We aren’t Running out of Resources, We’re Running out of Freedom

For the past 200 years, doomsayers and environmentalists have been predicting imminent disaster for the human race. The cause of this alleged disaster has varied. In the early nineteenth century Thomas Malthus said that it would be overpopulation. In the twenty-first century, environmentalists have argued that it will be climate change (or whatever they are calling it today).

With global warming discredited, Paul Gilding, former chief executive of Greenpeace, claims that the Earth is full, and that we need 1.5 Earths to sustain current economic activity. He writes, “Belief in infinite growth on a finite planet was always irrational, but it is the nature of denial to ignore hard evidence.”

Certainly, the Earth and its natural resources, like everything in the universe, is finite. But before we go into panic mode, let us consider a few facts that Gilding conveniently evades.

For years, we were told that the world couldn’t sustain current levels of oil consumption. And guess what happened? Oil companies discovered new technologies to make use of oil sands. They developed fracking to unleash previously unreachable resources. In short, innovative individuals found ways to make use of resources that are here.

In addition, the universe is nothing but one giant resource, just waiting for some greedy capitalist to discover an efficient way to exploit it. Granted, the nearest such resource—the moon—is a long ways away. But we can travel to the moon in a much shorter period of time than Columbus spent sailing across the ocean.

History is replete with examples of creative individuals discovering new resources and new technologies. But creative individuals require freedom—the freedom to think and act on their own judgment—in order to make such discoveries and bring them to fruition. And it is freedom that Gilding and his ilk wish to destroy.

Likening this “threat” to World War II, Gilding implies that we need a similar response:

They [government] directed industry to support the war–banning civilian auto production just four days after Pearl Harbor. They raised massive amounts of money to fund investment and technology research at an extraordinary scale–indeed, U.S. spending on the war rose from 1.6% of GDP in 1940 to 37% just five years later. To achieve this, they curtailed personal consumption and drove remarkable behavior change to free up financial and other resources for the war effort.

In other words, Gilding wants massive government intervention. He wants government to curtail personal consumption and mandate “remarkable behavior change.”

It is not a coincidence that every prediction of catastrophe is accompanied with calls for more government controls and regulations. Environmentalism isn’t about saving the planet; it is about creating a political environment that is inhospitable to human life.