Our friend Steve Hayward at AEI has what I think is a most interesting analysis of the global warming debate. He compares Gore’s philosophy to Martin Heidegger’s.
A sample:
One of Gore?s sound and important arguments in Earth in the Balance and An Inconvenient Truth
is that it is a profound error to suppose that the earth?s environment
is so robust that there is little or nothing that mankind could do to
damage it seriously. He is right, as was Heidegger, to point out the
immense earthshaking power of modern technology. But there is a
symmetrical observation to be made of Gore?s metaphysical approach to
the problem, which is that it is an equally profound error to suppose
that the environment of human liberty is so robust that there is no
political intervention on behalf of the environment that could not
damage liberty in serious ways, especially if the environment is
elevated to the central organizing principle of civilization. Implicit
in this goal is downgrading human liberty as the central organizing
principle of civilization. There are no index entries in Earth in the Balance
for ?liberty,? ?freedom,? or ?individualism.? Heidegger believed the
liberal conceptions of these great terms were meaningless or without
foundation. There is no acknowledgement in Gore?s book that this is
even a serious consideration.
