Imagine a group of 100 fisherman faced with declining stocks and worried about the sustainability of their resource and their livelihoods. One of them works out that the total sustainable catch is about 20% of what everyone is catching now (with some uncertainty of course) but that if current trends of increasing catches (about 2% a year) continue the resource would be depleted in short order. Faced with that prospect, the fishermen gather to decide what to do. The problem is made more complicated because some groups of fishermen are much more efficient than the others. The top 5 catchers, catch 20% of the fish, and the top 20 catch almost 75% of the fish. Meanwhile the least efficient 50 catch only 10% of the fish and barely subsist. Clearly, fairness demands that the top catchers lead the way in moving towards a more sustainable future.
The top 5 do start discussing how to manage the transition. They realise that the continued growth in catches – driven by improved technology and increasing effort – is not sustainable, and make a plan to reduce their catch by 80% over a number of years. But there is opposition – manufacturers of fishing boats, tackle and fish processing plants are worried that this would imply less sales for them in the short term. Strangely, they don’t seem worried that a complete collapse of the fishery would mean no sales at all – preferring to think that the science can’t possibly be correct and that everything will be fine. These manufacturers set up a number of organisations to advocate against any decreases in catch sizes – with catchy names like the Fisherfolk for Sound Science, and Friends of Fish. They then hire people who own an Excel spreadsheet program do “science” for them – and why not? They live after all in a free society.
After spending much energy and money on trying to undermine the science – with claims that the pond is much deeper than it looks, that the fish are just hiding, that the records of fish catches were contaminated by being done near a supermarket – the continued declining stocks and smaller and smaller fish make it harder and harder to sound convincing. So, in a switch of tactics so fast it would impress Najinsky, the manufacturers’ lobby suddenly decides to accept all that science and declares that the ‘fish are hiding’ crowd are just fringe elements. No, they said, we want to help with this transition, but …. we need to be sure that the plans will make sense. So they ask their spreadsheet-wielding “advocacy scientists” to calculate exactly what would happen if the top 5 (and only the top 5) did cut their catches by 80%, but meanwhile everyone else kept increasing their catch at the current (unsustainable rate). Well, the answers were shocking – the total catch would be initially still be 84% of what it is now and would soon catch up with current levels. In fact, the exact same techniques that were used to project the fishery collapse imply that this would only delay the collapse by a few years! and what would be the point of that?
The fact that the other top fishermen are discussing very similar cuts and that the fisherfolk council was trying to coordinate these actions to minimise the problems that might emerge, are of course ignored and the cry goes out that nothing can be done. In reality of course, the correct lesson to draw is that everything must be done.
In case you think that no-one would be so stupid as to think this kind of analysis has any validity, I would ask that you look up the history of the Newfoundland cod fishery. It is indeed a tragedy.
And the connection to climate? Here.
I’ll finish with a quotation attributed to Edmund Burke, one the founders of the original conservative movement:
“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”
See here for a much better picture of what coordinated action could achieve.
#290 Nick Gotts
“Pity you weren’t around to argue the slaveowners’ case, Rene. After all, they would surely never have abused their property, would they?”
I do not share this view that people and trees can be lumped into the same category.
“When a company owns a piece of tropical forest, the most profitable thing to do with it is generally to harvest the saleable trees, and …use the land for cattle grazing or oil palm plantations, destroying its biodiversity and destroying the livelihood of local people in the process. So that’s what they do.”
Some value, jobs etc, are created by harvesting the trees, while others are destroyed. You are implicitly assuming the latter is greater than the former, or that rights have been walked over. But can you actually show it?
For example, are the local peoples’ ownerships of the forests routinely being violated? And do you have a calculation showing that the value of biodiversity is always greater than that of what is being farmed?
Rene Cheront,
You were arguing that owners do not abuse their property. I showed conclusively with the example of slavery that you are wrong. If owners even of people are willing to abuse them for profit, is it likely that owners of animals and forests will not? Of course to you “abuse” means “reduce the potential to generate profit for the owner”, but even on this narrow definition, as has already been pointed out, it can be economically quite rational to “mine” an animal population or environment destructively, then reinvest the profit elsewhere. But of course to you, maximising profit can never be wrong, can it?
“For example, are the local peoples’ ownerships of the forests routinely being violated?”
Yes. If you had any real interest in their welfare, you would already know that. If you decide to educate yourself, you could start at http://www.survival-international.org/.
“And do you have a calculation showing that the value of biodiversity is always greater than that of what is being farmed?”
Value to whom? Value of what kind? Over what timescale? I am sure the irreplaceable loss of species means nothing to you and your fellow market-worshippers – and of course under your favoured system, it will be those who care for money above all else who get to make the decisions.
Re #299:
Kevin,
I know that you were being sarcastic, but Texas on a hot summer’s day truly is perfect for solar thermal and PV energy generation. Living in Austin I see thousands of acres of rooftops, parking lots and city streets suitable for PV installations. And there are former gravel and rock quarry sites in the area that may be suitable for solar thermal plants and/or pumped storage. In aggregate many megawatts of potential power. Utilizing these potential sites has the benefits of generating power near where it is consumed, avoiding the need for additional transmission infrastructure, and the peak generation will occur at the same time as the peak consumption.
One of the most attractive sites is right downtown where highway I-35 splits into elevated north and south lanes for several miles. I would love to see the area between the elevated roadways roofed with architectural glass PV modules mounted on lightweight trusses. The array would be roughly 50 meters wide by 4 kilometers long. At 100 watts per square meter it would generate about 20 MW, plus it would shade and cool the roadway below it. Also I feel it would be a great symbol of Austin’s commitment to renewable energy.
I do wish that you and the other neo-Luddites would put your creative energies towards solutions rather than to trying to impede the needed changes to BAU here in the US. If you don’t succeed in impeding the switch to renewable energy then you’ve wasted your time and the time of many other people. If you do succeed in impeding progress then you’ve condemned future generations to a likely disasterous climate. Is that really how you want to spend the finite days of your life?
The timber industry in the PNW fought replanting laws intended to force them to practice something close to sustained yield management, back in the 1970s.
You have nothing but ideology backing your view. I have mud on my boots and first-hand experience which tells me that in practice, your ideology is not reflected by real-world practice.
I doubt there are many disciplines that deal with the tragedy of the commons more than marine resource management, so as a marine biologist it’s kind of puzzling to me to see Rene catch so much heat as some clueless, out of touch economist and even to see the tragedy of the commons called a bogus concept. That’s certainly news to me since privatization of overexploited, shared resources is a method that is widely and successfully used in marine management. It’s been used in some form (and worked) for cod, pollock, giant clams, corals, and even whole coral reefs. Outside of the marine realm it’s also worked for alligators, bison, elephants, and rhinos.
