even close. It got one vote for troll, and I continue to believe that it should be receive more. But your second post, or at least the first paragraph of your second post, is just fine.
Newpapers make their money off of retail ad dollors, not the advertisment of manufacturing. "Big Buisness" advertises because it has to. The NYTimes being one of the most widely read English language publications, is prime advertising space. If some company pulls an ad because it is offended by some artical, the NYTimes will quickly fill the void with something else. This is nothing like small specialty publications, like PCRag, that depend on a very few buisness taking out large multi-page spread, to stay in buisness. Newspapers write articals to sell papers. The more papers, the higher the price for ad space.
The tyranny of the majority can be just as bad as the tyranny of the few. Don't forget, Hitler was elected.
That is why I am glad to live in a Constitutional Republic, not a Democracy. My rights* are protected regardless of how unpopular a minority I belong to or how "unnecessary" those rights seem to some. It's not perfect** but it protects against "the mob" a #@!! of a lot better than a real Democracy.
* Traditional Western Civ. Bill of Rights sort of stuff, not that Eastern Bloc "You have the right to a state job, state housing and food rations crap"
** Just look at treatment of the Japanese during WW2 or Colored People in the pre-civil rights South, or at how DMCA and the Assualt Weapons Ban violate the Bill of Rights w/o going through proper constitutional amendment proceedures to see how unpopular people or rights can be trampled upon even with consititutional protections against the whims of the majority. But the treatment of the unpopular could be far, far worse, and in either a pure democracy or totalitarianism it would be.
How is "i am favor of clean water, air, and stuff but i have been just turned off by the zealotry and preaching coming from greenies" being a troll?
Somebody mod the parent to this back up, please.
My rights* are protected regardless of how unpopular a minority I belong to or how "unnecessary" those rights seem to some.
Your points are well-stated, and I agree with them. Furthermore, I think you'll find agreement from everyone in this discussion about value of constitutions in limiting the power of majorities to oppress minorities.
One thing that might interest you is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, passed by the UN General Assembly in 1948. The US, like the vast majority of world nations, deems various parts of it "unnecessary," and the "unpopular minority" (part of it, at least) that suffers has been commonly referred to by sociologists as the "underclass." I recognize the controversial nature of these ideas, but at the very least they should serve as a reminder that there are many perspectives on what "rights" should be protected. In my personal opinion, when malnourished, grossly undereducated children become adults and are said to have "equality of opportunity" their with well-fed, well-educated counterparts, there may be a few lines missing from the Bill of Rights.
"Frederick, is God dead?" --Sojourner Truth
A buddy of mine is the Enviromental Engineer for a cement manufacturing plant. He's initiated a program which takes hazardous waste byproducts from other industries and uses then in their kilns, reducing the waste to H2O and CO2. Much cheaper for them to buy from others rather than having to purchase fuels and saves the other industries tons of $ in disposal fees.
At the moment, this article has 72 comments in total - the lowest on the page and a third of of the number netted by the article with the most comments.
Does this say something about the proprotion of the readership that doesn't care about the environment?
It's a shame.
-- Mike
I am familiar with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I even agree with a lot of it. In fact, a lot of it seems to come straight from the Bill or Rights (no surprise considering that the U.S. was very influential in the founding of the U.N.) and some of it that isn't is nonetheless reminiscent of the Rights that most all Americans and The Courts have found to be implied in the Constitution: stuff like the Right to privacy and the Right to own property.
You may notice, however, that in my above comment I specifically restrict my definition of Rights to the "Western" ideas of rights; to be more specific, I restrict it to the definition of Rights as an area of a person's life within which a person is free to make choices that are not restricted or dictated by any government. That doesn't mean that Fate or circumstance or economics or other unpleasantness of reality may not intrude. For example, I have the right to voice my opinions on political issues but I can't afford to take out an ad in the middle of the Superbowl to promote them. Ted Turner could, but that doesn't mean he has more of a right to free speech than I because in neither case is the Gov't restricting us (in fact if anything Turner's right is being restricted more by Gov't since the content of televised material is regulated by the FCC and so he couldn't descend into a string of obscenities if he wanted).
