Happy Earth Day, libertarians!

Most people see Earth Day as a liberal, tree-hugger holiday where nutjobs chain themselves up to giant redwoods and place themselves in the way of giant chainsaws threatening to dice up Mother Earth's most valuable resources. I am proud to say that I am a tree-hugger, but I am in no way a liberal. Libertarianism and Earth Day go hand in hand, although I would think that we attack the problems of pollution and rampant resource gobbling a different way. Liberals would like to see big government come in with massive and invasive legislation that would protect the environment at the expense of the common man. The way I see it, it is in fact the other way around. Big government has a habit of handing the keys of the Earth-Destroyer 2000 to gigantic corporations, subsidized by tax-payer money.

The agricultural industry is one of the heaviest subsidized industries in the United States. It is this money that is used to drive the prices of our crops down, mostly corn here in the U.S. Cheap corn that doesn't reflect the natural supply/demand of the market is used to make cheap food. Over half of that unnaturally cheap corn that we grow is used for livestock feed. This unnaturally cheap feedstock is used to feed our cattle, which doesn't have to roam vast areas of grassland for food, and can be kept in unnaturally tiny corrals and fed an unnatural diet that ultimately kills them unnaturally, if they weren't going to be slaughtered any way. That unnatural diet gives rise to an unnatural amount of fat in the animal and also raises the E. coli in their guts to unnatural levels, that can eventually harm consumers who eat this unnatural meat and get unnaturally fat themselves. The unnatural amount of bacteria also winds up in the feces which makes its way into streams and rivers and lakes and can contaminate any crops in the area. It is why sometimes you hear of tomatoes and lettuce giving rise to E. coli outbreaks in the consumers who eat them. And since cattle doesn't have to roam for grass to eat, we can keep so much more of these large animals in tiny unnatural corrals which creates more feces lumped together in one area and can contaminate more land around them with the deadly (unnatural) amounts of bacteria.




The same is true for chickens and pigs. Our meat is made cheap and unhealthy for us by our government. If Michele Obama really wanted to stop obesity in our youth, she would go after these corporate subsidies that create the problem of unhealthy foods in the first place. And by doing so she would also be helping the environment and would allow our farms a more naturally ecological way of growing their crops and livestock. And the livestock would live in better conditions and live a more natural lifestyle. Before they were slaughtered. The fact remains that if libertarians and other champions of small government fight for less corporate welfare, we will stop enabling these multinational corporations from exploiting our land, resources and animals.

But a liberal who believes big government is the answer would say that the FDA needs more power to fight these corporations, that we need more bureaucracies to regulate the industries, that we need legislation that will force companies to comply with environmental standards. It's ironic that government subsidizes the destruction of our environment, and then creates environmental standards that companies need to follow in order to get more subsidies so that they can continue destroying the environment. It is a vicious circle that has no end.

But I digress. As an example of poor government programs at work, I point a big, unnaturally fat finger at the Energy Star program which has a great number of flaws. In short, it gives incentives to consumers to buy products that are supposedly energy efficient, but in many ways are not. In any government program there are loopholes and flaws that turn out to be more hazardous than helpful. Follow this link for a recent article on the Energy Star inefficiencies.

And then there is the oil industry and its obvious effects on our environment. Not only do we subsidize a lot of this industry, but there are also external costs involved. How much have we spent over the course of the last few decades, especially the last few years, on our interests in the Middle East? Sure we were "spreading democracy," as Bush said, but even the most ignorant ten year old can tell you that we were only involved so heavily with Iraq because of its oil reserves. How many billions of dollars have we spent on this war, and how many more billions are we going to spend in the future? All this to keep the oil flowing and to keep it relatively cheap for the American consumer. The oil market that we have now, like the agricultural one, is highly impacted by government involvement, whether it be a Republican or a Democratic administration. It's all the same. Do whatever you can to keep oil prices down so that Americans can buy their SUV's, and corporations can keep funneling subsidized oil into their subsidized industries. If we had never had these subsidies (and our imperialistic interventions over seas) the price of oil would likely be higher. Likely those prices would have risen gradually and our companies may have had the chance to look for alternate resources elsewhere, pouring money into solar and wind and other renewables in order to drive the costs of their energy usage down, maybe using our abundant natural gas reserves in the process as a stepping stone into truly cleaner energy. Instead, what we find ourselves risking, is the chance of a ginormous oil spike if Middle East events take a turn for the worst while we scramble about the world, place flags on ice caps, and drill for whatever drippings of black gold are left in the world. Our country and our industries are not prepared with the necessary infrastructure for a spike in oil. And all the while we devour and destroy our environment using tax-payer money.





So, listen all you fellow tree-huggers out there. If you want to protect the environment and the many different species of flora and fauna living in that environment, the best thing that you can do is end government's forays into the private sector. End corporate welfare. End our endless subsidization of unhealthy and destructive industrial sectors. Stop foreign imperialistic overtures overseas. Allow prices of commodities to fluctuate naturally with supply and demand. Allow man to live with the earth. Mother Earth hates big government too!