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Re: Human vs. natural influences on the environment



Jay Hanson <jhanson@ilhawaii.net> wrote:
>charliew wrote:
> 
>> A lot of environmental posters have the nasty tendency of
>> only worrying about the variables that "prove" their point.
>
>Do you suppose that there may be an "nasty" analogue in economics?
>
>Why is there one standard for the "environmental posters" and
>a different (perhaps opposite) standard for "economic posters"?
>
>Jay

Nice point, Jay.  Another way to say it is that economists seem to only 
concern themselves with the variables that can be readily quantified.
While this is appealing because it is easy to do and provides what
seem like definitive answers, it falls a bit short of being as useful
in the real world as proponents dream.

>---
>"I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in
> the lowest wage country is impeccable...because foregone earnings
> from increased morbidity" are low. He adds that "the underpopulated
> countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted; their air quality is
> probably vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles...."
>                  --World Bank's chief economist, Lawrence Summers
>                                       The Economist, Feb. 8, 1992
>
>These cold-blooded economic calculations expose a global system of
>destruction where national borders and human lives are viewed only
>as a footnote to the capitalist market.

Tom
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk progress.
http://www.econet.org/frugal/

"When the market takes command of culture, the ethical question
changes from 'How shall we live?' to 'What do we want?' The
explicit difference is in the loss of the sense of limits, the
hesitation between the will and the act which can last forever in
a society built on principle."
--A NATION OF SALESMEN: THE TYRANNY OF THE MARKET AND THE
SUBVERSION OF CULTURE, Earl Shorris, 1994



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