Practical economics and unforseen results


What you weren't taught in school
Roy Spencer talks about practical economics at TCS Daily.

What reasonable person could be against 'clean water', 'clean air', and 'clean renewable sources of energy'? Who dares argue with politicians, scientists, and other pundits who lead the fight against global warming?

The dangerous illusion underpinning many environmental efforts is that it is both possible and preferable to keep pushing toward a 100 percent clean and safe existence. Those of us who try to point out that there are practical limits to cleanliness and safety are immediately branded as shills for big business. Meanwhile, environmentalists and politicians get to hold the high ground of altruism and concern for the public's interest.

P.J. O'Rourke once said, "Some people will do anything to save the Earth...except take a science course." To that I would add, "...or a basic economics course". If for a reasonable cost we can remove 98 percent of the contaminants in our drinking water and make it quite safe, is it then a good idea to spend ten times as much to push that purity from 98 percent to 99 percent?

In the real world, there are only limited resources to accomplish everything we want to do, and resources diverted to wasteful ends are no longer available to tackle more pressing problems. Only in the imaginary world of the environmental lobbyist, pandering politician, or concerned journalist is it a public service to keep pushing toward 100 percent purity.

They are playing with frame pages there, so I hope I have the link right.

Anyway, I think we do need to look at what is practical versus what is possible. For example, we could stop all human pollution by killing every human on the planet, but I don't hear anyone suggesting that. I'm not going to get into the dichotomy of Nature = Good and Humans = Bad here, I've done that in other places. The thing is, we're not separate from the planet, we're a part of it. If we abandoned Los Angeles tomorrow, by nightfall the coyotes would have claimed it. That doesn't mean that the coyotes are any more entitled to it than we are.

Actions have consequences. Put a "green tax" on everyone in the country, and that means less money spent on other things. It also doesn't prevent the "anti-green" behavior, it just drives it underground. And I promise you, within weeks of the first such tax being passed, there will be exceptions put into place. That pretty much defeats the whole purpose of using a tax to punish.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Mon - July 31, 2006 at 04:41 AM  Tag


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