The environmental movement is a puzzling phenomenon. On the one hand, environmentalists frequently claim that global warming is a major problem, perhaps the major problem facing the globe. Yet despite these expressed views, one repeatedly see environmentalists opposing the sorts of steps that would be required to address global warming.
Matt Yglesias recently linked to a story where three major environmental groups in Maine succeeded in stopping construction of a power line from Canada that would have brought enough clean hydropower electricity down to America to reduce carbon emissions by 3 million tons per year, equivalent to taking 700,000 cars off the road.
In Germany, environmentalists succeeded in getting the government to agree to shut down the entirely nuclear power industry, which will lead to a large increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Elsewhere, environmentalists have succeeded in demolishing clean hydro plants and have prevented the construction of solar and wind power facilities. Many are even lukewarm on carbon taxes. So what gives?
In my view, there are two types of environmentalism. Scientific environmentalism looks at issues from a rational cost/benefit approach, always keeping an eye on the bottom line—how do policies affect the natural environment?
The bigger and more powerful part of the environmental movement is what you might call “emotional environmentalism”. This movement is centered around the interests of human beings, not the rest of the animal kingdom. Policies that are seen as risky to humans (like nuclear power) are opposed even though they are beneficial to other animals. The focus is on the visible and the local (unsightly power lines), not the unseen and the global (climate change.)
There’s nothing strange about political movements working against their own stated interests. Many housing advocates oppose new housing developments and favor rent controls. Nationalists in the US worried about China’s growing power often oppose immigration of high-skilled Chinese people into the US. Those who assert that “black lives matter” try to defund the police. Proponents of higher interest rates favor tight money policies that reduce interest rates in the long run. There are numerous similar examples.
But even compared to those examples, the environmental movement really stands out. The weakness of scientific environmentalism and the power of emotional environmentalism raises important questions for public policy intellectuals. How can we develop effective public policies in a world where most of our political allies don’t understand how to achieve their stated policy goals?
READER COMMENTS
Jose Pablo
Jan 15 2022 at 11:05am
How come nuclear power is riskier to humans than to animals?
Scott Sumner
Jan 15 2022 at 11:06pm
A disaster like Chernobyl kills humans and causes others to leave the neighborhood. This causes animals to move in, and the area around Chernobyl is now full of wildlife. I presume that most animals don’t live long enough to face much of a cancer risk.
Randall Parker
Jan 17 2022 at 11:46pm
Nuclear power has saved orders of magnitude more than have died in nuclear accidents. James Hansen and Pushker Kharecha estimate it has saved 1.8 million people by reducing pollution.
https://www.ans.org/news/article-1306/friday-matinee-nuclear-power-saves-lives/#:~:text=NASA%20scientist%20Dr.&text=James%20Hansen%20(the%20leading%20climate,and%20associated%20causes%2C%20since%201971.
Jose Pablo
Jan 15 2022 at 11:21am
The “emotional environmentalism” (a very fortunate expression indeed!) is a movement against capitalism and big companies and for bigger government. The level of CO2 emissions is just an excuse and an afterthought.
With this ” framework” in mind is easier to understand their opposition to private-big company owned power lines and to nuclear power; more in Germany where they are owned by private companies than in France where they are owned by the state.It is also clear why “emotional environmentalist” opposes higher prices for electricity all over Europe and for petrol in the US (see Warren and Biden, both leading “emotional environmentalist” reaction to price increases for gas)
But it is also, I think, “emotional environmentalism” to advocate, at the same time, for a government sponsored solution and a Pigouvian tax on CO2. Government sponsored solutions are going to be full of prohibitions and of subsidies targeting hand-picked industries. Governments, we know that, are always going to choose inefficient policies that “look good” and can be sold politically over pricing the “poor” out of gas for they cars and heating for their homes.
And yet “emotional environmentalists” keep advocating for this “impossible” policy.
Jose Pablo
Jan 15 2022 at 2:14pm
As an example:
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2021/12/bbbs-ugly-fine-print.html
But one can only be puzzled by Mankiw’s puzzle.
He, for sure, should have seen this coming … what was he thinking? … on a technically pure no politically biased legislature?
Come on …
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
Jan 15 2022 at 9:14pm
Which is better? An imperfect tax on net CO2 emissions or a Green New Deal, or continued increase in the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere?
