April 30, 2005
THE SILENT WEALTH OF NATIONS:
Rescuing environmentalism: Market forces could prove the environment's best friend—if only greens could learn to love them (The Economist, Apr 21st 2005)
The coming into force of the UN's Kyoto protocol on climate change might seem a victory for Europe's greens, but it actually masks a larger failure. The most promising aspect of the treaty—its innovative use of market-based instruments such as carbon-emissions trading—was resisted tooth and nail by Europe's greens. With courageous exceptions, American green groups also remain deeply suspicious of market forces.If environmental groups continue to reject pragmatic solutions and instead drift toward Utopian (or dystopian) visions of the future, they will lose the battle of ideas. And that would be a pity, for the world would benefit from having a thoughtful green movement. It would also be ironic, because far-reaching advances are already under way in the management of the world's natural resources—changes that add up to a different kind of green revolution. This could yet save the greens (as well as doing the planet a world of good). [...]
Rachel Carson meets Adam Smith
If this new green revolution is to succeed, however, three things must happen. The most important is that prices must be set correctly. The best way to do this is through liquid markets, as in the case of emissions trading. Here, politics merely sets the goal. How that goal is achieved is up to the traders.
A proper price, however, requires proper information. So the second goal must be to provide it. The tendency to regard the environment as a “free good” must be tempered with an understanding of what it does for humanity and how. Thanks to the recent Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the World Bank's annual “Little Green Data Book” (released this week), that is happening. More work is needed, but thanks to technologies such as satellite observation, computing and the internet, green accounting is getting cheaper and easier.
Which leads naturally to the third goal, the embrace of cost-benefit analysis. At this, greens roll their eyes, complaining that it reduces nature to dollars and cents. In one sense, they are right. Some things in nature are irreplaceable—literally priceless. Even so, it is essential to consider trade-offs when analysing almost all green problems. The marginal cost of removing the last 5% of a given pollutant is often far higher than removing the first 5% or even 50%: for public policy to ignore such facts would be inexcusable.
If governments invest seriously in green data acquisition and co-ordination, they will no longer be flying blind. And by advocating data-based, analytically rigorous policies rather than pious appeals to “save the planet”, the green movement could overcome the scepticism of the ordinary voter. It might even move from the fringes of politics to the middle ground where most voters reside.
It takes a nearly superhuman efforst for the environmental movement not to turn its broad public support into workable public policy. It leaves the issue wide open for the GOP to claim. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 30, 2005 6:04 PM
If only we weren't committed to pollution, strip malls and environmental degradation.
Posted by: David Cohen at April 30, 2005 7:14 PMThe environmental left cannot move beyond traditional "command & control" schemes because they are less interested in environmental protection than in ... you guessed it ... command & control. Most of them are addicted to centralized power. They are not at all interested in incentives and disaggregated decision-making.
Posted by: ghostcat at April 30, 2005 11:01 PMIt's always a mistake to focus on means instead of ends.
Posted by: oj at April 30, 2005 11:14 PMUnless the means are really the ends. Then it's a ruse, not a mere mistake.
Posted by: ghostcat at April 30, 2005 11:39 PMExcellent point.
Posted by: oj at April 30, 2005 11:43 PMIf only you would apply it.
Posted by: joe shropshire at May 2, 2005 2:36 AMWhere?
Posted by: oj at May 2, 2005 7:18 AMEverywhere/every time you're tempted by Third Way gobbledygook, which I remember you describing as "statist ends by market means." If the ends are statist it shouldn't make a difference to you what the means are.
Posted by: joe shropshire at May 2, 2005 12:05 PMStatism is their means. Markets ours. We share ends.
Posted by: oj at May 2, 2005 12:13 PMLike what?
Posted by: joe shropshire at May 2, 2005 1:19 PMAlleviating poverty.
Posted by: oj at May 2, 2005 1:34 PMHorsepuck. We could do that for twenty cents on the dollar of what we actually spend. The real end is a jones for power, and it wouldn't hurt you to get off that pipe.
Posted by: joe shropshire at May 2, 2005 2:13 PMAh, yes, our intentions are wholly good--theirs are wholly evil...
Posted by: oj at May 2, 2005 2:18 PMOf course not. Power's a temptation for everyone, and the worst addicts often start with genuinely good intentions. That's why we pay you to keep whacking 'em, not to make common cause. Try pretending the Third Wayers are Darwin sympathizers, that should put your head right.
Posted by: joe shropshire at May 2, 2005 3:03 PMSo if Left and Right ultimately have the same end why not fiddle with the means?
Posted by: oj at May 2, 2005 3:29 PMIf Left and Right ultimately have the same end then it's time to start sharpening the pitchfork.
Posted by: joe shropshire at May 2, 2005 3:44 PMWhich side doesn't want to alleviate poverty: Kerry voters or Bush voters?
Posted by: oj at May 2, 2005 3:48 PMWhich side indulges in massive self-congratulation and self-regard over it, and requires me to play the villain for those to be sustained? Of course we all want poverty alleviated. I just happen to want it alleviated in the same fashion as I want garbage collected, and streets swept, and stray dogs chased: that is, with not one dollar more spent than need be, and not one ounce more prestige attendant than is required to keep the poverty-alleviators showing up for work in the morning. And for that, we need the right to stop playing footsie and get back to work. Swollen-headed do-gooders we got plenty of already.
Posted by: joe shropshire at May 2, 2005 5:09 PMSo this is about your hurt feelings?
Posted by: oj at May 2, 2005 5:14 PMNo, any more than you properly disciplining your own children is about your hurt feelings. You're rewarding the bad behavior of a bunch of 50ish adolescents by letting them strut and preen over what should be routine work; and behavior you reward you get more of.
Posted by: joe shropshire at May 2, 2005 5:21 PMMt children do require me to be the villain. That's what the Father does. But the family requires a Father (Republicans) and a Mother (Democrats) working towards the same end--healthy decent children.
Posted by: oj at May 2, 2005 5:33 PMMother put the red shoes on and went to Memphis, oj. Now it's just you and the kids, who are turning out illiterate glue-sniffing sociopaths. Sorry, but that's the way it's worked out.
Posted by: joe shropshire at May 2, 2005 5:44 PMThe kids are alright.
Posted by: oj at May 2, 2005 6:09 PM