Reflections on Addressing Environmental Problems

SUMMARY

• The evidence for a variety of environmental problems facing North Carolina is insurmountable.
• Insofar as plants, animals, and humans have rights concerning their ecosystems and treatment, those rights must be upheld.
• Solving these problems is already underway thanks to the willfulness and power of private North Carolinians, but the government must contribute to the solution in reserved, unbiased, cautious ways.

Climate Problems are Real and Multifaceted

If left unchecked, climate problems have the potential to cause serious harm. One hundred and fifty years of close study and observation have revealed the ways in which our planet is in flux. The weather, biomes, animals, plants, and even people have and will continue to experience anthropogenic change at a pace some life cannot adapt to. At present, North Carolina’s contribution to these problems meets or even surpass the global average. Much needs to be done so that popular animals will be kept from going extinct, our pollution will be brought under control, and weather conditions normalize.

We Have a Unique and Principled Stance on Government's Role

This issue is nuanced, so the response must be too. The accumulative action of individuals and organizations has more power to aid the environment than the slow-moving bureaucracy of the government machine beholden to special interests, lobbyists, and donors. Some mixture of governing action, freedom, and nativity got us into this problem but freedom and knowledge can easily get us out. For morality and efficiency alike, government must stay out of the way of its citizens.

Freedom will Save the Earth if People Trust One Another and Act

Human nature is such that self-interest and empathy always surpass force, and in that way, a deliberate base of citizens is more than capable of taking the actions necessary to improve our world. Corporate pollution can be stopped by class action lawsuits if suing is strengthened. Wildlife can thrive in captivity if commercial ownership is permitted. An awareness and appeal to reduce, reuse, and recycle can infiltrate households through civil liberties and free-form education. Unshackled markets will create the efficient, effective means to achieve those ends. Humanity unchained has never met a challenge it could not prepare for.

State Government's Use of Force

The use of force ought to be reserved for a narrow list of causes such as justice. Murder is unjust for its destruction of a valuable being. Because the killing of endangered species is a similar affront to a valuable being’s right to life and has consequences up and down its food chain, I support strengthening laws to punish and hold accountable killers of endangered animals.

State Government's Land Ownership

The public land owned collectively by the people of North Carolina and in the trust of the government is an opportunity to aid conservation efforts. The administration of the parks of North Carolina is among the most crucial, rightful responsibilities of the government. The multitude of vegetation on government property contributes significantly to the balancing of atmospheric chemistry and the healthy sustenance of human and all life on our planet. Although conservation is a rare example of a responsibility government performs well, North Carolina should, through an approval process, sell land to private parks and preservation companies. Nevertheless, the parks are an opportunity for our state government to engage in commerce and in that regard can mimic corporations to both fund the upkeep of the land and have a natural measurement of the public’s approval of the service provided.

State Government's Interaction with Culture through Information Dispersion

The government claims the authority to participate in the culture of its people and therein inherits a moral obligation to prioritize caution and objectivity. Those priorities should guild public education’s open conversation with its pupils about the research into environmental issues. All the same, public education must permit parents to be part of that open conversation. Ultimately, the best ideas will succeed, and people will be incentivized to take steps to preserve our natural world.

State Government's Support of Innovation through Higher Education

Because universities are inevitably going to fund academic research, it is in our best interest if our public universities set aside a portion of funding for research and development into climate solutions, even ones involving nonrenewable energy sources. Those universities should encourage entrepreneurship robustly to inform students of higher education their ability to innovate, bring about important solutions, and generate prosperity. The modernization and use of nuclear power is especially important which is likely to be noticed by students if we educate them on the subject. The next generation will produce numerous helpful inventions backed by capital, thus a Free Market rather than university research will bring about the most change. For those residents who do innovate, I propose a medal and cash prize be awarded to said innovators.

Government Needs not Do Much Because its Best Solutions Involve Getting Out of Your Way

• Protect endangered species and important ecosystems through harsher legislation.
• Reduce the operations of the state government and military substantially so that, among other reasons, each have a radically smaller footprint.
• Have public university research and development environmental solutions.
• Enable and reward rather than inhibit environmental innovators.
• Leverage our vast ownership of land for revenue-generating nature conservation.
• Fight pollution using a reformed legal system, soil and water upkeep, and modest regulations.
• Stabilize temperatures and weather through worldwide and local collaboration alike.
• Offer hope and encourage a culture of taking willful action and self-responsibility.
• Inform the public the reassuring and exciting facts about modern nuclear power.