Tuesday, May 23
A laser-guided, heat-seeking, high-calibre titanium warhead to crack a nut
ENVIRONMENTALISM, ECONOMICS
Today's task is to dispel a silly myth that gets repeated ad nauseam and, in my opinion, greens rarely deal with properly. This myth is that "Green policies are bad for the economy". It appears in a number of forms, but ultimately boils down to that statement. Let's look at this one carefully. By "Green policies", what we mean is not so much "the 2006 manifesto of the Green Party of England and Wales" as "policies that prioritise the environment and renewable resources". That's easy enough. What isn't so easy is "the economy".
When we say "the economy", we tend to imagine stock prices, graphs of currencies, FTSEs, GDPs and all sorts of complicared statistics... and our eyes glaze over. And that's a problem, because very often we swallow the numbers - and, more importantly whatever argument is going with them - without questioning whether they make any sense. You see, most economic theory completely ingores the environment and generally calls it an "externality" - something we can't really measure or take into account and so we just hope it goes away. But the environment *does* affect the economy. From the dire effects of deforestation, flooding and washing-away of fertile soil, and all sorts of other things to consumption of finite natural resources, our lives - and their economic viabilities - are profoundly affected by the environment.
If you're still thinking 'wishy washy green argument', then consider this: if we burn up a few millions more barrels of oil this year just so we don't have to bother turning our lights off when we don't need them, then that's going to be a problem when we start running out, right? That makes bad economic sense, doesn't it? Not on the theorists' books. What we'd call wastage, they call growth. Ok, in 50 years' time, they'll criticise, but unless their theory changes, they'll be doing the same thing with whatever they have left. According to all figures that we've got in, idiocy like that is actually good for the economy. To me, that makes the statistics suspect.
See, the success of the economy should be a measure of how well our needs and desires are met and how efficiently this is done. But the reality is, the measure of progress is known as 'consumption'. The more we consume, the better a society we are - irrespective of if we are deriving any actual benefit from it. That's not just artificial, that requires the clubbing-to-death of common sense. Common sense tells us that environmentally friendly policies should, pretty much by definition, be economically friendly policies.
But if you still want to keep that definition of the economy, fine. I just don't think it's of any relevance to the world. I'm not questioning the erudite scholarship that has gone into modern theory and ideals, just the problem that they're practically useless if they are applied without factoring in those externalities. Until it does so, the theory will continue to be misapplied to the detriment of all; and there's no point cracking a nut - no matter how clever your method - unless there's some left to eat.
ENVIRONMENTALISM, ECONOMICS
Today's task is to dispel a silly myth that gets repeated ad nauseam and, in my opinion, greens rarely deal with properly. This myth is that "Green policies are bad for the economy". It appears in a number of forms, but ultimately boils down to that statement. Let's look at this one carefully. By "Green policies", what we mean is not so much "the 2006 manifesto of the Green Party of England and Wales" as "policies that prioritise the environment and renewable resources". That's easy enough. What isn't so easy is "the economy".
When we say "the economy", we tend to imagine stock prices, graphs of currencies, FTSEs, GDPs and all sorts of complicared statistics... and our eyes glaze over. And that's a problem, because very often we swallow the numbers - and, more importantly whatever argument is going with them - without questioning whether they make any sense. You see, most economic theory completely ingores the environment and generally calls it an "externality" - something we can't really measure or take into account and so we just hope it goes away. But the environment *does* affect the economy. From the dire effects of deforestation, flooding and washing-away of fertile soil, and all sorts of other things to consumption of finite natural resources, our lives - and their economic viabilities - are profoundly affected by the environment.
If you're still thinking 'wishy washy green argument', then consider this: if we burn up a few millions more barrels of oil this year just so we don't have to bother turning our lights off when we don't need them, then that's going to be a problem when we start running out, right? That makes bad economic sense, doesn't it? Not on the theorists' books. What we'd call wastage, they call growth. Ok, in 50 years' time, they'll criticise, but unless their theory changes, they'll be doing the same thing with whatever they have left. According to all figures that we've got in, idiocy like that is actually good for the economy. To me, that makes the statistics suspect.
See, the success of the economy should be a measure of how well our needs and desires are met and how efficiently this is done. But the reality is, the measure of progress is known as 'consumption'. The more we consume, the better a society we are - irrespective of if we are deriving any actual benefit from it. That's not just artificial, that requires the clubbing-to-death of common sense. Common sense tells us that environmentally friendly policies should, pretty much by definition, be economically friendly policies.
But if you still want to keep that definition of the economy, fine. I just don't think it's of any relevance to the world. I'm not questioning the erudite scholarship that has gone into modern theory and ideals, just the problem that they're practically useless if they are applied without factoring in those externalities. Until it does so, the theory will continue to be misapplied to the detriment of all; and there's no point cracking a nut - no matter how clever your method - unless there's some left to eat.
# posted by Phugebrins @ 00:45 
