What Environmentalists Need to Know about Economics

Professor Scorse explains key concepts of environmental policy and international economics from his new book, What Environmentalists Need to Know About Economics. He examines mistakes made by both sides of the current environment vs. economy debate and offers recommendations for improving the quality of the ongoing dialogue.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• environment
• economics
• environmental policy
• green business
• green energy
• climate change
• sustainable business
• environmental economics

[pendantry]

@stealthswimmer Terminology: always such a bugbear. Perhaps instead of 'traditional economics' I should have used something like 'the currently predominant economic paradigm' (exhibited every time Someone In Power in the so-called 'first' world opens his or her mouth and talks about how we 'return to growth'). If there are indeed economists who advocate a re-examination of the basis of the current paradigm, they must be very few in number, or shouting so quietly that nobody can hear them.

[stealthswimmer]

@pendantry

Actually, not all of economics or economists that growth in any way possible is good or ideal. Some would argue the government can sometimes increase economic growth in the short run at the expense of long-run stability and growth. Secondly, some economics advocate counting natural resources as part of a nation's wealth so that whenever it's harmed, that harms GDP and shows up in national income accounts.

Of course, I don't know what "traditional" economics is...

[stealthswimmer]

Market failure doesn't always imply heavy government involvement. Government failure is often larger. Secondly, lack of property rights doesn't entail heavy involvement - all the government would have to do would be assign property rights in those cases. Now in cases where it's impossible to have private property rights or where it would probably be a net harm (like in air), then the government would probably need to create a policy to deal with the situation.

[kalibob32]

ahhhhh, ummmmm....he's a very ummm weak public speaker based on this ahhhhh video

[pendantry]

#t=1390s 'Conclusion: Environmentalism is entirely consistent with traditional economics'. This does NOT follow as a conclusion of this presentation. Traditional economics perpetuates the myth that growth is good, which is what got us into this mess in the first place (see eg Prosperity Without Growth: economics for a finite planet by Tim Jackson). We DO need 'ecological' - or sustainable economics, as the current flavour has failed us badly (eg 'credit crunch'!).

[pendantry]

Environmentalists need to use better messaging? Professor Scorse himself starts off with bad messaging: alienating the very people he wants to reach, by dissing them (eg @ #t=1130s). Examples? All the environmentalists I know are very good at messaging. How to win friends and influence people... :)

[pendantry]

#t=588s Interesting thought that economics debate has been hijacked (by free market charlatans) and the initiative needs to be regained. This is EXACTLY what's happened concerning climate change messaging. #t=1027s suggests it's the same people disseminating both sets of FUD. The Heritage Foundation is a main center of disinformation regarding AGW.