williamcotton:

dihard:

1. turn off the tap - while brushing, while lathering, while shaving.

2. walk, bike, or carpool instead of driving.

3. bring your own bag.

4. eat only local food.

5. don’t eat meat.

6. unplug your appliances when not in use - your tv, your lights, your microwave. get a power strip with an easy on/off switch.

7. stop unwanted junk mail.

8. adjust your thermostat. or just turn the heat/AC off.

9. buy a plant for your home.

10. offset emissions from your most recent flight.

I find it very strange that dihard, who seems to be very knowledgable on various aspects of business and macroeconomics, would put together such a silly list of things to do to make the planet a better place.

None of these things will stop occuring until the costs of these things increases to a point where people will stop doing them.

Carbon taxes and more carpool lanes alone will do much more than using guilt to save the planet.

Also, as a population become more wealthy, they tend to care more about the environment. How do nations become more wealthy? By specializing, trading the goods and services that they can offer for the goods and services that they need. No nation has the means, ability, or resources to produce everything that their populace demands.

International trade is a good thing, and the long term benefits of it trump any sort of rhetoric coming from the protectionists.

These types of macro-ecological issues that we are having can only be contained by proper government intervention. People will not stop consuming beneficial resources and producing harmful waste until the effects of their actions are presented to them immediately, especially in ways that dig in to their wallets. In an economic sense, the government would be managing the externalities of the nation’s markets.

I’ve seen these types of action at work first hand. While in college, I worked for a housing developer, mainly doing menial tasks, but also getting to do fun stuff like drive the Bobcat around. I learned a lot of valuable things that summer, from the expected handy-man skills to quite unexpected macroecomic lessons.

This guy was a scum bag. Sometimes he would just decide not to pay a sub-contractor and see if the guy would try and sue him for the money. He was always looking for a way to save a few bucks.

One thing that he always did was build his housing to the Energy Star specifications, which are a set of building codes that limit the energy footprint of the building. Why did he do this? Because he got a big tax break from the government.

While the benefits of an open and free marketplace can not be understated, there will always be situations where the ideals of living with a hands-off government will conflict with greater good of the planet.