The problem here is that there was another very powerful group that was instrumental in the foundation of the U.N. and has also left their mark on the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights: that group is the Soviet Union. If you continue reading the Declaration you will notice that it also contains portions of those dreaded "Eastern Bloc" versions of rights that I mentioned my opposition to. These rights are not "areas of your life you are free to pursue w/o governmental restriction" they are physical items or services that everyone is supposed to get "for free." The problem is that, as those of us who live in the real world know, nothing is "free" and that providing those "rights" can only be done by violating the real Rights that were mentioned in the previous portions of the Declaration (like Article 17: "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property"). It is not like governments can just wave a magic wand and create the wealth needed to pay for such communist "rights". The only way those things can be created is through the labor of people.
How can a gov't provide these communist "rights" to its citizens in accord with the UN Declaration? Well, the gov't could confiscate the products that everyone has a "right" to (like food and clothing) and compel people to provide the services that everyone has a "right" to (like education medical care). But, taking peoples property and forcing them to provide free services violates Articles 17 and 4 against confiscating property and slave labor, respectively. Of course, the Soviet Union and the rest of the Eastern Bloc would have had no problem with either of those methods. The gov't could pay for the products and services and then hand them out to its citizens; but how does it get the money since, as your parents may have told you, money doesn't just grow on trees. Well, it taxes people for it. In other words, it confiscates a little bit of the products of a lot of people's labor. While economically more palatable, that is still no more justifiable to steal a little bit from several people than it is to confiscate all the property from one person. Either way, the gov't is taking peoples property and labor at gunpoint and redistributing it. Doesn't sound like my concept of Rights at all. In other words, I don't consider "the right of the gov't to take people's stuff at gunpoint (or threat thereof) for redistribution to other people" to be an "unpopular right." It is not a right at all. It is tyranny. Calling it an "right" is the worst sort of Orwellian double-think. It is wrong, no matter how badly you feel about the poor hungry, undereducated children you use to justify it. No, it is more than wrong; it is evil.
Look at Article 26 of this precious UN Declaration: "Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory." Isn't it strange that in a document that should be listing areas of peoples lives that are to be free from Gov't restriction they would list anything as being "compulsory?" Well, this is a reflection of the Article's true origins: The Communist Manifesto. For those of you who have lived in some kind of fairyland your whole lives, when a gov't says something is "compulsory" that is another way of saying "we will use violence (up to and including killing you) in order to make you do this;" because fundamentally all gov't orders are backed by violence, no matter how "benevolent" the gov't claims to be.
Fortunately the Soviet Union is dead. Unfortunately communism is not. It lives on not only in the hearts of weak-minded or evil people, but also in such institutional anachronisms as some of the later articles of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Until this UN declaration is purged of these remnants of Soviet influence it will remain an inferior document to the Bill of Rights and I will oppose its strict imposition on any people. While we're at it we should rid the U.N. of other remnants of communism still existing in its various agencies and bureaucracies. Not "rid" it the way the Soviets or Chicom's would (i.e. mass murder), but just fire them and make them get a job in academia. Or would that violate Article 23, which says everyone has a right to a job.
One last comment, I am not against everyone having access to food and clothing and healthcare and education. I am merely against the idea of a government that forces me to provide (or pay for) other people's food and healthcare at gunpoint. Charity should be voluntary. If someone wants to keep all the products of his labor to himself, then he is selfish and merits the disdain of his neighbors, but he is within his Rights to do so. Is there, after all, any more fundamental Right than the Right to one's own person and therefore the Right to the products of one's toil?
Uh, how about US (and the so called "free" world, more or less) under the tyranny of those fatcat corporate powers and raging consumerism. Seems to me that this is, in the long run, much more harmful and ugly to all of us.
Bring me an eco-fascist totalitarian regime anyday. Atleast they should be killing people fairly.
