The Sky is Not Falling

And the world is not coming to an end.  The story of Chicken Little has been around since at least the early 1800s and a very similar story found in Buddhist culture is at least 25 centuries old.  In the stories, Chicken Little thinks the sky is falling when an acorn hits him on the head.  He races around yelling to others that the sky is falling and they join him in an hysterical stampede.   While the precise unhappy ending suffered by the hysterical mob differs somewhat in various renditions of the story, the clear moral is the same:  don’t believe everything you are told; hysteria ends badly and rather than mob hysteria the better course of action is deductive reasoning and subsequent investigation.

The latest group hysteria of the Left is based on President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement and the subsequent assertions from the Left (the Chicken Littles of this story) that the world will now come to an end, or at least we will be unable to breath from all the pollution that is about to fall upon us. They also yell that anyone who supports the withdrawal does not understand science and does not believe in climate change and so they are causing the demise of our planet.

But wait.  What does a feel-good agreement have to do with the actual environmental condition of the earth, let alone one’s belief or not in climate change?  The answer:  Nothing.  The agreement is perhaps an aspirational document, nothing more.  In my church every Sunday the prayers include the following: “Give us all a reverence for the earth…that we may use its resources rightly….”  This too is aspirational – it is a prayer.  It is not going to save the earth.  Although, if everyone said and then followed this prayer, it might (assuming of course that we did not fall into battle over what “right use” is).   

But, back to the Paris Agreement.  It, in a way, is also nothing more than a prayer.   First, it has nothing to do with one’s belief in the state of the earth, in climate change, or in whether that change is or is not man made.  So, one could be a strong believer in manmade climate change and still think that the Paris Agreement is not a good plan.  It does nothing to change the condition of the earth; it simply suggests that various countries will work towards various goals.  No consequences if the goals are not met.  It just allows every signatory to pat themselves on the back and say how good they are because they have these high-minded aspirations (that they have said their prayers).  

In reality, though, what is going to help the earth is innovation.  We have more and more people needing more and more resources.  Technology requires more and more energy.  There are problems with both renewable and non-renewable energy sources.  The problems need to be solved.  Signing feel-good agreements will not solve the problems.  Words will not solve the problems.  Innovation will.  And innovation generally does not come from governments.  It comes from the private sector that is often motivated by profit.  So, why not encourage the private sector to innovate.  That, not the Paris Agreement, is far more likely to solve the environmental problems faced by an earth that is rapidly becoming too overpopulated for its own good.

The other thing of note about the Paris Agreement is that it was essentially signed via executive order; that is, there was no discussion in Congress by our elected officials about whether or not the U.S. should sign.  The fact that people are disagreeing about our withdrawal from the agreement suggests that we might also have disagreed about our entry had we been given the change to discuss the issue.  That is what we do in this country.  We have elected officials who speak for the people and, in a government “of, by, and for the people” those people, via their elected officials, should have been a part of such a step.  The withdrawal simply reverses an authoritarian act that should not have occurred in the first place.

To be clear, I am concerned about the environment and generally support environmental initiative.  But, I am also not a fan of the Paris Agreement and am perfectly OK with the fact that the U.S. has withdrawn.  I do not think that the sky is falling nor that the world is about to come to an end.  I think that the private sector is far more likely to create positive environmental change than is any feel-good piece of paper.   Those of you who want to jump on the latest bandwagon of hysteria, just remember the story of Chicken Little.