The Economist: Rescuing Environmentalism

The magazine’s editors note that environmentalism is already changing. 6

Okay, so they're a little late to the party, but the Economist's editors have read their Reapers. They also recognize that environmentalism is, in fact, changing already despite its recent setbacks in the United States.

They write:

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.

I'm going to ignore that last slur and the general historical inaccuracy of the piece and just say: welcome. There's room for everyone.
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  1. ninshubur Posted 3:00 am
    22 Apr 2005

    HmmmmWho, exactly, are those greens "rolling their eyes"? I subscribed briefly to the Economist thinking I might learn something, but found it generally badly written and misinformed. That last "slur" -- which I am not a big enough person to ignore -- proves my point.
    To not know that environmentalists of all stripes have long been working hard with local and state governments on cost-benefit analyses of sustainable technology and all that stuff strikes me as profoundly ignorant. This kind of generalized nonsense is the reason Michael and Ted are getting so much radio time today.

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  2. praktike Posted 3:06 am
    22 Apr 2005

    I look at it this wayOn balance, having the Economist pay attention to things like valuation of ecosystem services is a good thing. So even if they're full of it because they haven't been paying attention to the origins of such work, I'm happy to have them acknowledge that the concerns are serious and that there are things that need to happen to address them.
    As for Michael and Ted, I think their influence has been positive even if it was in many ways a big FU to the environmental movement.

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  3. ninshubur Posted 3:12 am
    22 Apr 2005

    You're absolutely rightBut I'm just not that evolved.

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  4. raverill Posted 7:55 pm
    22 Apr 2005

    Ordinary VotersA quote at the end of the Economist story:
    "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."
    The last election shows me that the "ordinary voter" is not interested in "analytically rigorous" anything. If they were, we would have different people running the US gov't. We have vast numbers of "ordinary voters" believing in a god that actually wants us to wreck the planet just before the pious among us get "raptured" into heaven. That kind of non-thinking does not lend itself to rational analysis.

    I'm optimistic; the planet will survive human onslought. Civilization as we know it will not.

    RVA

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  5. Biodiversivist's avatar

    Biodiversivist Posted 3:39 pm
    24 Apr 2005

    That was a good post raverillWe need some intelligent solutions. Economists are historians, not soothsayers. They make a living explaining why things happened.

    http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com

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  6. praktike Posted 10:55 pm
    24 Apr 2005

    here's the dilemmaIn our political system, only when things become crises does action commensurate with the scale of a given problem take place. The trouble, however, is that folks like Paul Ehrlich got their initial predictions wrong, and so a lot of people now view this global warming stuff with a jaundiced eye.

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