As Tom already pointed out, most of the criticism has been of straw men. I have not seen any call from Rene for privatization of everything, nor does privatization of one resource imply some slippery slope. Privatization is just ONE method for dealing with the tragedy of the commons and it definitely does work, but only when applied to appropriate cases. It is not a one-size-fits-all solution and I haven’t seen anyone suggesting it is.
It’s only an appropriate answer when:
1)There is an overused, common resource that is unmanaged.
2)The effective unit of conservation is a unit that can be encompassed by the ownership agreement.
3)There is competition between several owners (not a single owner or just a few large owners).
4)There are not comparable common resources available outside of the ownership deal (i.e. you can’t just opt out of the agreement without negative consequences).
The examples of water rights in Bolivia, logging in the PNW, whaling, and CO2 rights don’t meet these criteria, so showing that they don’t work isn’t very strong criticism of privatization as a method of conservation.
Also, privatization does not necessarily mean farming a resource. In the examples of elephants, rhinos, and coral reefs, it has meant earning revenue from eco-tourism. In each of these cases, private ownership has succeeded where government regulation and enforcement failed previously.
Re James (281)-
I think dhogaza’s point, which I agree with, is that the reservoirs and streams with altered flow are valid inclusions in the land use of hydro power whether they create new habitat for some species or not. In my former home state of Alabama we used to lead the world in diversity of freshwater fish, mollusks, and amphibians. Now, due mainly to the impacts of dams, we also rank near the top of the list for extinctions of those same groups. Their habitat has been destroyed completely by dam building (not to mention the numerous towns that were also flooded). How is their case different than spraying herbicide in the desert and why should it not be included in land-use figures? By similar logic one might argue that building a city is 0 land use because while it might displace some species, it provides habitat for others like rats, pigeons, and cockroaches.
Blackdog (#279) No you didn’t come to realclimate to learn, you came looking for a reason to go back to your friends and crow about how “dem bad librul eggheds gonna tak everytin frum us”. The tragedy of the commons is not an allegory or made up story, but rather the history of how a few large corporations nearly/may have destroyed the Grand Banks and the livelihood of tens of thousands northeast fisherman. The efforts of a few to continue to make a profit at the expense of the common good is at issue. The Newfoundland/New England fisheries is merely one more example of how science has been ignored
Actually the timber industry in the PNW used to argue quite seriously that liquidation of old-growth forest by clearcutting was preferable to preservation, because the shrubby plant growth that first repopulates clearcuts lead to an increase in deer. More deer means “better habitat” even if significant biodiversity is lost.
My (limited) knowledge regarding the cases when it works leads me to believe the successful schemes have been due to partial privatization under management goals set by a government regulatory structure.
I don’t see any evidence that rene is discussing this kind of mixed strategy.
Likewise, here in the PNW, the timber industry today advertises its sustainable practices on TV, telling everyone that when they log their lands, they replant them, ensuring that the
foresttree farm will yield timber products for future generations. They advertise that they don’t liquidate their holdings, then run. They also point proudly to streamside buffers, etc.And it’s true, they don’t. Forest practices on private land here are considerably better than they were forty years ago.
What they’re not saying, though, is that they bitterly fought Oregon’s replanting law back forty years ago, and they have also bitterly fought laws limiting clearcut sizes, streamside buffers, etc.
What we’ve seen is, despite their screaming, is that they can make money even when forced to do take better care of their land than they would if left to their own means. The regulatory framework keeps the playing field more level for those who *want* to treat their land responsibly, and look at its long rather than short term value.
I suggest you reread Rene Cheront’s contributions. In particular, @144:
“> And this is why those advocating private ownership of everything on Earth are regarded as lunatics. – Jim Eager
Is there any rationale behind this attitude?” – Rene Cheront
Of course, if Cheront does not advocate private ownership of everything that can possibly be privatised he can say so, but I’d be surprised. I think I know “libertarian” rhetoric when I see it.
On the “Tragedy of the Commons”, as Hardin himself later admitted, this was a misnomer. He claimed he had simply omitted “unmanaged”, but historically, all the “commons” in England (where the term originates) were managed – the term implied a certain form of collective management. George Monbiot has argued that Hardin’s article played a “tragic” role in justifying the state seizure and subsequent privatization of communally managed lands across the world. See
The Tragedy of Enclosure.
Sorry, #307 is addressed to Mike G.
> restoration
People are doing that working on whatever little bit they have or take responsibility for. The best how-to book I know is:
The Earth Manual: How to Work on Wild Land Without Taming It
Malcolm Margolin (1997) Heyday Books ISBN 0930588185
Using Firefox and the BookBurro extension, it’s easy to find.
Except, if you’re cutting limbs, and _don’t_ want to produce a nice big hole in the tree for wildlife to enlarge, don’t use Margolin’s method, use Shigo’s cuts so it heals over quickly and cleanly instead:
http://forestry.about.com/od/biographies/p/alex_shigo.htm
Start with your back yard.
Ah, Nigel (291), you are aware that there is no satellite coverage over that central black disc and are just joking, right?
James wrote: “Yes, I know you’ve cited that study before, and therefore I will be considerably blunter in expressing my opinion of it, which comes down to four words: garbage in, garbage out.”
Yes, I know that you have off-handedly dismissed Jacobson’s detailed, quantitative, peer-reviewed study before, because it doesn’t support your opinions, for which you have never provided any factual basis whatsoever.
You have given no substantive criticism of Jacobson’s data, methods or results. You just dismiss them.
Again: Jacobson looked at a range of impacts, including environmental, land use and wildlife impacts, of various technologies for generating electricity, as well as for biofuels. His detailed, quantitative analysis — not “assumptions” as you assert — found that wind was best, and concentrating solar thermal was second best.
On the other hand, you assert that there are “many” solutions that are better than concentrating solar thermal when it comes to environmental impacts.
But you don’t say what these “many” solutions are (although you do advocate nuclear power, which Jacobson’s study ranked as worst, tied with coal-with-CCS).
Nor do you give any substantive evidence to support any claim that these unspecified “many” solutions are better in terms of environmental impacts than concentrating solar thermal power.
This looks to me like a case where genuine research, and detailed quantitative analysis of a question, are running up against the immovable object of an entrenched opinion.
Barton Paul Levenson Says (11 May 2009 at 7:24)
“EL writes:
When your in Texas on a nice hot summers day, what are you going to do when wind power drops to 4% capacity with all those air conditioners running?
Draw power from solar thermal, photovoltaic, geothermal, and biomass power plants?”
