[saturnsc]

While I'm not really interested in peoples' personal political ideologies, although this would be interesting, I think people might rather not say. I wonder why the typical 'environmentalist' is typically associated with or sterotyped as part of the 'left.' If you look at all of the schools of environmentalism, I think that it is easy to find that right-wing environmentalism can be just as effective as the left-wing school.

For example, if you take a look at the market economy from a libertarian perspective, it might seem appropriate to bill people for ALL of the costs that they are responsible for. For example, if you produced x amount of garbage for municipal pick-up, then you should be billed for x pounds or x volume. If you produce x+2 pounds or volume measure as compared to your neighbour, then you should be billed for the extra 2 units that you produced. Ignoring the fact that many people might choose to dump their trash in parks and vacant lands, in theory this would reduce peoples' production of garbage as well as make them aware of the amount they produce and would encourage them to produce less, and thus buy less packaging and waste-generating material.

This is just one example, and it should not be hard to come up with others.

So while the 'leftists' might always advocate government intervention/taxing pollution/banning things, it should be possible to find a solution that is market or financially driven for every environmental problem.

I do concede that governments will have to enforce these, but unless one is an anarchist, one should believe that the fundamental role of government is to enforce laws. If someone or something is harming others or the environment, they should have to pay for it.

The example of athsma is another case. If athsma costs either the health care system or parents and sufferers x amont of money per year for inhalers, drugs and hospital care, then those who are proven responsible (I dunno, oil companies?, car manufacturers?, industrial polluters?, plastic manufacturers?) should only rightly have to fit the bill jointly, no?

This way of thinking to me is an alternative to the now dogmatic 'left' way of thinking 'government should subsodize/ban/tax this and that, etc.'

Thoughts?