Why I’m Still Not An Environmentalist, Global Warming or Not
D.A. Ridgely on Mar 24th 2008
But nothing in the science of economics suggests any fundamental difference between a preference for the Book of Common Prayer and a preference for a powerful shower spray. - Steven E. Landsburg
Over at a different venue I had occasion today to link to what I think is the absolutely brilliant and must read Why I Am Not An Environmentalist by Steven E. Landsburg.
Landsburg’s The Armchair Economist pretty much started the contemporary “popular economics” trend, remains one of the very best of its sort and spurred me on to reading more academic economics. (No, not Samuelson, but Smith and Ricardo and Marshall and even Keynes.)
On the topic of environmentalism in general and global warming in particular, I remain a strong skeptic about the real underlying motives of the first as a political and quasi-religious movement for the very reasons Landsburg articulates better than I can. As for the latter, I have allowed my old (and rapidly aging) friend Ronald Bailey to be my bellweather, lightening rod and canary in the cage. (Some mix of these metaphors works, I’m just not sure which.) As his critics gleefully note with seasonal regularity, Bailey is not himself a scientist; but as those who know him well know, he’s a meticulous researcher whose passion for being correct far exceeds any of his real but mostly reasonable political biases. So when he became convinced that the evidence supported the anthropogenic global warming thesis, I considered his shift from skepticism sufficient evidence, myself, to concur. (This, by the way, raises various interesting questions about the uses and misuses of argument from authority, but we’ll leave that for another occasion.)
What has yet to be explained to my satisfaction, however, is what calculations support, for example, Mr. Bailey’s now favored carbon tax or, for that matter, any of the other proposed solutions, ameliorations, abatements or other fixes, quasi or otherwise, to global warming. As I see it, it remains a purely economic issue. That is, no one is seriously claiming, at least as far as I know, that the current worst case global warming trend would make the planet entirely uninhabitable for human beings.
If that is correct, then even such worst case scenarios boil down to how expensive will the damage be versus how expensive would the fix be. That’s an interesting question and I’d like to know the answer if one is available. I’d also like to know if the question doesn’t boil down (no pun intended) to whether my generation or some subsequent generation bears those costs. All I promised my kids was money for college. I never said a word about paying to save the whole damned planet!
Filed in The Basement, The Biosphere, The Bookshelf
So when [Ron Bailey] became convinced that the evidence supported the anthropogenic global warming thesis, I considered his shift from skepticism sufficient evidence, myself, to concur.
Me too, even though I don’t know Bailey. But I’d read some of his stuff, and he seems pretty intellectually honest, and I figured if the author of a book calling GW an “eco-myth” was now convinced, it was probably time for me to switch opinions, too. As the saying goes, “If the Pope says there’s a God, he’s just doing his job. But if he says there’s no God, he may be on to something.”
A couple of quick comments from reading your post and Landsburg’s letter as well:
- You state that even in the worst case scenario that global climate change will not make the earth uninhabitable. While this may be true, you seem to neglect the fact that it will make vast amounts of land uninhabitable, for instance coastal areas or semi-arid areas that will be significantly impacted by increasing levels of drought. Do those people who currently populate those areas figure into your calculations since you see this issue as “a purely economic” one? Keep in mind that migration from those areas is not wholly an available option. In that case, do those whose lives are affected not have any value? Or am I missing a facet of your reasoning?
- Landsburg’s post seems to make the argument that many of the environmental issues are either or type problems. His example is that of wilderness or a parking lot. He appears to place no value on wilderness other than being wilderness. Does the fact that these wilderness areas provide a greater amount of economic value from recreational uses than potential resource extraction values hold any influence on your economic calculations?
(looks like i had to break up my post)- sorry for the length
- Along these same lines, what of the value of “clean” air or water? When we change land uses from natural areas into residential, commercial etc, there is a significant degradation in terms of water quality for example. The costs to those who make their livelihoods off the water are quite substantial. I live in the Chesapeake Bay area and am frequently confronted by watermen whose lives have been drastically affected by declining stocks due to water pollution. In this case, what economic value is placed on ensuring water quality as development occurs?