Please do think about this a bit. If you’ve invested money to build a geothermal power plant (which by nature has constant output), are you going to keep it idle most of the time, just so it can provide power to run air conditioners when the wind’s not blowing? Or are you instead going to sell your power to that industrial complex down the road that needs power 24/7, and will be SO happy to shut down on hot, windless days?
There seems to be a common belief that all this other generation is just going to be sitting around idle, waiting for the wind to drop. If wind’s a major fraction of the generation on the grid, that other generation is either going to be committed elsewhere, or will be shut down because the owners can’t make enough profit to cover maintenance. For wind to be viable as major generation, it has to provide its own backup. That’s not impossible, but it will significantly increase the cost.
“Has it escaped your attention that while wind is most abundant at night, sunlight is most abundant during the day?”
Has it escaped your attention that neither hot, cloudy & calm days nor hot & calm nights are at all unusual?
Rene, here is an example of the general philosophy that I’m talking about, courtesy of the following source:
Professor Christopher Miller, University of Salford
“Environmental Rights”, 1998.
1) On the need for ownership of everything:
By this logic, we could also exert ownership of the atmosphere by putting a lot of space-based weaponry, such as lasers, projectiles and nuclear weapons, in orbit. But why would we want to do this? Never mind the fact that pollutants that go into the air end up in the lakes, rivers and oceans, either… we are not talking about science, we are talking about marketing – but here is why we need to militarize space:
2) On the right to breathe clean air, or the right to prevent your neighbor from polluting the air you breathe:
You see, if we have ‘common property resources’ that are not privately owned, this will then give communists (or is it fascists?) a foothold which they will use to eliminate individual rights. At the very least, the commons will be abused. That’s modern neoclassical socio-economic theory. The inverse argument is that anything that is privately owned will be abused, and only ‘common property resources’ will be protected . That’s Marxist socio-economic theory. Both are simplistic nonsense in isolation, and both notions were lifted from Adam Smith, out of context at that. In neoclassical and Marxist economic theory, there is no room for climate science, or any kind of science – they both seem to be primarily concerned with marketing a political ideology, not with rational analysis.
3) On species extinction – make sure you have finished your coffee before reading the following, or you might ruin your keyboard:
Someone prepare a padded cell, please. Adam Smith was right…
“No regard will be paid to truth, morals, or decency in the doctrines inculcated.”
re#296 Barton Paul Levenson
You ask why I think that a renewable only solution is not politically feasible. My response as follows: 1) many nations (eg India) are already committed to expanding use of nuclear power, 2) some regions (eg Europe) lack sufficient renewable potential to energise themselves and 3) 4th generation nuclear power will (in my possibly naive view) offer the cheapest option for CO2 free energy. I am not suggesting that pursuit of renewables is in any way misplaced where appropriate.
I regard Price-Anderson Act as a way of maximising the profits of insurance companies rather than as a subsidy to the nuclear industry. The US taxpayer has never had to bail out the nuclear industry for nuclear accidents which have occurred in the past and it seems that the economic magnitude of any conceiveable civil nuclear accident has been greatly exaggerated (a judgement easier to make in retrospect). Be that as it may, I concur with Tom Blees (Presription for the Planet) in recommending that operation of fast breeders should be under direct government control and this would make the P-A Act irrelevant. I would also suggest that The Nuclear Waste Fund uses some of the money that it collects from the nuclear industry to pay for the licensing and commissioning of a decent sized IFR which could start producing energy from “waste”. If the waste was paid for, it would fund the insurance payments of existing nuclear operators and, ultimately, Yucca Mountain would become redundant.
Obviously, if fast breeders are to make an important and timely contribution, matters will have to be expedited by a strong political leader (whom I hope you might have)
The tragedy of the commons is a shared-resource story, and the human dynamics are certainly relevant to climate. However, the atmosphere is more of a dump than a resource. The American way of life is to dump thoughtlessly and move on, and the rest of the world has found that short-term prosperity is helped by avoiding the cost of proper waste disposal. A good example of this way of thinking is the coal ash ponds in Tennessee, which burst their containment last December and created the George W. Bush National Park.
But now the atmospheric dump is getting full, and the dumpers are insisting on free dumping allowances (cap-and-trade as envisioned by the Waxman-Markey bill, and as practiced in Europe). A low dumping fee (cost per ton of CO2), in addition to free permits, is said to be vital to American prosperity. So maybe we need a parable illustrating a Tragedy of the Dump.
Secular Animist: Mark Jacobson’s study has some serious problems, from numerous angles.
Big oil undermining biofuel research, warns watchdog
April 27, 2007 – Exclusive
By Dana Childs, inside greentech
That was followed up by a false claim by the PR section:
The agreement is that Exxon, Schlumberger, Toyota and Stanford all get a representative on the 5-person review panel that signs off on which projects get funded – it’s in the agreement. Plus a 5-year extendable exlusive license on any intellectual property generated at GCEP. As far as the paper goes, see the conclusions:
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs. Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.
Are biofuels really worse than coal carbon capture and sequestration? Notice that biofuels were the only fuels used by humans for thousands of years – and yet the atmospheric CO2 levels stayed constant.
Notice also that a rapid increase in biofuel production (coupled with the elimination of corn-fed confined-animal swine and poultry farms, as well as subsidized corn exports) would send demand for petroleum down by as much as 25%, thereby cutting the oil price to even lower lows, which would be a nightmare for all the investors who bought in at $140 a barrel. Sometimes, when you gamble, you lose – but that doesn’t give you the right to manipulate energy markets, does it?
Notice also that confined animal feeding lots (the destination of ~50% of the U.S. corn crop) are point sources of methane, ammonia and other noxious gases, especially due to the high concentration of manure. While eliminating them might raise the price of meat slightly, it would vastly improve the safety of the food supply.
Granted, biofuel production in the U.S. needs to be made fossil fuel-free over the entire lifecycle, or it won’t actually be a replacement for fossil fuels – but Jacobson’s analysis is not a valid life-cycle assessment for biofuels. For example, Brazilian sugarcane ethanol is pretty close to the zero-fossil-fuel ideal – but not Kansas coal-fired corn ethanol.
SecularAnimist Says (11 May 2009 at 11:16):
“Yes, I know that you have off-handedly dismissed Jacobson’s detailed, quantitative, peer-reviewed study before, because it doesn’t support your opinions, for which you have never provided any factual basis whatsoever.”
No? Then I have to acknowledge my amazement at your selective reading skills :-)
“You have given no substantive criticism of Jacobson’s data, methods or results. You just dismiss them.”
