Regular readers know how I bring my portable solar equipment to my building’s roof or to the nearby park to charge. Since my sole apartment window faces nearly due south, I can charge through my window most of the year, however limited and blocked the view, but near the summer solstice the sun goes too high. Even though the hemisphere sees more direct sunlight for more hours each day, my apartment sees less.
If I could just stick a small panel out my window facing up, I’d get all the power I need without the work of carrying my equipment up the stairs or out to the park. Countless apartments in the city and around the world already have air conditioners sticking out their windows. They stick out about as far as I’d need my panel to. They’re considered safe. An active market exists of people who will install air conditioners like that.
A panel is smaller, lighter, and safer than an air conditioner. The demand to install a panel for me or countless people who would like such a panel is probably significant, or would be if people knew it could be done.
In principle, I could do it, but a benefit of markets is division of labor, enabling experienced professionals to do something faster and more safely.
Why doesn’t a market exist to satisfy that demand?
Because anyone who wants electrical power can just plug into a wall instead.
Why not use that power?
Because that power comes from burning fossil fuels, splitting uranium, or other sources that rely on fossil fuels, such as solar and wind. That is, they pollute and deplete. Our Constitution says that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Polluting and depleting thus violate the Constitution. They also violate the Declaration, which requires the consent of the governed. A nation with a Cancer Alley is violating the Declaration. They also violate property laws as understood by the founders, ratifiers, and public.
In other words, a coercive, deadly market that violates the Constitution and Declaration is killing what could be a freer market.
The government’s non-enforcement of our founding documents makes it hard to pollute and deplete less—that is, to follow the founding documents.
This situation calls for the government to enforce the Constitution and Declaration. This nation already had a period where it allowed people to be deprived of life, liberty, and property without due process of law. Its residents thought that ending slavery would be too extreme. They pursued balance and compromise. They compromised the Constitution with the three-fifth clause, fugitive slave clause, and more. They compromised with the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850, and so on.
We now know that even one slave state is extremely too many. Even one person enslaved is too many.
Instead of facing that conclusion, they fought a civil war. We don’t need to learn that lesson twice.
To avoid a similar outcome, we should enforce the Constitution and Declaration, which would mean no pollution and depletion. Then I wouldn’t have to climb so many stairs. We’d also avoid another civil war.
Troubled by my talking about slavery? If you haven’t seen my graphs on the scale of suffering and death today that show how much greater today’s situation is, read Why I work on sustainability leadership here and now despite other things I could do instead.
