After my post on smoking last week, Quincunx accused me of writing "environmentalist propaganda masquerading as economics." Luckily John came to my defense and set the record straight "And, I think, this is the first time we've been accused of being environmentalists (at least Tim)."
Despite the pure hilarity of me being accused of being an environmentalist, I got to thinking: What is the difference between an environmental economist and an economic environmentalist?
The answer turns out to be surprisingly simple: An environmental economist uses economics to 'solve' environmental misallocations. An economic environmentalist uses economics to defend an environmental position.
The difference may be subtle but to me it is of fundamental importance. Suppose a local government is trying to decide between two possible policies for cleaning up a local lake (assuming the decision to clean up the lake has been made and has been shown to be economically desirable--sheesh, I hate having to start off my example with assumptions). Let's arbitrarily call the policies policy R and policy D.
What would an environmental economist do? An environmental economist would try to weigh ALL of the costs and benefits of policy R and policy D and decide which policy yields the largest social net benefit.
What would an economic environmentalist do? An economic environmentalist would decide which policy better achieved his preconceived normative environmental goals and then set out to find the economic rationale that justify that position.
Environmental economists, is the purest sense of the term, attempt to be objective in deciding between policy options--or in even deciding whether policy is an option. Economic environmentalists use economics as a tool to defend a position, much like a politician. I like to think I am an environmental economist, although on the smoking issue I fear I am an economic environmentalist.