Christophe Biocca
Jan 17 2022 at 8:13am
These are not mutually exclusive. A carbon tax doesn’t seem to satisfy voters that governments are doing enough (because it lacks highly visible actions), so you end up getting a green new deal anyways. A GND gets its support from “creating jobs” and looking like you’re solving the problem, so it can be put in place while not reducing emissions over the counterfactual at all (or, like Germany and Maine, actually increasing them).
Jose Pablo
Jan 17 2022 at 11:45am
I posted an answer to this question that somehow got lost … ¿?
Jose Pablo
Jan 17 2022 at 9:25pm
I have no clue and don’t believe anybody has. After all interpersonal utility comparisons are just impossible.
Quoting de Jasay: “The long and short of it is that objective and procedurally defined interpersonal comparisons of utility… are merely a roundabout route all the way back to the irreducible arbitrariness to be exercised by authority… [T]he two statements “the state found that increasing group P’s utility and decreasing that of group R would result in a net increase of utility,” and “the state chose to favor group P over group R” are descriptions of the same reality.”
That’s particularly clear when talking about “climate change”: it is an excuse for governments to exercise its arbitrariness, supporting the policy they believe is supported by the majority of its voters. When “the streets” show them that maybe their voters do not support that policy, they just change course, although the cost-benefit analysis they were basing their decision on does not change due to the street demonstrations … I guess)
My point here, keeping it narrow, is that advocating a “government sponsored CO2 tax because it will minimize the cost of reducing CO2 emissions” ignores what we know about how governments work. So, it is also a non-rational answer to this problem. Another form of “emotional environmentalism” following Summer fortunate expression.
The pork barrel nightmare that a “real” Green New Deal HAS to be is going to hugely increment the cost of any “actual” anti-global warming policy and significantly reduce its benefits (the reduction in CO2 emissions).
I find disappointing that very brilliant minds keep retorting to imagine that we are governed by angels (or by economic PhDs) when looking for a solution to global warming. Sure, they can do better than that.
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
Jan 17 2022 at 5:50am
While this must be true for some “environmentalists” that their real opposition is to capitalism and that CO2 emissions or other externalities is just a pretext, I really dislike arguments against bad faith. [The same goes for opposing restrictive zoning practices becasue motive was racist.] First, they have to be less effective because even when true the person is probable not aware of that this is the motivation so the force of the argument is deflected. Second, maybe even a committed centra planned could be persuaded to support an anti-CO2 emissions policy. A tax on net emissions of CO2 would certainly “hit” many people’s favorite villains even if it is the least anti-market policy and does not bring a Socialist utopia any closer.
Jose Pablo
Jan 17 2022 at 6:31pm
Where is the “bad faith” part coming from? The “emoational environmentalist” have a strong preference for government intervention and a profound dislike for capitalism. They don’t hide it. They don’t pretend not having it.
And, sure enough, when they do a “cost-benefit” analysis their preferences show up. Afterall utility is subjective. Buchanan, “Cost and Choice”:
“The following specific implications emerge from this choice-bound conception of cost:1. ….2. Cost is subjective; it exists in the mind of the decision-maker and nowhere else.3. Cost is based on anticipations; it is necessarily a forward-looking or ex ante concept.4. Cost can never be realized because of the fact of choice itself; that which is given up cannot be enjoyed.5. Cost cannot be measured by someone other than the decision-maker because there is no way that subjective experience can be directly observed.6. …. Cost, then, is purely subjective in any theory of choice …”
No bad faith, just the pure impossibility of interpersonal utility comparisons. The “goblal-warming-related utility” of the “emotional environmentalist” does “add” to themselves, to their own subjectivity. But it does not to Scott’s. No bad faith in any side. Just the arbitrariness of cost-benefit analysis at play.
Pete S
Jan 15 2022 at 4:14pm
This is a really good post.
Another way to put it would be ‘Religious Environmentalists’ and ‘Reasonable Environmentalists’.
The environmental movement also seems to have appeared more in Protestant countries such as Germany and Scandinavia. It has similarities to an austere sort of Lutheranism that sees wealth as bad.
