> You'd have to prove more than harm in court, you'd have to prove that the harm outweighed the benefits. It would take entirely too much effort to rebut you,

> You'd have to prove more than harm in court, you'd have to prove that the harm outweighed the benefits. It would take entirely too much effort to rebut you, but no, that's not how civil courts work. In short, Libertarians often say that you don't need laws to protect things, people who are harmed just need to prove that harm in civil court. Moving on... > It's not a scientific debate it's a philosophical one. No, actually, it's a public policy debate. If the United States were under attack from another country, they could establish laws to enforce curfews and blackouts to thwart bombing runs at night. That would be a public policy to combat a military threat. If the United States is threatened by Climate Change, they could establish laws to limit the use of certain chemicals in certain settings, could limit things like watering your yard with city water, limit energy usage, etc. That would be a public policy to combat an environmental threat. > A threat people believe might happen Yes, that's what the word THREAT means. > indeterminate consequences Yes, and I've specifically asked you, multiple times, how you think a society should try to predict what those consequences might be. Consensus of scientists is one approach. Do you propose another? And listen, even if you think government shouldn't get involved, I suspect you would listen to authority figures that you trusted. For instance, even if you want to defund NOAA, if an authority you trusted told you to evacuate because of high likelihood of a major hurricane impacting your area, you would evacuate. You may even be willing to pay a fee to be informed of such news. Well, what kind of authority would you trust to give you advice about climate change? If you assert that there is no authority you would ever trust to give you advice about climate change, under any circumstances, then I think you're nucking futts. > Governments have proved themselves to be useless at grand schemes. HAHAHA. No, no they haven't. Governments establish a system of laws that allow people to live their lives on a level vastly different from where they would be without government. You would have tyrant warlords stealing your cattle right now, without government. You would be paying for protection in a racket. Instead, we have the freedom to negotiate contracts confident that they will be enforced by governmental legal systems, allowing an almost unimaginable organization of resources and services, the likes of which the world had never known before. So, yes, other than being the best system ever invented for allowing division of labor, ownership of property, creation of currency, and national defense, sometimes governments do fail at things like stupidly building bridges to nowhere. Thanks for playing, though. > $23 trillion of aid to the third world in 50 years. You'd be think there would be some results. Yup, some ideas fail. Some ideas succeed.