From: allens@yang.earlham.edu (Allen Smith)
Newsgroups: alt.individualism,alt.activism.d,talk.environment
Subject: Re: Environmentalism is not Anti-Individualism
Date: 12 Oct 92 04:59:32 GMT
 <1992Oct9.194117.19852@yang.earlham.edu> <1992Oct11.172626.18947@vexcel.com>
Organization: Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana

In article <1992Oct11.172626.18947@vexcel.com>, dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
> In article <1992Oct9.194117.19852@yang.earlham.edu> allens@yang.earlham.edu (Allen Smith) writes:
>>In article <1992Oct9.145233.1663@vexcel.com>, dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>>>>than that of someone at an automobile plant? It would be wrong for the 
>>>>government when horse-and-buggies are being driven out by automobiles to 
>>>>intervene to stop the development of automobiles, I believe. What's the 
>>>>difference? Species? It isn't intelligent, so so what? It's an animal. 
>>>>Animals aren't intelligent- we should feel ethically free to treat them 
>>>>about as we would treat a hunk of rock.
>>> 
>>> It might be wrong for govt to _stop_ the automobile, but govt is not
>>> really _stopping_ logging.  Logging is a totally subsidized activity.
>>> The arguments about whether to make certain federal lands available
>>> for logging are side-issues to the fact that we essentially pay
>>> the timber industry to take old trees out of our forests.  By making
>>> certain areas off-limits to logging, all we are doing is stopping
>>> the subsidies.  The government is _supporting_ the destruction of
>>> the fisshing industry.
>>
>>	The question on federal land usage is a different one entirely, at 
>>least in the case of the spotted owl. But in those cases in which it is 
>>the federal government stopping private usage of land- usage that 
>>doesn't, for instance, cause pollution that gives others cancer- that I 
>>object to.
> 
> However, it is the example you offered.  Land usage for private land is

	I didn't offer that example; someone else did.

> quite different.  I do believe certain limitations apply and they are
> similar to yours, though I imagine we might define harm differently.
> Pollution-induced health impacts are hard to prove, they have long
> latency periods.  Is it appropriate to limit the use of private land
> when the use _might_ cause cancer, but we don't know?  If so, how
> much proof is needed.  What if there is damage to the biosphere is ways
> that do not directly harm humans but _do_ harm natural _services_.
> For example, if you own private beach land and want to build but that
> building will end the buffering function which that land serves to
> protect others from storms?  Many wetlands serve the purpose of
> filtering water and preventing salt intrusion to farmlands and aquifers.
> Are people who destroy such wetlands responsible for the enormous costs
> entailed in manmade solutions for these problems?

	It's an interesting question at what point one starts harming 
other intelligent beings enough for government (or others) to be justified 
in coercively stopping one. The problem in going too far is that one 
starts saying things such as that one can't open up a competing business 
because it harms an already existing business.
	My point on environmentalism and libertarianism being opposed 
frequently (at least traditional environmentalism, as opposed to people 
such as the Nature Conservatacy) is that environmentalists are, as far as 
I can tell, frequently more concerned with non-intelligent beings than 
with humans and other intelligent beings.
>>> 
>>> I personally find your attitude towards less/non-intelligent things
>>> to be abhorrent but I recognize that it is a value judgement.  It has
>>> been debated in depth in these groups and I don't really have anything
>>> to add to it.
>>
>>	As long as you don't try, say, to stop me from eating meat 
>>(including veal) whenever I wish and have the cash, feel free to have your 
>>viewpoint. It only becomes wrong when you try to enforce it on others.
> 
> 
> The problem comes when the majority do agree on a moral cause and force
> it on the minority.  Based on this principle, and not on its specific
> application, how would you have responded to slave owners who might say
> to an abolitionist: `fine, you don't have to own any slaves'?
> 
> I am not trying to force my ecocentric posistions on anyone.  You can keep
> eating your meat (I am not a vegetarian, anyway).  If the ecocentric
> position one day is a majority position, it will likely be imposed.
> I don't have an easy answer for justifying when this becomes 
> acceptable.  I can say I believe that it was acceptable not to pay
> slave owners.

	Certainly; I agree on the slave owners. Slaves were obviously 
intelligent, no matter how much some (even some calling themselves 
"scientists") tried to claim otherwise. Slave owners were harming others, 
and should be at the minimum prevented from doing so further. 
Unfortunately, the political situation at the time did not allow for 
further punishment of the former slave owners.
	I don't really care whether the majority wants something or not. 
I'm interested in making sure that individual rights aren't trampled upon.

	-Allen