- It seems, and please correct me if I am wrong, that many of your arguments, and Landsburg’s, revolve around the utility of a resource/practice/whathaveyou to yourself only. What of those who do value natural resources? Do economic calculations consider the values that those other than the economist hold? While I do not practice religion and place little value on churches etc, I would not suggest that these places have little value other than that of their structure. I guess the question is, how does one account for what other people value?
While I believe that many of my underlying values as they relate to the environment are based in my own moral underpinnings, I can understand those who do not hold such values. But I believe that if we are to try and break everything down into an economic equation, that it must-to some degree- address the values that a large portion of the population holds.
Please do not take my questions as suggesting that you are wrong- I am seriously only trying to understand your rationale and how I, as an environmentalist, can try to structure my arguments in a fashion that will address your concerns. Also, I feel that by using a rational economic argument, that environmentalists can attempt to get “non-believers” on board with some of our proposals and hopefully make progress on those goals on which we can gain consent.
thanks for your time in addressing these questions
nick
Nick, thanks for the comments. You wrote:
You state that even in the worst case scenario that global climate change will not make the earth uninhabitable. While this may be true, you seem to neglect the fact that it will make vast amounts of land uninhabitable, for instance coastal areas or semi-arid areas that will be significantly impacted by increasing levels of drought. Do those people who currently populate those areas figure into your calculations since you see this issue as “a purely economic” one?
First, I’m happy you acknowledge this “may be true.” If so, then yes, we’re talking only about economic costs. The costs for people to move, for example, from a coastal area, the cost of all the capital infrastructure that might be lost as a result, etc., etc. The cost might or might not be, as you put it, vast, but it is still just a cost. People move or stay where they are all the time for purely economic reasons. People might not consciously put a price on whether to have a church or a bit of wildlife preserve in a certain location, but unless everyone is agreed as to what goes where (and we aren’t) then those questions do get resolved either through the price system or something worse (government fiat or violence).
The problem here, and it is not one I can address in a blog thread, is that you see economics as a much narrower field than I do. Not to be snarky at all, but I would strongly encourage you to read the Landsburg book and see if he doesn’t answer some of the very questions you are raising.
Seriously, though, thanks again.
A couple of brief additional points. First, yes, the non-utilitarian “costs” need to be taken into account, as well. One takes them into account by finding out, as best one can, at what price those persons “who do value natural resources” in the sense I think you meant the phrase would choose differently. So, for example, whatever value you might attach to a wilderness area, let’s suppose also that you would be willing to trade that area, have it paved over, to save X number of innocent people from being slaughtered. Of course, that’s an absurd hypothetical, but the fact remains that (1) it involved valuing things without assigning a monetary value and (2) at some point I would hope even the most die-hard environmentalist would say “Pave away.”
Also, you write about how to calculate the cost of development to, in your example Chesapeake fishermen, etc. This is technically called the problem of the commons and the economics trick here is figuring out how to account for the “externalities,” both positive and negative, of development. I’m not saying it’s easy and I’m not saying I always side with developers, either. Ironically, however, the most straightforward way of dealing with most commons problems is to privatize them — to make the waters, or at least the fishing rights, private and thus protectable property, not to make or keep them “public” (and, effectively, nobody’s) property.
Again, I know my responses are overly simplistic here. The one thing I would hope you and other environmentalists would grasp, though, is that economics is only trivially about such things as money and banking, let alone deadly boring stuff like demand curves. What it’s really about is how to allocate scarce resources efficiently and fairly. When environmentalists claim some of those resources “for posterity” or otherwise restrict their availability by public, political means rather than by private market means they are imposing real costs on those with whom they disagree. And more often than not, the result is neither efficient nor fair.
