25 March 2007

Environmentalism is Homophobic

An individual may have a business generating electricity, and he makes electricity to earn money. However, if he makes electricity to earn money he may only consider the money he makes privately and not consider any pollution he creates, e.g. while making the electricity he may burn coal, which creates carbon emissions, which may harm others. The individual who makes electricity looks at the private cost and not the social cost.

The assumption here is that people dislike carbon emissions and so carbon emissions and whatever is the natural consequence of carbon emissions is disliked by "society." Society is I assume is just the aggregation of many individuals.

However, let's keep the same concept and look at another issue. Let's look at homosexual behavior. An individual who engages in public homosexual behavior (e.g. a man kissing or having sex with another man in public) may do so to increase his own private welfare because such an act is pleasurable to him. However, if an ultraconservative religious person witnesses this homosexual behavior, then the ultraconservative religion person may not like it. In fact, if most people are ultraconservative and don't like witnessing homosexual behavior, then an individual who engages in homosexual behavior may not be considering the social cost of his behavior.

Environmentalism is about altering private decisions so that they are in line with social costs. But social costs depends on whatever most people think, and people are irrational, prejudicial, and so on. Environmentalism then can results in a tyranny of the majority in which the preferences of the majority are forced upon the minority. The majority who hate homosexuals can suppress homosexual behavior because they believe homosexuality is a social pollution. Likewise, the majority who hate carbon dioxide can suppress the people who like carbon dioxide. The majority who hate water pollution can suppress the people who like water pollution.

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