Free market environmentalism

An example of free market environmentalism from the AP via USAToday:

A 71-acre section of 450 million-year-old rock that is believed to be part of the world's oldest coral reef will be preserved and opened to the public, officials announced Tuesday.

Two local preservation groups bought the parcel in the middle of the Isle La Motte at the northern end of Lake Champlain. The purchase price was not disclosed.

The Chazy Reef formed a half-billion years ago in the warm shallow sea south of the equator. Over the eons, it drifted north to its present location.

...

The land will become a scenic area with an outdoor museum and fossil preserve. Interpretive trails and a visitors center in an old farmhouse are planned.

Comments

[Jim Casey]

Free market environmentalism works great when rich people decide to protect the environment. But what happens when a group of poor people want to protect something and the rich folks want to do something else??

[Dano]

Exactly right, Jim.

D

[John Whitehead]

I'm not one to think that Coasian bargaining can address environmental inequity-type problems but, ah, when the richies decide to preserve/protect something, it's nice, isn't it?

[Bob from Seattle]

Check out Walter Block's Environmentalism and Economic Freedom: The Case for Private Property Rights

or Murray Rothbard's The Commons blog, but I am Austrian/libertarian in my economic/political faith, so lots of the articles on The Commons blog fall short of the mark for me.

[joshua corning]

"I'm not one to think that Coasian bargaining can address environmental inequity-type problems but, ah, when the richies decide to preserve/protect something, it's nice, isn't it?"

Unless those rich people decide to ban a useful substance like say DDT and say 2 million people die each year becouse poor people have no afordable means of controling malaria.

Anyway when the left starts acting as defenders of the poor my biggest consern is for the all the poor people who are likely to die.

[Dano]

Unless those rich people decide to ban a useful substance like say DDT and say 2 million people die each year becouse poor people have no afordable means of controling malaria.

joshua, you are marginalizing yourself. The folk that read this blog are educated and know that your phrase I included above is a parrotted constructed narrative.

Remember the biology course you had that talked about resistance and the DDT issue? What about the entomology couse you took? Surely that overview of Natural Science course you took explained the situation. If not that, then surely the Env Policy course did. Maybe you want to re-read some of your textbooks that explain the issue.

[ex. ]
D

[joshua corning]

"Remember the biology course you had that talked about resistance and the DDT issue?"

yup I sure do, the example was the cotton worm. The cotton worm is actually a moth (the "worm" being named after the larva form) and before the advent of DDT did not consume cotton plants and in fact lived in areas that outlined crop land...when ddt was carpet bombed on the crop land it esentialy left a dead zone for insect life...the cotton moth that lived in the outlining zone was only partially exposed as such those individuals with partial resistance to ddt survived and dominated the popultion and becouse of the "dead-zone' quicky adapted to eating the cotton plant. There was a strong selective force on those cotton moths to push for resistance and adopt to a prestine nich of free food in the cotton feilds...they were also not the original target of ddt use and were able to get around it...DDT use on mosquitos would not have as strong a selective force if used correctly...ie only on the inside walls of homes and on the nets and only when there is an outbreak...sort of like antibiotics...use sparingly to prevent resistance.

one intersting aspect is that resistace would by no means be permanent. Mosquitos reproduce sexually and as such the ddt resistant wildtype would constantly be breeding with the non resistant wildtype. If DDt was used responsibly and in small quantities the resistant wildtype would not be expected to gain a major foot hold in population.

I expect that this is what happened in india in the 70's...they carpet bombed the stuff and the resistant wild type took over the population...India still uses ddt to control malaria by the way and to good effect seeing as how malaria cases are way down compared to the number in the 70's...presumable becouse they have adapted a malaria control program similar to the one i outlined.

"The folk that read this blog are educated"

good then they can understand the logical fallacy of correlation implies causation and how just becouse c02 is up and the temp is up does not exactly mean that co2 is cauing the temp to rise. and that in order to prove such a thing you need more then specious evidence.

[Dano]

one intersting aspect is that resistace would by no means be permanent. Mosquitos reproduce sexually and as such the ddt resistant wildtype would constantly be breeding with the non resistant wildtype.

You've forgotten your Pop Biol and Mendelian genetics too.

and that in order to prove such a thing you need more then specious evidence.

Please provide evidence for your baseless allegation.

Thanks!

D