Lockitch Says Free Markets Key to Climate Strategy

Keith Lockitch, fellow at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, told the Thirteenth Annual Energy and Environment Expo in Phoenix, Arizona, that respecting free markets is preferable to government intervention regarding global warming concerns.

Lockitch showed how nations that respected and encouraged free markets fared much better during global drought in the early 1970s than nations with obtrusive central governments. Nations that encouraged free markets not only fared relatively well despite the global drought, but additionally were able to donate and export staple foods to nations that could not feed their populace. Similarly, nations that protect and encourage free markets will be better situated to adapt to climate challenges in the upcoming century, said Lockitch.

One of the concerns regarding predicted global warming is coastal flooding, said Lockitch. Yet federal and state governments are making any future flooding problems worse with regulation that induces insurers to charge too little for people building in high-risk coastal areas and to charge too much for people who build in low-risk areas.

American Solar Energy Society Executive Director Brad Collins clearly did not agree with Lockitch’s presentation and challenged him strongly during Q&A. Not so much asking a question to Lockitch as giving a speech instead, Collins said the last three decades were the warmest in recorded history. “This proves that global warming is a problem when we use our atmosphere as an ashtray,” said Collins.

Lockitch said he was more than happy to discuss and debate the science if Collins wished, but the important point is that protecting and encouraging the free market is the best course of action regardless of what global temperatures do in the future.