Perhaps because what I’m dismissing is the assumptions being input to the study? Just to hit a few of those assumptions (references to paper sections, and apoloties for any slight misquotings, since I have to retype since I can’t cut & paste from a pdf.):
4b) Nuclear power plant construction time – he uses 10-19 years, while admitting the actual numbers from Japan & Europe are in the 4-9 year range – and lifetime, an artifically low 40 years.
4d) States “Because the production of nuclear weapons material is occuring only in countries that have developed civilian nuclear energy programs…” This is false, both in the present (North Korea & Iran), and historically (USA & USSR for certain, possibly Britain, France & China, developed nuclear weapons prior to a civilian power program.
5) Adds possible effects of nuclear war as impact of nuclear power, when (as above) this is a purely political matter, as logical as assuming that WWII was caused by fossil fuel proliferation. Indeed, if we want to get into speculation, we could consider the effects of the major conventional wars that didn’t happen because one or both sides had nuclear weapons :-)
6.4) Includes “buffer space” around nuclear plants as a significant land use impact, even though the “…regions are generally left as open space…”, and thus have zero impact.
The study does not (as far as I can tell) explicitly set out its criteria for environmental impacts, but it seems to implicitly devalue open, non-human-used space. The closest I find to consideration of the environmental impact of solar power plants is in section 8: “…impacts are proportional to the footprint area in Fig. 5… but less proportional to footprint than other energy sources since much of PV in the near future will be located in arid regions…”.
Now that seems to me to be an explicit devaluation of arid land – it’s worthless, so cover it with solar panels – and one that might well have been inserted in order to force the study outcome.
Also, as pointed out in an earlier post, impact is emphatically NOT proportional to land area alone, but to what is done to that area. The area used by a hydro dam is still a living ecosystem, albeit a changed one. Wind turbines may kill birds & bats, but the plants & ground-dwelling animals are little affected. The buffer zones around nuclear plants can be valuable wildlife reserves. Land scraped bare, covered, and dosed with herbicides is DEAD.
#279 Blackdog:
“When the scientists reveal their bias it becomes difficult to trust their science. True or not, because of the obvious political leanings of the author the science just seems like a cover for a social engineering project. It would lend credence to your mission if you stuck to the science and left the politics to other sites.”
Such a thoughtless demand. Surely you can do better.
You’re a little behind the curve here, fella. There are several kinds of science involved with this topic, including social and political science. Meanwhile, history tells us that in cases such as this scientist are inevitably required to be involved with policy debates.
How about a little example of how wrong you are, from history?
In times gone by, ignorant as we were, illnesses were attributed to various causes– “miasma”, “imbalances of the bodily humours”, etc. Methodical investigation (aka “science”) eventually removed doubt and ambiguity about the root cause of many sicknesses.
Even as our increasing skill with the scientific method increased, leading us to steady progress in clinical medicine, many of us (and here I’m talking about the You of We) clung to and promoted outmoded, dangerous ideas and practices due to intellectual laziness, vested interests or just plain dilettante affection for pointless “debate”.
As fundamental knowledge and consequent practice improves, it’s not at all uncommon to see scientific activity collide directly with the world of politics. In the area of microbiological pathogens, medical activity became less dominated by the need to prove the existence of microorganisms, shifting instead to public policy outcomes.
You for instance may not believe in microorganisms because you can’t see them with your naked eye but the preponderance of evidences says you’re wrong, something that inevitably leads to policy changes and, for the recalcitrant (You, again), temporary frustration. In the area of microbiological pathogens much time, effort and discussion was needed to move our habits out of the Dark Ages and bring them into synchronization with recently discovered facts. In the middle of this time there were a lot of guys wearing funny hats and pointy shoes (You, again) staunchly defending the existence of demons, cats sucking our breath away in the night, etc., arrayed against people with microscopes and test tubes. Guess who was right?
That’s where we are today with regard to climate science. Akin to transitional days of medicine, you’ll find climate scientists becoming involved in public policy debates. Staying silent is irresponsible and attempting to pay respect to ideas known to be wrong is counterproductive to human progress.
When London was been decimated by cholera, newly enlightened medical investigators and practitioners were key members of the effort needed to modernize the potable water supply and sewer systems of the city. Their repeated intervention into what was by then mostly a political effort was required to overcome public resistance to change. They found themselves naturally aligned with public spirited politicians in the effort to put down entrenched interests, in the case of London operators of urban wells, Thames water carriers and night soil haulers. If these scientists and medical practitioners had remained silent many more deaths from cholera would have ensued, needlessly.
How about making a little effort to see the big picture, ok? That way you won’t be an unwitting member of the latter day equivalent of the s___t shoveler’s union.
TokyoTom and Mike G, you need to go back and read Rene’s posts before making comments about knocking down a strawman, where he/she says (among other things):
(22) In general, a Tragedy of the Commons is where property rights are not in place. And one averts a Tragedy of the Commons, by ensuring property rights are clearly defined.
(58) Hank Roberts @ 30: You are mistaken that markets don’t give ownership of the future. Many do – forests are one example…The only issue is whether the property rights in question – eg of whales or fish – are sufficiently clearly delineated.
(90) This is because the whales were not owned. If they became farm animals like any other, they would be as unlikely to face extinction as chickens and cattle are.
(92) Harvesting trees is not necessarily irresponsible. (in response to Hank Roberts’ example of a private landowner that was aggressively trying to cut redwoods as fast as possible.
(105) The root problem here is the officialdom that obstructs rather than facilitates tradeable ownership of the land, thereby engineering a lack of competition.
(112) Neither cows nor chickens face extinction, these mishaps notwithstanding. With the odd exception, people do not knowingly or deliberately abuse their own own property, since this is self-defeating.
(131) The point at issue, which still stands, is that farmed animals are the least likely of all animals to face extinction. This is because although mistakes may be made from time to time, people attempt to look after their own property. This is the opposite of a tragedy of the commons scenario, where unowned property is abused.
And you say I’m taking down strawmen. Please. Rene Cheront has done nothing but make sweeping assertions, without any sort of backing evidence or defense, while several of us have provided specific examples demonstrating these to be false based on our knowledge of resource management (and with no response).
But if that’s not enough, here’s another. Did the plains Indians in N. America “own” the bison? Did they nearly destroy them in a tragedy of the commons (no)? Then who did? The Euro-American market hunters with their new transcontinental railroad and repeating rifles. And what was instrumental in the bison not being driven to extinction? None other than the herd that survived due to their federal protection on public land (in Yellowstone NP). So who “owned” those bison? And yet you’re going to tell me it was a “lack of ownership” that nearly wiped them out? Yeah OK.
