Environmental and Resource Economics (by George Reisman)

[stealthswimmer]

lol, yes the price system conveys information. The problem is that right now our prices are NOT reflecting all the costs! I felt the beginning of the vid was great but he just then is saying environmentalists are all those extreme ones he's talking about, and he's just being extreme on the other end, lol. The end is just wave after wave of what many have begun to call vulgar libertarianism - arguing as if our current system was a free market(when he says we don't need to worry cus of prices)

[stealthswimmer]

Individuals who do stuff that leads to global warming, they can be held responsible for those actions....it just turns out that all of us do stuff that contributes to it. That's one reason why some folks promote the carbon tax. You're internalizing the social cost, or if you don't like that term, you're internalizing the externality. Free markets internalize as much as possible, but our market is hampered by government regulations that produce suboptimal results in many cases.

[zdrux]

@stealthswimmer Carbon credits are not free markets. Government mandates to pay for human actiity are not free markets. Government edict to regulate your life in a way that they seem fit in contrary to freedom and free markets, and obviously liberty.

[stealthswimmer]

Not considering extinction of an arbitrary species, even if not viewed as tragedy, means ignoring the environmental consequences, which affects the wealth we have (because it affects what we can harvest from the environment). That's just not good economics. I'm a fan of this guy's lectures I've heard but that right there I disagree with. This can lead you to some very wrong conclusions (and I believe Reisman has made some here)

[zbigniewzapora]

Very good. Reisman should be speaking more often ;)

[xEyedORWhat]

Well said.

[RKAddict101]

Very interesting speech. A perspective on the environment which I have not thought about before.