[003]
SchizoTechnician
Current Version
Changed line(s) 3 from:
n
I\'m sorry to hear about the global climate change thing- as a student of environmental policy, I\'ve been taught by my university that there is little to no academic debate on the matter, but the scope of that debate is beyond this discussion page.
As for the leaving the free market to deal with \'\'all\'\' externalities... that only works in cases where the externalities have low jointness and low exclusion costs. Air pollution, for example, is really, really, really hard to privatize a solution for, since the damaged party is an entire population- and the only representative of an entire population, of course, is the government \'\'of\'\' that population. And since air currents and such cause certain types of pollution to have effects extremely far removed from the site of origin, it becomes on a distance scale such that larger branches of government acting are neccesary to avoid communication problems and red tape of multiple city and state governments trying to form a coherent response to a group of coal plants spewing mercury and sulfur. It is \'\'really\'\' hard to privatize air and make it voluntary-payment-only, on the grounds that getting people to only breathe when they pay the air bill is not yet feasible. Water rights are well and good- but rivers flow through multiple parties\' properties, and so what may be acceptable to a party upstream might not be so acceptable to one downstream, creating a nightmare of negotiation. And then there\'s the issue of runoff, where hundreds of square miles drain into single bodies of water- can the owner of the body of water, or a stretch of river, sue the entire watershed?
As for the leaving the free market to deal with \'\'all\'\' externalities... that only works in cases where the externalities have low jointness and low exclusion costs. Air pollution, for example, is really, really, really hard to privatize a solution for, since the damaged party is an entire population- and the only representative of an entire population, of course, is the government \'\'of\'\' that population. And since air currents and such cause certain types of pollution to have effects extremely far removed from the site of origin, it becomes on a distance scale such that larger branches of government acting are neccesary to avoid communication problems and red tape of multiple city and state governments trying to form a coherent response to a group of coal plants spewing mercury and sulfur. It is \'\'really\'\' hard to privatize air and make it voluntary-payment-only, on the grounds that getting people to only breathe when they pay the air bill is not yet feasible. Water rights are well and good- but rivers flow through multiple parties\' properties, and so what may be acceptable to a party upstream might not be so acceptable to one downstream, creating a nightmare of negotiation. And then there\'s the issue of runoff, where hundreds of square miles drain into single bodies of water- can the owner of the body of water, or a stretch of river, sue the entire watershed?
to:
I\\\'m sorry to hear about the global climate change thing- as a student of environmental policy, I\\\'ve been taught by my university that there is little to no academic debate on the matter, and as such I tend to be wary and/or annoyed by people who persist in questioning it, but the scope of that debate is beyond the intended content of this discussion page, and as such think we should leave that there.
Changed line(s) 5 from:
to:
As for the leaving the free market to deal with \\\'\\\'all\\\'\\\' externalities... that only works in cases where the externalities have low jointness and low exclusion costs. Air pollution, for example, is really, really, really hard to privatize a solution for, since the damaged party is an entire population- and the only representative of an entire population, of course, is the government \\\'\\\'of\\\'\\\' that population. And since air currents and such cause certain types of pollution to have effects extremely far removed from the site of origin, it becomes on a distance scale such that larger branches of government acting are neccesary to avoid communication problems and red tape of multiple city and state governments trying to form a coherent response to a group of coal plants spewing mercury and sulfur. It is \\\'\\\'really\\\'\\\' hard to privatize air and make it voluntary-payment-only, on the grounds that getting people to only breathe when they pay the air bill is not yet feasible. Water rights are well and good- but rivers flow through multiple parties\\\' properties, and so what may be acceptable to a party upstream might not be so acceptable to one downstream, creating a nightmare of negotiation. And then there\\\'s the issue of runoff, where hundreds of square miles drain into single bodies of water- can the owner of the body of water, or a stretch of river, sue the entire watershed?
