I can see why in general it is stupid since the same line of thinking would lead to economic stagnation (progress would mean we have to pay the people that are indirectly put out of work because the worked in an archaic industry). However, I keep coming to the problem of pollution. It causes definite property damage, and although one alone isn’t responsible, the sum of many actions causes damage. Any ideas about how to answer that?
Less state intervention on property rights and insurance can deal with externalities
The companies will have to internalize such costs or risk lawsuits. Before the late-1830’s it was quite common for property owners in to file ‘nuisance’ injunctions against polluters to a large degree of success. Around 1840 several governments decided that the “public good” was more important than property rights.
You’re right: there are no perfect answers to these things.
Thankfully, most people don’t want to live on a filthy, polluted planet. So this is where our good friend green capitalism (or perhaps even Hoppean social ostracization) comes in. What happens if not enough people care, and nobody buys environmentally safe products–as statists will argue? In that case, we would be just as screwed as under democracy.
Angurse can you find the original reference for the 1830’s law change. I know we all quote it but I can’t find the original reference but serches turnyour comments up a lot along with Walter Block. I need the reference for a paper I’m writing but sofar I only get secondry sources in the searches. Send me an IM.
Check this out.
Well this is what the new derivates game called “carbon credits” are doing. They are supposed to help rid pollution, but yet again this State driven derivative is actually causing more pollution.
[Quote from this article]
(http://seeker401.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/carbon-credit-merry-go-round/):
"These credits can be sold privately or on the international market. Louis Redshaw, head of environmental markets at Barclays Capital predicts that ‘carbon will be the world’s biggest commodity market – and it could become the world’s biggest market overall.’
But that was before the recession. A global fall-off in manufacturing means that companies are producing far less carbon. In recent months, companies in this position have dumped their credits on the market. This has not only provided heavily polluting firms with funds to plug gaps in their balance sheets but has also pushed down prices. Carbon has now dropped to such a level it’s cheaper to burn polluting fossil fuels and buy up credits than find ways of reducing emissions."
Unfortunately not all costs can be internalized. Global warming for example cannot be internalized because the causes are so widely dispersed amongst millions of people
Man influenced climate change cannot be internalized. The reason being, no one understands it. When we understand the effects and correlations, then the market will price it. Right now, the global warming industry is just another subsidzed scientific industrial complex. There is big money in selling armageddon with an enviro-marxist twist.
In what fashion do you expect this to happen if I may ask?
Actually, if you assume global warming is indeed manmade there is no way to properly price it. The very nature of global warming is that climate change is being caused by millions of different entities. A single factory contributes to global warming, but since it requires millions of other factories to do any damage, it’s impossible to really assign damages to this particular actor
Climate change is part of a natural cycle.
And again, climate change is part of a natural cycle which we do not understand, and thus cannot even separate the influences of man from the path of nature. That is why it is impossible to price.
All of the global warming jive is based on taking an unsolvable problem (based upon our current understanding) and proposing a collective solution to make up for the lack of understanding.
That’s your opinion, but a lot of scientists disagree. Neither of us are scienticists or climatologists so I am not debating whether or not climate change is man-made. I’m saying that if it is, it is not something that can be internalized
What scientists? Have you listened to the great many scientists who oppose the current global warming science as a computer modeled sham?
The CC scientists have been a lot more wrong than right with their predictions so far. But then in the 70s, these same folks told us we were going into a new ice age.
But we know it isn’t. There are ice core samples going back thousands of years that show the earth has had periods with higher CO2 than now, and periods where it was significantly warmer than now. The global climate system is complex and ever changing. Even if man was wiped from the face of the earth, periods of climatic change, ice ages, flooding, heavy storms would all carry on.
I’ve already explained why it cannot be priced. Because we are not the sole or even major factor driving it, not to mention, the costs to this point are all based on future projections which have been very wrong in the short term. The real costs of a temperature changes plus or minus one degree centrigrade are too complex for us to measure. In that respect, it’s not just who or what creates climate change, but what are the impacts? How can we prove that a change in temperature only causes negative, and not offsetting positive externalities?
For example, suppose man-made climate change causes a rise in sea levels which wipes out a coastal town. Who can be charged with these damages? That’s what makes this particular brand of externality so difficult to deal with in the private sector
First you have to isolate it was man made at all. That is nearly impossible. Then you have to figure out which men did it. That is also nearly impossible.
Then you have to figure out what benefits offset the losses.
What the watermelons want is for industry to internalize the effects of nature. Things we can’t even understand. It is entirely demented. But again, these are the same folks who were convinced the Wooly Mammoth would make an appearance before a black president.
That’s exactly why free markets don’t work in this case. That’s the point I was trying to make
I think we’re still not connecting. You think that we can’t price the problem because we lack knowledge. I am saying that the lack of knowledge could very well mean there is no problem to price. The same rationale behind pricing climate change could be extended to pricing sunshine or heavy clouds. Precipitation and wind gusts.
Maybe if I flatulate here it really does blow down poorly constructed huts in central Africa.
Ah ok, I see what you’re saying now. Like I said it really comes down to the science of it all. If you think climate change is not man-made and is not a problem and don’t believe in the science, I can see why you think there is no problem to price
No. The science is politicized. It comes down to the truth.
That is a strawman. I never wrote anything of the like. There is more than one set of science. You are apparently unaware of this. You also seem unaware that nature influences climate independent of man. If you are only aware of the last fact, then you have to see the problem in distinguishing what is clearly man made, and what is not.
My suggestion is to do some research into LvMI’s own Dr. Floy Lilley and her experience with climate change and the UN.