It also gives people something to believe in that is bigger than themselves. As GK Chesterton put it, the problem with people who are not religious is not that they believe nothing, but rather that they will believe anything.
The people that many environmentalists really dislike are people that apply a careful cost benefit on environmental issues. Bjorn Lomborg would be the most famous. But Roger Pielke Jnr, Matt Ridley and now Michael Shellenberger are strongly disliked. The Breakthrough Institute are another group.
Scott Sumner
Jan 15 2022 at 11:11pm
Good post, although I’m not sure I agree with Chesterton on that point.
john hare
Jan 16 2022 at 4:28am
Yes, one of the reasons I walked away from organized religion is the expectation that I take on faith things that would be absurd in the world as I know it. The valid spiritual lessons are all too often backed up by very shaky real world examples. In what other context would one accept a virgin birth as unchallengeable fact??
robc
Jan 16 2022 at 2:06pm
How would you go about disproving the virgin birth? Its too late to do a paternity test.
I think either position would be a matter of faith. Sure Bayesian analysis would favor against, but I am pretty sure Bayes doesnt apply to miracles.
John hare
Jan 16 2022 at 4:25pm
I can neither prove or disprove. According to some I am supposed to take it on faith. Or it is assumed to be a miracle when under any other situation there are simpler explanations. I’m not very good at assuming a miracle based on a report written years later.
I have no problem with someone else believing and acting on that assumption. I have a major problem with them demanding I do the same.
Donald
Jan 19 2022 at 7:08am
Bayes theorem applies always and everywhere. There are no epistemological “get out of jail free” cards. Calling something a miracle doesn’t stop probability theory working. (Although it may suggest you aren’t using it right. If you think you measure something very unlikely, check your measuring equipment and assumptions.)
The prior for virgin birth is pretty low. Biologically Komodo dragons do it. But virgin birth of a male would be more biologically implausible. The other main possibility is accidental artificial insemination. (eg Sperm contaminated washcloth)
Either way, someone claiming to be a virgin is much weaker evidence for them being a virgin than them giving birth being evidence against them being a virgin.
Jens
Jan 15 2022 at 4:40pm
In Germany, environmentalists succeeded in getting the government to agree to shut down the entirely nuclear power industry, which will lead to a large increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
This is a very strange summary of the history of the German nuclear phase-out, which omits so many details that it can only be summed up as being wrong.
Environmental protection in Germany is primarily represented by one political party: The Greens. The Greens have been calling for a nuclear phase-out for a long time (in fact, opposition to nuclear energy is part of their founding myth). But they also demand the reduction of motorized individual transport (especially the car); the abolition of domestic flights (if possible also of intra-European flights); the expansion of renewable energies and the energetic renovation of existing buildings. These are measures that, taken together, would lead to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions; perhaps even to climate neutrality.
However, for the last 16 years, the Greens have not even been involved in the German federal government, which is in charge of such issues at the end of the day.
It is rather the case that the then governing coalition of conservatives and neoliberals decided in 2010 on a lifetime extension (!) that would have allowed the operation of nuclear power plants well into the 30s and 40s of the 21st century. Then came Fukushima and overnight this decision was reversed.
One can speculate for a long time whether this was due to sudden turn on risk perception (there are some decisions that Merkel made overnight) or whether they wanted to make sure that the Greens could not gain too many votes in the next federal elections. Whatever the case, the extension became a phase-out, but all the other Green proposals have since not been implemented in as much detail as the nuclear phase-out.
Incidentally, a few weeks and months ago, there was another very brief debate about a phase-out from the phase-out, because it is indeed the case that the expansion of renewables is lagging behind and an extension of the operating life of nuclear power plants is not such a bad idea at the moment. But in the meantime, not even the operating companies want to keep them running beyond 2022. But another thing has changed meanwhile. The Greens have been back in government since the end of 2021 and now have the opportunity to take care of the rest.
Scott Sumner
Jan 16 2022 at 11:15pm
None of this in any way contradicts anything I said. At the margin, the nuclear phaseout is a disaster for the environment. The fact that greens also want to do other good things is entirely beside the point.
