Save a Tree Hug a Capitalist.

I don’t think there is anything that pisses off eco-socialists more than a free market answer to their problem of climate change. They simply don’t know how to respond. Since capitalism is their true antichrist it certainly can’t be the answer to their ostensible reason for whining.

Take for example CEI adjunct scholar Dan Sutter’s proposed plan of action which is both free market and would achieve some of the environmentalists’ stated goals. In his recently released paper, Sutter argues that allowing insurance companies to charge actuarially adequate rates (meaning people pay more for riskier decisions such as living on a beach) will encourage people to make safer choices and discourage development of environmentally sensitive areas like wetlands, riversides, and beachfronts.  It would simply cost too much money for people to build there. This would reverse the decades long policy of government “helping” people who choose to live in these areas by subsidizing them and forcing insurers to keep rates low for those people (which

ironically means that insurers have to charge everyone else more in order make sure they can pay claims when the time comes). These subsidies and low rates encouraged people to keep putting their homes and families directly in harms way and keep damaging the areas environmentalists claim should remain undeveloped.

This is a different kind of argument for CEI: we aren’t known for pandering to the environmentalist movement. But were the greens pleased? Of course not. TreeHugger.com, a website that has almost exlusively mentioned CEI with complete disdain, noted the study, but  harped on the fact that in his paper Sutter did not wholeheartedly commit to the idea that hurricane activity has increased because of manmade global warming.

Kudos TH for noting the study, but way to miss the point.