HChambers: that’s hardly surprising. It’s not just the inequity of environmentalism. The lion’s share of all government spending is captured by the middle classes. The rich don’t need to bother and the poor are marginalised by their lack of political access to the levers of power. The middle classes, by comparison, are numerous, educated and motivated to grab the low hanging fruit. They organise, they lobby, and above all they vote. Then the Lefties see this and call for tax increases on the rich. What these fools don’t see is that there aren’t enough rich people from which to mulct the necessary amount of money. The only way the genuinely disadvantaged can be provided with essential welfare is to shrink the size of the state. And ‘the whipped cream on a cake’ (as Vaclav Klaus put it) that is modern environmentalism should be the first to be defunded. If people want wilderness areas then they should pay for them directly. Probably the best way to safeguard wild areas would be for the Federal government to sell off the bulk of its land (Uncle Sam is by far the biggest land owner in the US). Sell it at auction to private individuals (and use the cash to reduce the national debt, rather than make-work programmes for more bureaucrats). The Audubon Society and the Sierra Club have deep pockets. Let them put their money where their mouth is. Hell, Ducks Unlimited is probably the greatest force for good in environmentally-responsible land management there is. At present we are in the classic Tragedy of the Commons as identified by the late Garret Hardin. Even Aristotle recognised that land owned in private but enjoyed in common was the best solution. So let the landowners charge what they see fit for the upkeep of their publicly-accessible land, and then the guy in a wheelchair or the hard-working man with two kids and no free time isn’t coerced into subsidising those who are able to enjoy the great outdoors.