I’ve seen arguments like this before, and I’ve always struggled to pick out exactly where they go wrong. Not to be overly harsh, but I think economics has the same effect on some economists that biology has on some biologists, like Richard Dawkins or PZ Meyers: biology describes a world that does not require a god, but it doesn’t follow that accepting biology should compel atheism. Likewise, economics is neutral between preferences, but it doesn’t follow that WE should be. After all, while economics night be neutral between the Book of Common Prayers and a good shower spray, very few people are.
I think it comes down to whether societies and cultures can have preferences, or whether only individuals do. I suspect the former might be true, and that changes things. Economics only has normative force when it describes the most efficient way to achieve a preference it cannot judge. So, if a society places a value on some sort of environmental activism or equity, economics should be able to describe the most efficient way to achieve it. The kind of cack-handed environmentalism described by Dr. Landsburg probably isn’t it — although I tend to agree with typical liberal priorities, most typical liberal solutions are make me gag a bit.
I think the crucial comment is Dr. Landsburg ‘right’ not to recycle. Certainly he has this right — just as he has the right not to say “please” or “thank you” or hold the elevator door open for the woman with a baby stroller. (Are those example loaded enough?) But he only has that right because he lives in a society that values rights of that kind.
Sorry to double-post, but my first response was written before your second response to Nick.
“The one thing I would hope you and other environmentalists would grasp, though, is that economics is only trivially about such things as money and banking, let alone deadly boring stuff like demand curves. What it’s really about is how to allocate scarce resources efficiently and fairly. When environmentalists claim some of those resources “for posterity” or otherwise restrict their availability by public, political means rather than by private market means they are imposing real costs on those with whom they disagree.”
There is a bit of straw-manning here. I’ll admit that many environmentalists are infected with the same bizarre anti-capitalism that is endemic on the (capital-L) Left. But not all are. And not all are economically illiterate.
It comes down to preferences, again: specifically, in my view, the degree to which we discount the future value of something. (Think about the controversy in the economics community over the Stern Review on the economics of climate change: by using a arbitrary and non-standard future discount rate, Stern seems to have over-valued the costs incurred by doing nothing in response to climate change, skewing his results.)
The “real costs” that are being imposed depend, in part, on the degree to which we discount the future value of something. There is room then for real disagreement over the “real costs” that are being imposed. Think about the solution to a reiterated Prisoner’s Dilemma. If the Prisoner’s Dilemma is reiterated, the players move from the (putatively) inefficient to the (putatively) efficient solution, IF they take into account the value of future rounds of play in their original decision. But there is nothing that says they OUGHT to have a particular value they place on the future. It is entirely rational to prefer the big payoff of a single round more than the discounted sum of multiple rounds. (Most environmentalists will accuse non-recyclers of just this kind of thinking and valuing.)
And if there is a real difference between the future value of a resource, economics cannot adjudicate and decide which one is the “real” value, or the “real” cost incurred from action/inaction. A difference of this kind can only be adjudicated politically.
My use of brackets was interpreted as an attempt at formatting by WordPress. The key sentences above should read:
“If the Prisoner’s Dilemma is reiterated, the players move from the (putatively) inefficient [defect, defect] to the (putatively) efficient [cooperate, cooperate] solution, IF they take into account the value of future rounds of play in their original decision. But there is nothing that says they OUGHT to have a particular value they place on the future. It is entirely rational to prefer the big payoff of a single [defect, cooperate] round more than the discounted sum of multiple [cooperate, cooperate] rounds.
I don’t feel able to comment on the political discusion but would like to add a couple of points on a tangent. I actually work as an ecological consultant advising developers on how to minimise harm to rare species and discussions about environmentalism always annoy me because.
1. There is a confusion between the science of ecology, which can tell you how likely it is that a species will go extinct and the activism that tells you extinction is bad. Ecology *is* a branch of biology concerned with the interaction of organisms with each other and their abiotic environment, it *is not* a moral philosophy that determines the value of an organism.
