gluten-free dairy-free grilled cheese

[keturn]

Armchair economist thought of the day:

We're Good People if we shift our spending habits to use less resources (Lower Your Carbon Footprint), right? And we're Very Good People if we do this even when it means spending a little more money to do so, by buying the more expensive item that used less fuel to get here, or buying the more expensive

Comments

There's two different things here

[anonymous]

1. Using more power efficient devices is usually a good idea, as is encouraging it by e.g. banning less efficient devices. First, because it is quite often more cost effective in the long run due to lower operating costs (unless you're really on the bleeding edge of efficiency technology), and second because mass purchases drive costs down over long run by encouraging competition and technological innovation. Thus cost of CFLs is going down over time, and likely the same will happen with LEDs.

2. Switching to greener power... the idea here is that you need a period of effective subsidies and known demand in order to invest in R&D. If you know e.g. wind power has a set amount of demand over the next ten years, even if it's not yet cost effective, you're more likely to invest in wind power research, which hopefully drives down cost over time.

It sounds like you're thinking in static supply & demand terms. But you should also be thinking about long term technological change, and what drives it. Many technologies we rely on were initially created by subsidies, typically military-related government subsidies, e.g. the Internet.

My CAPTCHA below was actually "whets invented", neat.

--Itamar