Who “owns” the trees on state and federal lands? How are they valued and managed there, in comparison to private lands? Go up to the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan and tell me that there’s any comparison between the forest structure (and carbon storage, and wildlife habitat, and micro-climate) of the forests in the Porcupine Mountain State Park (state) or Sylvania wilderness area (federal) compared to the private timber lands around them. Or pick your own location if you don’t like that one.
As for the whole “domestication” argument, it doesn’t even deserve a reply it’s so breathtakingly stupid. Only an economist or businessman could think in such terms.
In neoclassical and Marxist economic theory, there is no room for climate science, or any kind of science – they both seem to be primarily concerned with marketing a political ideology, not with rational analysis.
Science is such a big party pooper. Intrudes on all kinds of fun ideas.
I`ll let Rene correct me if I`m wrong, but I don`t think that Rene has asserted that all resources MUST be privatized (as opposed to being owned and managed by communities or subject to some public regulation) or that private ownership is perfect, but that he`s simply pointing out that resources that are un-owned and are subject to open-access commons exploitation get trashed.
There is ample room for disagreement over the best approaches to such resource problems, as corruption, favoritism and incompetence are inescapably linked to government action. I think Rene was referring to this in connection to tropical deforestation, where what others call “commons” are in fact either lands held by indigenous peoples and stolen by government, or otherwise government-held “parks” and “reserves” that are liquidated by elites (look at the the Amazon, Kalimantan and the sources of the Marcos family wealth, for example).
But Rene is clearly on the side of those who want to see resources protected, and he should be credited for trying to give you guys tools to fight your real enemies – the so-called “skeptics” and “conservatives” (like George Will) who think that “markets” will magically solve problems relating to un-owned (and un-managed) resources (and who serve as deliberate or unwitting fronts for those who are happy to take profits now but leave costs for others).
I keep trying to make this point – see the post linked at my name – but some of you seem to be in “full hackles” mode, certain that you see an enemy, and single-mindedly dedicated to chasing your own tails.
James
11 mai 2009 at 12:27 AM
It’s Adobe Flex, so you’ll need a fairly recent version of the Flash plugin, I believe version 9 or higher.
Define ‘significant variation’.
As an alternative, I can recommend this simple graphic from REISI. Alas, there is no English translation available for the accompanying text. I’ll try to explain. It shows the number of hours per year that the power is above a certain value, given as a fraction of installed capacity. The fraction is displayed on the vertical axis, the number of hours is on the horizontal.There are three lines: one for an individual turbine, one for a windfarm and one for Germany. Hope this helps.
“…corruption, favoritism and incompetence are inescapably linked to government action”
Oh really? Thanks for yet another in the continuing series of assertions stated as laws. Very informative.
#320: Jim, I think I just answered you in a pending post – the REAL point is that the REAL enemy in the climate change struggle are people ((VERY DIFFERENT from Rene) who think that modern markets work great but forget to note that they undeniably produce destruction where resources are either UNOWNED or UNMANAGED.
On bison and whales, I invite you to a quick read of my own writings:
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/12/16/bison-markets-the-tragedy-of-the-commons-and-the-indian-war.aspx
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/02/15/whales-and-fisheries-quot-standing-up-to-japan-quot-or-enclosing-the-commons.aspx
I think I have provided links upthread on fisheries, but the people who understand these issues best are the free market environmentalists at PERC who have documented how Indians used to own and manage fisheries and other resources. If the tribes` treaty rights and traditional rights to salmon, etc. had been respected, then there would be a resource owner that would have every incentive and right to sue landowners for destruction of watershed habitat; instead, the resource became a state-owned free-for-all, subject to further federal mismanagement.
As Mike G has noted, the successes in marine resource management have all come by restoring some measure of private ownership to “public” resources, which is the reason, as I have already noted, the even the mainline environmental community is united in calling for more property rights-related approaches to crashing fisheries.
> the successes in marine resource management
Blue whales
And how do you plan to assign ownership to a seamount and keep the trawlers off of it?
TokyoTom,
You completely ignore the numerous examples that have been given of property owners trashing natural resources for a quick profit. You are also wrong about all successes in marine resource management being due to privatisation: no-catch zones have had significant success, and have the advantage of being relatively easy to monitor. See for example:
Science 3 November 2006:
Vol. 314. no. 5800, pp. 787 – 790
DOI: 10.1126/science.1132294
Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services
Boris Worm, Edward B. Barbier et al.
Let me link to a post that makes my point – and I think that of Gavin`s extended metaphor – fairly clear:
“Overlooked by those warmed by climate rhetoric (“alarmist” or “denialist”) – the fact that our most important commons have NO property rights rules”
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/03/12/overlooked-by-those-warmed-by-climate-rhetoric-quot-alarmist-quot-or-quot-skeptic-quot-the-fact-that-our-most-important-commons-have-no-property-rights-rules.aspx
The point is not that “property” is an easy panacea to every problem, but that the biggest problems lie where there are no property rights (or other mechanisms that give users incentives to invest in sustainability) in place.
Why don`t you guys see that using this as an argument on climate change is what like throwing holy water in the face of almost every climate change vampire?
#326: Hank, who say there IS a purely private solution to every problem? Certainly not me.
>The number of fisherfolk is analogous to population – do the math again. – gavin]
I haven’t done all the math, but it still isn’t quite right, as China can’t be in any of those groups.
top 5%=US with 20% emissions
top 20%=75% emissions
21-50=15%emissions
bottom 50% = 10% emissions
Where do China and India go?
[Response: Umm… let’s see. China is 20% of the people, and roughly 20% of emissions. Which splits them between the lower half of the top 20% and the top of the next 30%. – gavin]
>Pity you weren’t around to argue the slaveowners’ case, Rene. After all, they would surely never have abused their property, would they?
Off topic, but you should read Race and Economics, or Conquests and Cultures by Thomas Sowell. The history of slavery is much more complicated than you say. The abuse of slaves was dependent on many factors like ease of escape, and ease of replacement.
TokyoTom:
Nah… it’s the same gut reaction I have when folks are asserting that Jesus loves me, or giving me free links to mises.org… not my religion, and I’m beyond redemption thank you very much. I like to live on the reality side of things.
Oh, trust me, I don’t believe there’s an answer to every problem. I just hope we get past the one-planet limitation and take most of the biosphere with us.
There’s a lot of rock, dust, and raw materials out there.
My personal religious fantasy, when I have one:
the diety comes back from a long vacation, looks at us, and thunders:
“You idiots, I gave you an empty galaxy around you to fill, and enough varieties of life to take with you to suit any possible planet you’d find out there, all of them waiting for you to bring them life. And you’ve eaten most of it and burned or trashed the rest. Now where’s that damned Reset button ….”