2. There is an assumption that economic activity always harms biodiversity. In fact it can be the best way of maintaining or creating a habitat that depends on human management. From my own experience I know of cases where constructing ponds, mainly intended for road drainage, led to more wildlife in an area.
Casey, thanks for the comments. You wrote regarding my second comment:
There is a bit of straw-manning here. I’ll admit that many environmentalists are infected with the same bizarre anti-capitalism that is endemic on the (capital-L) Left. But not all are. And not all are economically illiterate.
Absolutely true. My apologies.
Thank you DA for replying to my post and seeing that I am not trying to be antagonistic. I truly am trying to determine how economic models integrate those environmental externalities that we are discussing. so lets see if i can try and summarize what you are saying (once again please correct me if i misunderstand something- i am not wholly illiterate in economics but by no means am i well versed in it!- and i also understand that this is a large topic to handle in a thread- could you point me towards any other resources you feel i should read?)
- I think we to a point agree that many of these issues do have real life economic prices- such as the cost to pack up and move. and that those costs are both in terms of money and energy. but i feel that there are too many factors effecting our (that is the first world country) views of the values of those lives effected (those in the third world). So i guess my question has to do with how our value systems might be prejudiced against those who hold lower economic values (the third worlders) than a member of our community. does that make sense?
is there a word limit in the comments? im having some issues posting…maybe my issue is that i write too much?
- as i write this i am looking back at your statement about the tradeoff between paving wilderness and saving X peoples lives. this seems to get the question i tried to pose above- you say that we do place value on lives but not in terms of a monetary one. i guess maybe some of my confusion has to do with the models that it seems economics relies upon and my lack of understanding of those models. how can a model integrate a value when that value is not necessarily expressed in the same terms as the remaining values in the equation? or am i thinking too much in terms of mathematical models and not social ones?
im going to think over this for a while and try to research some more on the economics issue - i have too many questions to ask in this type of discussion.
but i want to thank each of you for helping to explain your opinions and in a gracious and thoughtful way. this is why i read this blog- you all actually value real discussion and thought.
thanks
nick
To address Matt’s comment- I too work closely with the development community although as the one who reviews your conservation plans.
1- I agree, ecology does not inform one on how to value, morally, a species. those beliefs come from each of our moral value systems.
2- Once again, I agree that we often do see that false assumption that economic activity and the environment are at odds. This is absolutely not true as you note. However, with your description of the increased prevalence of wildlife due to the creation of a stormwater pond (i assume) treating a roadway- i would be inclined to question whether or not that truly serves as a benefit to the natural environment. I have often seen cases where these ponds, and their associated clearing and earth alteration create new vectors for invasive species to enter the local ecosystem, create additional water quality impacts to receiving waters and many others. Also, you presume that the addition of wildlife in this area is by default a good thing- The type of wildlife introduced may be one (im thinking of species like geese) that overtaxes the capacity of that area. So while the pond may be a positive for some areas, it is not necessarily a gain for all.
“no one is seriously claiming, at least as far as I know, that the current worst case global warming trend would make the planet entirely uninhabitable for human beings.”
No, but it could displace a lot of people, dry up glacial water sources (on which billions depend for drinking water) and many other quantifiable troubles.
Which is why cost-benefit analysis is vital. Many people focus on the costs of “fixing” AGW through taxation or carbon trading. But it’s entirely possible that global warming mitigation would actually produce better methods for both feeding people and providing energy. This would create new industries and jobs, with all the associated ripple effects.
Fossil-based economies have never been and never will be sustainable, so all the arguments about AGW are moot. Whether or not the planet ever runs completely out of fossil fuels, soon we will not be able to produce them at the rate necessary to maintain economic growth.
Either way you look at it, we need to implement sustainable methods in order for living standards to just keep pace with the population. If we want to increase prosperity, we’re going to have to do even better.
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