While working in the Communications department at The Bush School there was a lot of attention paid to one of our professors , Dr. Vedlitz. He and his team published an article, which was later picked up by the press, that essentially says: the more people know about global warming, the less likely they are to feel concerned about it or do something about it. Clearly, there are a variety of reasons why the survey produced these results, but one is that people feel less responsible the more general or common the problem is. In other words, moral hazard-- global warming is something that is very hard to directly link to individuals and thus people don't personally feel responsible for it.
My question then becomes, how do we get people to act against global warming (assuming this is something you want)? What mechanism would make people feel or want to do something about global warming. Currenlty, it seems that because its "cool" to be green, people are at least attempting to appear green (not using plastic bags, buying at local markets, eating organic, etc-- though these aren't necessarly better activities for the environment). However, I am curious to what other incentive strategies might get people more motivated to actually do things to make them behave more green. My first thoughts are that it must cost more for people to do activities that are not "green" verse those that are. Hence, why for some reasons, I am all about higher gas prices- you are already seeing more people switching car types, and car companies responding. What I would like to see however, in a better effort to interalize the negative spillovers of pollution, but how do you do this? Who pays for the climate changes, and their subsquent costs. Any ideas-- could there be greater efforts to interalize global warming costs, or are the biggest contributors to global warming (the China's and India's) under systems which can stll not afford or are unwilling to afford to do this?
Just thought I stir some thoughts.
The link to a media piece about Dr. Vedlitz article is attached-- I no longer have access to the orginal report.
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2008-04-07-climate_N.htm
Wimbledon Wisdom
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I recently ran across a graduation speech by the tennis great Roger
Federer. I especially appreciated this passage:
In the 1,526 singles matches I played...
1 day ago
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2 comments:
The answer to your question, as you suggest, is: the price mechanism. There is no other incentive that is both effective and sustainable.
The question of how costs should be distributed is a matter of values and your personal ideological bent. Wealth inequality is an issue that should be addressed outside of the climate change discussion.
The climate change debate is so overwhelming saturated with bias. The question, “How should we allocate the costs of the environmental alarmism de jour?” is immediately labeled by critics as intellectually blinded. But how different is it than the question you pose? Really, how strong is the evidence that (1)climate change is serious, (2)climate change will be on net bad, (3)humans have the ability to reverse a climate trend, (4)societies have the ability to act effectively and collectively?
Most intellectually honest people accept all of these as given, but if pressed will put the probability of 2, 3, and 4 at very close to zero. Only 1 appears to be given a consistently non-zero probability, but my impression is that most of the public gives it a much higher probability than the climate change experts (even the advocates).
I am relatively agnostic on the issue of whether or not climate change is occurring and whether or not it is anthropogenic. I tend to think “yes” and “probably”. My bottomline is that I seriously doubt this will even be a major crisis or policy concern in, say, twenty years. By then we will have moved on to another supposed catastrophe that is bringing on civilization’s demise. And I will put my money where my mouth is:
I am willing to wager $100 dollars that in 2028 there will be less value traded in international carbon markets and the UN will be allocating less of its budget to climate initiatives relative to 2008. Any takers?
I am a bit confused as to where to the economics is. Hence, I do not really blame klr's comment that did not have a lot of to do with the original post.
As far as the original post is concerned, I would give the answer of any environmental economics textbook. If you want to internalize the negative effects of global warming, your options are: taxes/subsidies, regulatory controls and tradeable permits. Most economists immediately throw out regulatory controls as they are generally accepted to be economically inefficient. The most efficient option according to the textbook is tradeable permits. However, they are difficult to use on an everyday consumer level.
Ultimately, I think it has less to do with the wealth of the countries who are the world's biggest polluters of the moment, and more to do with the lack of political will in those countries to pass regulations that could threaten growth. This is pretty much the same problem across the world. In the richer countries, there is a greater political will to save the environment because most people on average are living much more comfortably.
I feel this is sort of an old discussion. The new development though is drastically higher gas prices. It is hard to argue against the fact that these prices will help the environment, no matter how costly the adjustment process. I am curious as to what people think about the recent explosion of so called "price locking" tools that have flooded the market. Some examples are: car companies guaranteeing 2.99 a gallon gas for 3 years if you buy one of their cars now or the newest example, there is a website where you can lock in today's gas price for a certain period of time for only an annual fee of $30. The question is, as gas prices continue to rise, what will be the economic and environmental effect of these programs
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