Subject:
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Re: Rolling Blackouts
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 18 May 2001 23:28:42 GMT
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Viewed:
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1065 times
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Frank Filz wrote:
>
> Larry Pieniazek wrote:
> > Now, let's try to stay on topic. I have an open mind about this. I am not
> > sure that the conventional prescription of ownership works for migratory
> > animals. Hence my interest in exploring this. If you don't want to bring an
> > open mind and work through examples, your time would be better spent elsewhere.
>
> While ownership of many things seems problematical, I think free market
> forces do work in environmental protections. I feel pretty confident
> that in a general sense, those nations with more market freedom have
> more concern for the environment. While we can list specific counter
> examples (like energy consumption in the US, or the "first world" in
> general), I think looking at the whole picture shows a higher degree of
> environmental concern.
I can't find the exact cite right now, but an extension of Maslow's
'Hierarchy of needs' implies that environmental awareness(1) and the
desire to protect it typically does not arrise in a society until that
society reaches some level of affluence.
there is a hypothesis that states citizens do not begin to care about
the state of their environment until their society reaches
> Also, while much of the environmental concern is driven by regulation, I
> would point out that while current US politics are not pure Libertarian
> or free market, they are driven in part by free market forces. Thus, the
> protective legislation we have is there because "consumer and corporate
> greed" DON'T win out completely in our fairly free market such as it is.
>
> I'm wondering if there is an avenue towards understanding how wildlife
> and other "natural resources" fit into the free market by exploring why
For the purposes of this discussion, I suggest we use the umbrella term,
'natural capital' to describe wildlife, plants, etc.
> we need property. I see two major reasons to have property:
> - it provides a reward for those who work towards the common goals of
> society
> - it provides a way to assign responsibility for proper maintenance of
> the property
I agree.
> An important element of the 2nd reason is that it allows for efficient
> management because you know who is responsible so they can make the
> decision, and if they don't, you can hold them responsible for the
> consequences.
>
> Let's construct an example. Let's say we have a valley in California
> where we have heavy seasonal rains which tend to cause the hills around
> the valley to try and fill in the valley. If no one has ownership of
> either the valley or the hills, yet civilized people are trying to live
> there, chaos will ensue when their homes in the valley get covered by
> mud from the hillside, or the hillside homes slide into the valley. If
> we have ownership, then the valley dwellers can seek compensation from
> the hillside dwellers if they hillside dwellers have done something to
> destabilize the hillside (probably building houses and putting lawns
> with shallow rooted grasses will make the hillside more unstable than
> the native brush which used to be there, also, the roads and houses will
> reduce the amount of hillside soil which can abosorb the water). We can
> also place blame on the valley dwellers. They chose to live in a valley
> which really isn't very condusive to modern styles of habitation (it
> might work perfectly well for older styles of habitation where you build
> simple houses which can be put up in a day or two, and as such, are
> easily replaced, perhaps these people are living there because the
> annual renewal of the soil provides a very fertile valley to grow in).
I may not be remembering this correctly, but were there landslides a few
years ago in northern California that destroyed personal property that
was caused by logging on top of the mountain? Actually, during the big
floods in N. Carolina last year(or was it the year before) I heard on
NPR that some stream in some town was flooding and one of the people
interviewed said the smartest thing I ever heard in a news report about
a flood- he mentioned all the parking lots draining right into the
stream from a string of new development along the waterway. Could part
of the flood be blamed on the developer? Probably. Will it happen? I
don't think so.
-chris
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Rolling Blackouts
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| (...) While ownership of many things seems problematical, I think free market forces do work in environmental protections. I feel pretty confident that in a general sense, those nations with more market freedom have more concern for the environment. (...) (24 years ago, 18-May-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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