Boy, this is the most [edit] discussion I’ve ever seen on here, and I’ve seen a few.
Trying to argue that the US can’t do anything to reduce emissions is a bit like trying to argue [edit-lets avoid the inflammatory analogies-thanks] Still, I see a few people are willing to take the Exxon dollar and sell their soul.
OK. I agree! Unconstrained increases in emissions in China are the problem.
Fine.
So contraction and convergence is acceptable to Chip, since it is the only ‘fair’ solution?
http://www.gci.org.uk/contconv/cc.html
Somehow I doubt it.
(In next week’s episode, Chip explains how future Chinese emissions are damaging the US economy, and proposes a financial compensation mechanism for US farmers bankrupted by drought, paid in Yaun)
Anne van der Bom Says (11 May 2009 at 14:10)
“As an alternative, I can recommend this simple graphic from REISI. Alas, there is no English translation available for the accompanying text. I’ll try to explain. It shows the number of hours per year that the power is above a certain value, given as a fraction of installed capacity. The fraction is displayed on the vertical axis, the number of hours is on the horizontal.There are three lines: one for an individual turbine, one for a windfarm and one for Germany. Hope this helps.”
If I understand it correctly, that graph is actually a pretty good illustration of the point I was trying to make. (However poor the implementation: WHY can’t web designers seem to understand that not everyone uses a black on white color scheme?) Does it not show that for roughly half the hours in the year, the actual wind generation is 20% or less of the maximum even for all the wind farms combined? And that it’s more than half the maximum for only about 20% of hours?
So imagine trying to design a system with a large fraction of wind generation: either you have to overbuild your generation and waste power when the winds are strong, or build some sort of storage to save that excess for when it’s calm. (Or, of course, a combination.) Either one significantly increases the cost over the simplistic “build one turbine and hook it up” cost model favored by wind power fans.
Jim Bouldin Says (11 May 2009 at 13:42):
“(92) Harvesting trees is not necessarily irresponsible. (in response to Hank Roberts’ example of a private landowner that was aggressively trying to cut redwoods as fast as possible.”
But of course, as with the whole thread of argument re forests, this is making the implicit assumption that the only use for a forest is as a source of lumber. If instead one sees it first as an ecosystem that provides many other benefits (besides existing for its own self), and incidentally allows occasional timber harvesting, one reaches different conclusions as to utility.
“But if that’s not enough, here’s another. Did the plains Indians in N. America “own” the bison?”
Off-topic, but would you please maintain consistency in your political correctness, or the lack thereof? Plains Indians hunting buffalo works for me, while “Native Americans” hunting “bison” probably gives the lovers of PC-speak a warm fuzzy feeling. Mixing the two idioms just grates :-)
#333: Yes, Silk, there are still “a few people are willing to take the Exxon dollar and sell their soul.”
However, as I noted upthread, Desmog Blog has shown that Exxon no longer funds Robert Bradley or his blog where Chip appears:
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/03/11/rot-at-the-core-rob-bradley-at-quot-free-market-quot-masterresource-blog-shows-his-true-colors-as-a-rent-seeker-for-fossil-fuels.aspx.
It wouldn`t surprise me if Exxon is joining others in pushing for oil & gas development at home, but for now they`re no longer funding climate denial shops – and like Jim Hansen actually calling for carbon taxes!
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/03/08/exxon-rex-tillerson-no-longer-willing-to-be-quot-conservative-quot-on-climate-risks-advocates-carbon-taxes-and-invests-in-carbon-lite-tech.aspx
So where is their money going? How about the Stanford University-centered Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP), the world`s largest privately-funded effort to conduct basic research on energy technologies to reduce GHG emissions, which they are funding over 10 years to the tune of $100 million?
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/03/08/exxon-rex-tillerson-no-longer-willing-to-be-quot-conservative-quot-on-climate-risks-advocates-carbon-taxes-and-invests-in-carbon-lite-tech.aspx
Exxon is now a climate change story that the right no longer wants to hear, and is one of the reasons I`ve been banned from the “MasterResource” blog.
#328: “You completely ignore the numerous examples that have been given of property owners trashing natural resources for a quick profit.”
Nick, no I haven`t. Rather, as I note in 327, I`m making a different point, that as Gavin points out with his metaphor, one of the best arguments to make to denialists and skeptics is that, as their OWN principles tell them, the “market” reality is that the worst cases of resources abuse are where there are no property rights at all.
Unchecked by property rights (and consumer pressure, regulation, trade agreements), markets are very effective machines of destruction, as I have tried to explain elsewhere:
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/09/27/too-many-or-too-few-people-does-the-market-provide-an-answer.aspx
It`s a lack of understanding of this that makes market conservatives right / enviros wrong on SMALL issues (such as Ehrlich`s bet with Julian Simon on commodity prices), but wrong on the BIG ones. Those ranting about “neo-Malthusians seeking to destroy civilization” are simply not ignoring or are blind to how consumer and other markets are destroying unowned, unmanaged Nature around the world.
This partisan blindness is readily understandable; after all, we see the same thing here among enviros!
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/07/06/mind-games-how-an-absence-of-functioning-markets-means-that-i-m-right-but-you-re-a-delusional-neurotic-quot-zealot-quot.aspx
Tokyo Tom: “The biggest problems lie where there are no property rights (or other mechanisms that give users incentives to invest in sustainability.”
By your argument, plantation-based slavery was a perfect economic system. It was sustainable, and persisted for hundreds of years. Everything – land & people – was under control via property rights. It was 100% organic, as well, and fossil fuel free. In the case of the Soviet Union, their agricultural system was also essentially based on slave labor, with the proceeds under the control of the Central Committee – not really much different, as they exerted their property rights much as any other autocratic ruler would.
Instead, we can think of economic productivity much as we think of ecological productivity. For example, the ratio of production to consumption is rather like the ratio of photosynthesis to respiration. At a very basic level, production must be greater than consumption in order for the system to be sustainable – you have to grow a bit more food than you eat, as some will be lost. With trees, if you cut them down faster than they grow, soon you have no trees. That’s the point at which Adam Smith begins his “Wealth of Nations”:
“But this proportion [production to consumption] must in every nation be regulated by two different circumstances; first, by the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which its labour is generally applied; and, secondly, by the proportion between the number of those who are employed in useful labour, and that of those who are not so employed.
That’s for the ecologically stable case – and please see the very next line in the text:
Whatever be the soil, climate, or extent of territory of any particular nation, the abundance or scantiness of its annual supply must, in that particular situation, depend upon those two circumstances.”
