Rick explores the green movement
I went to a super book launch at the CASS Business School last night, for Tim Worstell's new book 'Chasing Rainbows' . His presentation was so good I bought the book. His main focus is on how the green movement hasn't applied much basic economic theory to its attempts to avert climate change, and so in many cases are damaging the environment more than they are protecting it (key target: Madam George Monbiot).
For example, Chapter 1 concerns the Green Party's excited proclamations that renewable energy employs ten times more people than fossil fuel energy (and this being an additional justification for it). As Tim point out, employees are a cost of energy production, not a benefit. Using the same logic as the Green Party, he observes, it would be preferable to employ a thousand times as many people on exercise bikes to generate the same amount of energy as a windmill... but this would not be seen as a practical alternative. He also looks at the opportunity costs of the solutions, their affect on GDP and supply & demand, and the overall extenalities of much renewable energy production and so forth. He claims some activities are trumpetted by the green movement despite the fact they are terrible for global warming - e.g. wormeries produce a gas from eating organic matter which is ten times worse than the methane produced from dumping them in landfill.
I had been frightened Tim would just be an eco-sceptic, but far from that he's distressed that no one is actually analysing their proposed solutions in a rational economic framework - a solution is not a solution if it makes no rational sense. I don't know who to believe (e.g. there are benefits of wormeries that he doesn't take into account - e.g. free compost at point of use with no transport or CO2 costs; and more jobs are a cost to the producer but not to society, if there is higher unemployment and energy producers are obliged to price competitively), but I appreciate reading an alternative opinion.
Tim also works in renewable energy so grasps a thing or two about this sort of thing. This is more than can be said for the woman with whom I chatted while drinking the free wine. "Why are we obsessed with saving the planet anyway? I mean, there are thousands of planets we could move to if we end up killing this one," she claimed.
When I pointed out they're hard to get to: "Who knows, they could be developing the space technology to get to them right now."
When I pointed out that all life on earth would be devastated and the bio-diversity lost if we just poison this planet and move on: "But you forget, these planets will have their own plants and animals, and they'll be much more exotic".
I made my excuses and went home.
For example, Chapter 1 concerns the Green Party's excited proclamations that renewable energy employs ten times more people than fossil fuel energy (and this being an additional justification for it). As Tim point out, employees are a cost of energy production, not a benefit. Using the same logic as the Green Party, he observes, it would be preferable to employ a thousand times as many people on exercise bikes to generate the same amount of energy as a windmill... but this would not be seen as a practical alternative. He also looks at the opportunity costs of the solutions, their affect on GDP and supply & demand, and the overall extenalities of much renewable energy production and so forth. He claims some activities are trumpetted by the green movement despite the fact they are terrible for global warming - e.g. wormeries produce a gas from eating organic matter which is ten times worse than the methane produced from dumping them in landfill.
I had been frightened Tim would just be an eco-sceptic, but far from that he's distressed that no one is actually analysing their proposed solutions in a rational economic framework - a solution is not a solution if it makes no rational sense. I don't know who to believe (e.g. there are benefits of wormeries that he doesn't take into account - e.g. free compost at point of use with no transport or CO2 costs; and more jobs are a cost to the producer but not to society, if there is higher unemployment and energy producers are obliged to price competitively), but I appreciate reading an alternative opinion.
Tim also works in renewable energy so grasps a thing or two about this sort of thing. This is more than can be said for the woman with whom I chatted while drinking the free wine. "Why are we obsessed with saving the planet anyway? I mean, there are thousands of planets we could move to if we end up killing this one," she claimed.
When I pointed out they're hard to get to: "Who knows, they could be developing the space technology to get to them right now."
When I pointed out that all life on earth would be devastated and the bio-diversity lost if we just poison this planet and move on: "But you forget, these planets will have their own plants and animals, and they'll be much more exotic".
I made my excuses and went home.