It seems the powers that be (in Brussels this time) want us bloggers to blog about environmental matters. Apart from my irritation at anyone suggesting that we should have such ‘blog action days’ this is incredibly hypocritical of the planners that run much of the EU.
Tim Worstall has a good summary of the idiocy of EU environmental policy. He is of course a euro-nihilist, not a position I hold, but the environmental damage which the EU’s environment programs do is horrendous.
This is rather a failure of central planning, if it didn’t come from the EU it would come from Westminster or from local government. These highlighted problems are often caused by good intentions although some (like the CFP) are driven by vested interests and a government pressure from some member states.
This does highlight the need for more market based solutions to environmental problems, based upon property rights where possible. Recycling should be done where profitable - perhaps a discount on your council tax if you spend the time to recycle? Landfill and incineration should be used where its not.
There should be no targets set for biofuel use or other forms of energy creation - its too early to back a particular horse, solutions could come from very unexpected directions. I would suggest that the reason for the biofuel mandate comes from farmer’s lobbying, as it has in the US (where it is causing immense problems for the mexican poor whilst being inefficient).
The Common Fisheries Policy is possibly the worst example of EU driven environmental damage - if we simply had privately held fishing rights then there would be an incentive to ensure the future of the fisheries. This is the most obvious example of the tragedy of the commons today. Its as bad as the lack of property rights which led to the wholesale slaughter of buffalo in the US.
Of course, the planners and bureaucrats think they know best and seek to impose top down solutions. We must push for a more liberal EU, one in which the principle of subsidiarity actually exists, where EU legislation is low in quantity (and higher in quality) and in which central planning has no role to play.