So, right in the very first paragraphs of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith points out that overall economic productivity is primarily limited by natural variables – and the study of those natural variables is what later generations would come to call ecology. This actually applies to the debate over the colonization and subsequent deforestation and depopulation of Easter Island – but not just Easter Island.
It turns out a similar fate befell a good number of small islands in central – eastern Polynesia, as described by University of Hawaii anthropologist Barry Rolette. Here is the article, c. 2002 (pdf)– it’s actually much more comprehensive than anything written by Jared Diamond or Brian Fagan, as it puts Eastern Island in context with Mangareva and the Pitcairns, all of which suffered from deforestation and the resulting lack of open-ocean fishing and trading:
A more discernible environmental factor is the role of human-influenced deforestation, which affected voyaging by limiting the availability of timber suitable for canoe construction…the effects of deforestation as a limiting factor probably intensified through time, even though the rate and ultimate extent of deforestation varied among islands. The influence of density-dependent social factors including chiefly competition and intergroup hostility would also have intensified through time.”
The main point seems to be that although deforestation was the root cause of the islander’s isolation, the actual collapse of trade was due to conflict over scarcer resources.
Adam Smith would point out that as climate changed, or as forests were destroyed, the same economic factors would still be in play – year-to-year production and consumption – but there would be new limiting factors, such as a shortage of trees for boats. In the absence of such limiting factors, Adam Smith was saying, the economic level of the society will be determined by the improvements that people make, which allow them to increase the ratio of production to consumption – thus supporting a more complex civilization. If their ecological base is pulled out from under them by climate change or resource mismanagement, everything must readjust to those new limits.
The modern globalization proponent would point out that today, trees could be obtained by trade – ignoring the fact that the trees were the physical vehicle that allowed trade to take place.
However, the most interesting lesson from the East Polynesian trade collapse and species extinction is that many islands escaped that fate – and they all had similar features: relatively large land area, high relief with remote areas, and orographic rain-trapping (due to their height, such islands generated rain via uplift to cooler levels). In many cases, the flat low-lying regions of the bigger islands did suffer deforestation – but the remote regions acted as refuge for large numbers of plant and animal species.
If nothing else, that’s a good argument in favor of setting up wildlife refuges as a means of preserving species biodiversity.
re #334 James
“the simplistic “build one turbine and hook it up” cost model favored by wind power fans.”
I don’t know of any wind power fans who say that all power generation can be met solely by wind, so your argument is a strawman. Anne has consistently pointed out that wind is just one component of the diversified profile of renewable energy that is required to replace fossil fuels. Will there be some over-capacity required? Yes. Will energy storage be required? Yes.
None of that means that it would be impossible to have the vast majority of electricity production from renewables.
But of course, as with the whole thread of argument re forests, this is making the implicit assumption that the only use for a forest is as a source of lumber.
You mean it’s not?
And sorry, but ‘bison’ is the biologically correct term (as in Bison bison, regardless of PC-ness or not.
Hey All,
My apologies for being late to the party. Personally, looking over the options for the reduction of fossil fuels and who has the rights to public goods and the responsibility for localized pollution, I think that continuing on the same path is very wrong headed.
I have to say that of the technologies the US has explored (Fusion to Dry Ice (compressed air)) that solar and wind would be selected is beneficial mainly because there is no combustion involved. Whether we are talking about 3rd gen Nuclear or 1st gen cellulose ethanol anything moving us towards a higher hydrogen to carbon ratio for a given BTU would be welcome. If there are issues there are clear solutions that could be implemented to reduce them. The distribution channels do not necessarily need to change, only the dispenser and the mobile container.
So why is there so much push back? Only because the infrastructure as built, reduces the current net margin. Change the technology and you reduce the margin while increasing the cost. Had we not abandoned the progress we had made up to the 1990’s we would be far ahead of today. (The discovery of a bit of oil in the Great NW Terr. (Alaska) seemed the likely salvation.) In short, remove the “heat” and the technology reverts. Until you remove the old technology by changing the taxation associated with it so that the tax provides the direct replacement of it, change will never be completed. Cap and Trade will not drive the change unless the proceeds go directly to a renewable or high hydrogen alternative.
Cheers!
Dave Cooke
CTG Says (11 May 2009 at 21:56):
“I don’t know of any wind power fans who say that all power generation can be met solely by wind, so your argument is a strawman. Anne has consistently pointed out that wind is just one component…”
Refer back to her message #269, where she writes “Over a whole country the size of Spain or Germany, wind power never goes to 0. RED Espanha has this sleek looking web page…” (which I couldn’t view, unfortunately). Perhaps I misunderstood, but I read that as putting her in the camp that believes that if you just build enough wind turbines, and scatter them over a wide geographic area, the variability problems magically solve themselves.
“None of that means that it would be impossible to have the vast majority of electricity production from renewables.”
Of course it wouldn’t be impossible: that’s not the issue. The issue is whether there are better/cheaper/faster/more reliable/less impact on the environment solutions to the problem of how to get CO2-free energy.
Jim Bouldin Says (11 May 2009 at 22:01):
“And sorry, but ‘bison’ is the biologically correct term (as in Bison bison, regardless of PC-ness or not.”
Sorry, but no. The English name of that creature is buffalo. Otherwise, and by the same logic, you need to start referring to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Robin red-breasted harbinger of spring as the turdus :-)
#302 Nick Gotts:
You persist in glossing over the underlying problem with slavery, which is that it gives humans the same status as farmed trees or cattle. The difference being the latter are intended to be consumed, or “destroyed”, as unpalatable as that may be to some.
—
To make a profit – with a forest as with anything else – means to create more wealth or value than one consumes or destroys in the process. In general this is to be applauded surely. The process only goes wrong when property rights are not fully defined, leading to the possibiity of costs not being taken into account.
—
You say you have knowledge that local peoples’ rightful ownership of the forests has routinely been violated.
If so, I would certainly support the restoration of their rights.
—
“I am sure the irreplaceable loss of species means nothing to you and your fellow market-worshippers – and of course under your favoured system, it will be those who care for money above all else who get to make the decisions”.
A market is essentially a mechanism for voluntary social interaction. I see no reason for people who support such a system to value bio-diversity any differently to anyone else. Through markets, consumers can decide for themselves how much they value bio-diversity versus say the products produced from trees. Those who value bio-diversity can band together and purchase such forests to keep them from being harvested, for example.
Rene: In markets such as lumber, resource depletion by some operators, creates incentives for other operators to replace the depleted resources.
#304 dhogaza Says:
“The timber industry in the PNW fought replanting laws intended to force them to practice something close to sustained yield management, back in the 1970s.
