Screw the global, my backyard needs care!

Came across this interesting commentary by Richard Black of the BBC. His suggestions, thankfully merely a proposition, miss the point of giving power back to the people. He correctly identifies the current decisionmaking process as the main cause of stasis in climate change talks (and by default in most international decisionmaking frameworks), but the proposed alternatives are just as bad.

A global referendum? First of all, a lot of the world's population can't even read! Not so long ago a referendum in Kenya had to have the voting options not in the classic "yes/no" format but "orange/banana". Even if we were to overcome this hurdle, the broad range of issues involving climate will inevitably warrant a very long and exhaustive list of questions with multiple answers, yielding a leviathanic ballot paper (or booklet, which is apter).

Secondly, sound voting systems are in place in a minority of nations, while in a large proportion of the world people might never have heard of the right to vote. Any such referendum would be prone to falsification, misinformation, voters' unawareness of the value of their vote, ballot box stuffing and a chronic infrastructure deficiency.

Thirdly, the power to decide and administer should be in the hands of those concerned directly by the specific problem. Globalizing the debate just waters down the real, local, relevant solutions to a mishmash of incoherent policymaking, sandwiched between a lavish brunch and a black tie post-conference dinner enjoyed, as Black rightly puts it, by dogs who can't agree on how or whether to share a bone.

An answer to the climate change debate will come when the big talking shops are disbanded and governments allow market forces take control. Black's disdain for self-interest and business-as-usual is unjustified. Global conserns are not made on-the-spot but are an ocean of local wants and needs. Although it is true that a CO2 particle can originate anywhere, it still has to be emitted, and it is thus a dumping of waste into a valuable asset as the local environment is.

Let local citizens own their environment through property rights. Let them be able to decide how much to charge for dumping waste into their air, soil and rivers. Those who have a clean environment and wouldn't mind some industry will charge less, while Beijingers would most probably vote en masse to charge more, considering their smog problems. Result: cheaper emissions and more industry in Africa and cost increases in China.

Governments and international organizations fear property and the free market because these essentials of progress undermine their very existence. Black argues for global citizen involvement, but fails to identify the principal worry of every human being: his backyard.

Let us tend to our own backyards and the world will be fixed.