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OTTERS RULE.
There's a reason for that.
I assume you're familiar with the difference between "positive rights" and "negative rights." A "positive right" is a right that requires real effort by other people. The "right to housing" requires someone to build the house. The "right to health care" requires someone to spend ten or twelve years in medical school and then give away their labor.
OTOH, "negative" rights only require inaction by others. A prime example is "freedom of speech" as practiced in the US. For the right to be secure, all that has to happen is that nobody actively tries to interfere.
In other words, it's fully possible to enjoy a negative right without interfering with the negative rights of others.It's just plain impossible to have a positive right without interfering with others. Lets take this "right to health care" that's been a topic of discussion in the US for the last decade. For you to receive health care, someone else must provide it. That means a doctor must either care for you gratis, thus violating his property rights to his own labor, or someone must pay the doctor.
Where does the pay come from? Probably some sort of taxation. Taxation is enforceable LAW. And when you look at the word 'enforceable,' you damn well better see that the word FORCE is right at the middle of it. That's what law is: FORCE. Law is meaningless without a bunch of guys with blue poly-blend clothes, tin badges, guns, and stupid-looking mustaches to make it happen.
So, how many positive rights do you really want to have? Just bear in mind that for each one that you decide to enshrine into law, someone will likely die for not providing it. How much blood is "the right to education" worth to you?
You present a false dichotomy between civil rights (freedom from) and social rights (freedom to). The provision of civil rights is not cost-free and (rightly, IMHO) imposes on the property and behaviour of all citizens just as social rights do. The courts, police and officials that are empowered to protect property and people do not grow on trees. Their powers involve forcing some people to do what they might not otherwise, according to law. Indeed, the doctors, nurses, teachers, social workers, etc who are hired to provide for people's social rights usually have fewer powers than the providers and protectors of civil rights.
You can, of course, opt to be consistent about all this and be an anarchist rather than claiming that one particular set of rights is cost and coercion-free as opposed to others, something that is demonstratably wrong.
Obviously I realize that it costs money and lives to protect real Rights. I am not suggesting that no form of taxation and gov't can be just, or that the only good Rights are those which cost nothing to enforce. I am merely drawing a distinction between a gov't that collects and spends taxes for the purposes of defending the freedoms of its citizens and one which collects taxes for the purposes of managing peoples lives and redistributing their wealth to achieve what its leaders believe to be some form of "cosmic justice." It doesn't matter that the doctors in your socialized system have "less power" than the police. It will be the police (or whatever you want to call your state security forces) that comes to collect your wealth to pay for the "social rights" your leaders invent to justify whatever redistribution of wealth they think is "fair."
You also have the problem of "property".
/mill
What gives you the right to own a piece of land instead of me or someone else? The land wasn't a product of your labor, so why can't govt tax you for using it?
I have no problem with extending copyright to infinity since I can reproduce the work using my own mind. What I do have a problem with is patents that deprive me that right.
Somewhere in between these two there is non-intellectual property which is limited and therefore gives someone a right and deprives others the same right at the same time.
I don't see any better way to arrange things though. Maybe land should be seen as leased instead of owned. Where society can regulate how you can use the land and tax you for the same. Within limits of course (hah! like govt has limits..).
The key here is "the scientists who agree". What about the scientists who don't agree? This is indeed hysteria.
/mill
We should pollute less though. At least I don't want to walk around with a mask because of the bad air.
Most companies manufacturing product under Europe's stricter environmental laws are more profitable now than they were before they took steps; not because of any fines levied on them, but simply because by decreasing emissions and wastes, they are also lowering their use of energy and water. Working in an environmentally sound manner has tangible financial benefits for the people doing it.
Clean electricity consuming more resources to produce? Not if it's being produced via solar power or water turbines; neither of those processes uses a finite resource.
Americans need to stop assuming that theirs is the only country in the world with an understanding of economics. It's that kind of blind arrogance that causes a lot of your problems.