You have nothing but ideology backing your view. I have mud on my boots and first-hand experience which tells me that in practice, your ideology is not reflected by real-world practice”.
Mud is no argument; you have not addressed my point above. And what makes you think the laws you mention are worthy? The framers of those laws probably had no answer to my point above either.
#307 dhogaza Says:
“My (limited) knowledge regarding the cases when it works leads me to believe the successful schemes have been due to partial privatization under management goals set by a government regulatory structure.”
That’s just because you define “works” as “doing what the goverment wants people to do with their own property” (which also happens to be what you want them to do with their own property).
rene a strawman is making up something that doesn’t exist and then arguing about that rather than what is really there.
Usually it’s a way of arguing that makes up what someone didn’t say so you can easily call them down on it and hoping that nobody notices that what you’re arguing against isn’t what was said.
However, it can also work if you make up something like your “perfect owner” and then argue from that perfect owner that ownership of nature would solve the problems of damage. If such a creature was commonplace, maybe your theories would work, but all we got are the humans we have and they aren’t going to make your theory work.
#314 Ike Solem
As part of your attempted dismissal of the tragedy of the commons problem, iow depletion of unowned resources, you cite some prof saying it is possible to own oceans, such ownership being policable by a navy. You present this under the heading ‘On the need for ownership of everything’.
Your logic here eludes me; how does the fact that the oceans can be owned, imply they must be owned?
You go on to say this means the atmosphere too could be owned, by putting polluting space-based weaponry into it.
Why do you think space-based weaponry would be needed, given that any pollution would most likely emanate from ground level?
“On the right to breathe clean air, or the right to prevent your neighbor from polluting the air you breathe….the distinction which Dworkin has drawn between rights and goals ”
Yes, the goal of clean air rests on the right to own the air, which, since it cannot be parcelled up, can only be owned in common. And yes, this is an (unavoidable) communist/fascist arrangement.
Rene Cheront,
TokyoTom (glad to see again),
My apologies if I miss some key context, I just am catching up and did a cursory review of the whole thread.
I have been considering some new ideas for the past 30 years or so. I would like to present something of a challenge to the standard views on objectivity and ownership given a new context.
I would say that modern monetary economic theories are not suitable with regard to ownership of resources. It is a difficult transition to accept the possibility that such grand and logical theories such as Austrian school and Mises are flawed in the new context of which I allude to, but in the grand scheme of things and in the economy of resource and reason, given circumstance, all economic theories have flaws that are inherent to their own shortcomings. I mean this in the sense that all such theories of classical and objective measure by means defined of any type are imperfect for various reasons and evolved in a limited scope understanding based on a different scenario than we are now in. Please bear with me.
Example: Mankind did not create the resources so by what right has he to own them? People own oil, but oil is being drilled and used to its inevitable extinction of the resource. It might be better to think of the global resources as being lent to us by the mere fact of the existence of such resources, so what right of ownership should exist?
These are important questions and should not be cast aside lightly. I believe TokyoTom has pondered this from time to time if I recall some of his work correctly. The question of owning air for example, though extreme, challenges the Austrian view as an ideal in all resources.
Mans ingenuity pertaining to what to do with resources may have more rights to claim as property than the resources themselves. The invention of use is still a rental of a sort though, we need resources for our invention to be able to apply such ingenuity. So the resources is rented and the application of invention is the property?
I am certainly an objectivist but maybe not so in the classical sense of the commonly known meaning. My own views are morphing with the changes. I contend that objective values are not necessarily at the expense of the exploitation of a resource as not all values are monetary or resource. I also contend that ownership does not translate immutably to protection of resource. I further contend that the human race is still relatively immature in its understanding of the global economy all inclusive, the economy of systems and methods in relative balance pertaining to nature, resource, value and artificial value. We seem to not place quite enough value on the smiles and dance of life itself. Are we merely exploiters of resource? Is that really a valid purpose in a world of limited constraint and interaction of resource.
Should we stress the system to such extreme?
It is true that an owner of a resource does not necessarily respect or protect said resource. Many owners have exploited a resource wile abusing it and destroying its capacity to survive simply to finish with it and move on to another resource to exploit.
There are considerations I wish you to apply to your ratiocination. The concept of paradigm shift. That the concept of resource ownership is merely a product of and Epochal mentality, call it Epoch A, that was based on expansionism and seemingly unlimited resources. that the new Epoch, lets call it Epoch B is the antithesis to Epoch A, a world of limits and stressors.
Reason and motive of motor function in Epoch B has yet to be assimilated in the world brain. But nonetheless is the import of the reality of the new paradigm.
I believe the main question to be not how to exploit the remaining resources through innovation, ownership and privatization, but, to the chagrin of my uncle George, rather how to discover the new wisdom required to maintain quality of life and sustainability in a world of the limited resources and gross over-exploitation courtesy of Epoch A.
Ownership may not be the key in Epoch B, in fact in may prove to be more bane than boon. I’ll not pretend to know what the economy will look like in this new Epoch, but rather be a part of the evolution of understanding in hopes to achieve a balanced economy that has justice, objectivity and morality in its premise.
#322 TokyoTom
There is also ample room to see that corruption, favoritism and incompetence are inescapably linked to corporate greed through over manipulation of markets.
The users and the looters are not always the government and the belief systems, they are also corporations.
The true producers are now so few and far between as they have been swallowed by the legal manipulation and exploitation of a government that has been blinded through corporate manipulation, they are now one and the same. So the producers are now users and looters. It’s a lose/lose scenario. Unfortunate that Rands grand idea of Galts Gulch is merely that… we are going to have to think our way into a new reality of potential to achieve but by no means to I see this as simple.
If we are to be idealistic that is one thing, but the point of discussion has become academic, unfortunately.
James writes:
James, your usual argument is that, due to “intermittency,” renewables don’t provide ENOUGH power. In fact, lower down in the same post, you write:
But in the first paragraph above, you’re worried that renewables might provide TOO MUCH power. You treat renewables the way the police treat a suspect they’re arresting–anything they do will be used against them.
The answer to the problem you pose is that excess power can be stored and used for times for insufficient power, or transported to areas where they current have insufficient power, or even used to desalinate water or crack it to provide hydrogen for hydrogen-fuel-cell cars.
But I don’t think you want an answer. You’ve just decided that renewables are evil, probably because you know damn well they’re the major rival to your preferred solution of more nuclear power.
If you think I object to this kind of inconsistency, though, I don’t. Please do go on posting this way. I think the more you do so, the more credibility you lose. With any luck, I think people are going to see it and stop listening to you.