The green transition in the Constitution: a new attack on our freedoms is being prepared
From the health emergency to the climate emergency, from Covid-zero madness to zero-emissions madness . Any restriction in the name of the environment will be justified now that it is in the Constitution …
We admit it, we admit our limits: with our strength, on this small vessel that is Atlantico Quotidiano , we are unable to deal with and deepen all the issues we would like, but we try in our small way to maintain the route of freedom and Western values by plying the uncertain waters of these times.
If there is one issue that we have culpably underestimated in recent months – and we apologize for it to our readers – it is the introduction of environmental protection into the Constitution. We arrive at the damage done. On Tuesday the Chamber of Deputies approved the constitutional revision law that modifies articles 9 and 41 (texts compared below), introducing, in fact, the protection of the environment. It was the last reading and the reform passed with 468 votes in favor and a handful of abstentions and against. The quorum of two thirds (420) has been exceeded, which previously had also been passed in the Senate, so it will not even be subjected to a referendum.
It is surprising how lightly, the superficiality with which deputies and senators of right-wing parties, which in theory should be immune to the sirens of environmental ideology, voted for this text. With an emphasis, in their final explanations of vote, worthy of a Greta Thunberg, evidently not fully understanding the implications. And even more serious, without at least preventing the text from touching Article 41 of the Constitution, further restricting the already very narrow perimeter of property rights.
In fact, private economic initiative is already subject to wide limitations, as it cannot be "in contrast with social utility" or "damage security, freedom, human dignity", vague concepts interpreted by the legislator and judges with the discretion that we know, as seen for example with the prolonged blockade of evictions or in the Ilva affair. Now, two other limits, equally vague, are introduced: it cannot harm health and the environment. And public and private economic activity must be "directed and coordinated" by law not only "for social purposes", but also for "environmental" purposes.
In short, they introduced the green transition into the Constitution, opening the doors in fact and by law to the most radical formulas: any measure of compression of private economic initiative and, mind you, even personal freedoms, will be justified in the name of the "right to environment ”, inserted in the Charter with the same value as the others.
The new article 9 is more declamatory, but only apparently less fraught with consequences, as we shall see, where it is stated that the protection of the environment is "in the interest of future generations" and it is established that the law of the State governs "the ways and forms of animal protection ".
This revision intervention is certainly part of the spirit that permeates our Constitutional Charter, for some "the most beautiful in the world" (unless we have trampled it in every way in these two years). In fact, ours is a Constitution that barely falls within the wake of liberal constitutionalism: rather than placing limits on the power of the government and parliamentary majorities, in order to protect minorities and preserve the freedom and natural rights of the smallest minority, the individual, is the programmatic manifesto of an ethical state and places heavy limits on citizens' freedoms to favor their realization. Article 41 is one of the most obvious demonstrations of this and thus the introduction of the environmental limit. "Man, even in our Charter, recognizes that limits are necessary to his own action, on pain of catastrophe", tweeted Minister Andrea Orlando, showing the complete overturning in progress of the meaning of a modern constitution, the purpose of which should be to limit power, not citizens.
The approval of this constitutional reform in some way marks the transition from the dying health emergency to the climate emergency. If in these two years the restrictions we have undergone have been motivated by the protection of health, obviously understood in a collectivized version, ignoring the individual dimension, they await us in the near future, indeed we are already experimenting with them, restrictions motivated by the protection of the environment . And the introduction of the environment into the Constitution, like health already protected, represents a formidable weapon to reject and, indeed, repress any opposition.
Obviously, health and the environment are concepts that can be taken to the extreme by overwhelming all other freedoms and rights, in theory at least as protected by the Constitution, as we have experienced in these two years of pandemic. We have seen firsthand how dangerous it can be, how much it can lead to paradoxical, Orwellian outcomes, a “zero risk” approach to health. Now, we will experience – and indeed we are already experiencing it with the current energy crisis – how much it is in relation to the environment: the "zero risk" for the planet, the zero emissions target. If "our house burns", as Greta likes to repeat, you don't want to put your selfish interests, your poor lifestyles, your properties, houses or cars, your personal freedoms before the need to turn off the fire (very presumed) cost what it costs?
The problem is that every human activity, it can be argued, causes damage to health and / or the environment. Most of the pleasures in life are unhealthy, but what would our existence be without them? Since man has been on Earth he has transformed the environment that surrounds him: building a bridge, a house, a gas pipeline, but also moving, traveling, any human activity consumes energy and, therefore, causes damage to the environment. Even feeding and dressing.
Take a Florentine steak, it brings together all types of damage: to health, to the environment and, of course, to animals (whose protection is expressly mentioned in the new article 9). Well, the consumption of meat could be among the first habits to suffer severe limitations following the principles just introduced in the Constitution.
Thus, a dangerous backdoor opens into what should be the firewall , the "defense system" of our freedoms and natural rights. We have seen it with the extension of the use of the Green Pass , ours has become a conditional freedom: it is the government that allows or does not grant us the freedom to go to a place or to carry out an activity depending on what it considers dangerous for public health at any given time. Everything suggests that it would do the same to protect the environment.
Today unvaccinated people cannot have dinner in a restaurant, go to the gym, some even work and receive a salary, because the government has decided that they are dangerous to health, to others and to themselves. In the same way, limitations on certain activities indicated at the discretion of governments as dangerous for the environment may be justified. And obviously the discretion is potentially unlimited, even dogmas of faith can be presented as "scientific evidence", as was done with Covid . In our unquestionable judgment, does it not respect the environment? It can not be done. It will be enough to cite the "expert opinion" to silence and vilify as ignorant, irresponsible and extremist any dissent, according to the new method of government that Max Balestra told us about .
If the Co2 Emissions Trading System (ETS) is already having its effects – skyrocketing electricity and gas prices, entire manufacturing sectors on their knees and further impoverishment of the middle class – there are those who have already proposed to establish a personal carbon allowances market.
To reach the zero emissions target by 2050, each adult would be assigned a CO2 quota to "spend" at the beginning of the year. Lifestyles, consumption, food, use of cars, trains or planes, taking a shower, any activity would erode the personal quota established at the beginning of the year. The share would also be negotiable, meaning it could be sold or bought. And there is already a ready-to-use technological platform for the management of our environmental credits: the Green Pass . What happens once the quota is used up? Civil death? It would be entirely in line with the constitution, as amended two days ago by Parliament.
These are neither fantasies nor exaggerations, the proposal has already been cleared in the circles that matter, it is being discussed in the academic, media and government fields, it has already landed in multilateral fora such as the last COP26 in Glasgow.
A world awaits us in which the rich will still be able to afford to go to the most disparate events aboard their private jets, acquiring greater shares in the market, politicians and senior bureaucrats will be granted allowances, but for most people it will become prohibitive. take a vacation, own a house or a car. It's a luxury even to eat a steak …
The post The green transition into the Constitution: a new attack on our freedoms is being prepared appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL https://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/la-transizione-green-in-costituzione-si-prepara-un-nuovo-attacco-alle-nostre-liberta/ on Thu, 10 Feb 2022 01:07:27 +0000.