Thomas Strenge
Jan 18 2022 at 6:52pm
Plus Germany has some of the most expensive energy in the world. My father is transporting coal like crazy from Hamburg to Berlin. The shutdown was not well thought out. And now Germany is beholden to Putin’s natural gas. Also, a modern clean coal power plant was shut down near Hamburg after only five years, but the older ones near Bremen are kept online because they also provide heat to 500,000 customers. Energy policy in Germany is a mess, is dominated by virtue signaling and it’s not green, regardless of who is driving it.
Philo
Jan 16 2022 at 12:37am
“How can we develop effective public policies in a world where most of our political allies don’t understand how to achieve their stated policy goals?” “We” are the rational, knowledgeable, altogether sensible people. The insurmountable difficulty is that there aren’t enough of us!
Phil H
Jan 16 2022 at 3:21am
Though I see where you’re coming from, I don’t think the labels scientific/religious are very helpful. It’s not OK to claim scientific validity for your “side” in an argument unless you really are just following the science, and your proposal of a “rational cost/benefit approach” doesn’t do that. It’s a political opinion (one that I agree with, but not scientific).
Perhaps a less contentious way of putting it would short-sighted vs. big-picture? I certainly agree that there’s a problem with projects getting vetoed on the basis that any local harm to the local environment unacceptable, even if we believe that a project will benefit the greater environment.
But there is a position that seems quite reasonable to me that says: sure, you can always make the argument that a compromise here and a compromise there will be better in the long run. But in fact, allowing these compromises just continues to worsen our unsustainable trajectory. The only effective political position is to say no to any harm, and force developers to find smarter, less impactful ways to build/extract/transport/whatever.
It’s an extreme position, but often, extremists are the ones who move the needle. So I don’t think we can dismiss their position, even if we disagree with it.
MikeDC
Jan 18 2022 at 11:58am
I think scientific vs. religious is probably close to right, but to see why, think of it as descriptive rather than pejorative.
Religious belief is, ultimately, a moral belief, and isn’t necessarily subject to cost-benefit analysis at all. We need to keep in mind that utilitarian morality isn’t the only morality.
So, think of it this way. Asking a moral environmentalist to put up a high-transmission power line or build a nuclear plant is probably akin to asking an observant Jew or Muslim to eat pork. You could make all the arguments you want about the nutrition and benefits of doing so and it won’t matter one bit.
Phil H
Jan 16 2022 at 3:23am
Sorry, forgot I wanted to say something about this as well: “How can we develop effective public policies in a world where most of our political allies don’t understand how to achieve their stated policy goals?”
Institutions. Even with all the absurdities and problems that they create. Institutions are the only way.
Thomas Hutcheson
Jan 16 2022 at 6:44am
One way is to make every criticism of bad “environmentalism” the occasion for arguing for the correct alternative. Scott sort of does this by posing careful cost-benefit analysis as the alternative, but that’s pretty vague. Would doing this systematically on issue by issue (close this nuclear power plant? allow this pipeline line?) be enough?
Jose Pablo
Jan 17 2022 at 11:23pm
I am intrigued by the meaning of “careful” in “careful cost-benefit analysis”
Does it mean “done in a way that you (or somebody else) find acceptable”?
Then we should be “careful” choosing the “somebody else” that should validate the cost-benefit analysis in order for it to be labelled as “careful enough”.
But then we are entering here in a spiral of “carefulness”, don’t we?
Andrew_FL
Jan 16 2022 at 6:59pm
You’re neglecting Profit Maximizing Environmentalism: Environmentalism that thrives on keeping Environmental issues alive rather than solving them because bilking people for it is Big Business.
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
Jan 17 2022 at 5:55am
My objection to Juan Pablo’s argument applies to this one as well.
Jose Pablo
Jan 17 2022 at 11:16pm
Again, Andrew’s argument does not require any “bad faith” from environmentalists making a profit from their activities.
Since they are making a profit from these activities they should rationally assume (in good faith) that they are doing something beneficial to humankind (same way that coal miners should assume in Pennsylvania).
They should, them, pursuit “profit maximization” as a way of maximizing this benefit to humanity. Since a significant part of this profit is coming from government subsidies and not from free individual decisions taken by consumers (and this certainly is a difference with the coal miners … although they do have their own set of subsidies too. Government schizophrenia at work!), it is possible that they are being significantly misled by government officials, but this is not the “profit maximization environmentalists” fault in any way.
Government officials are not acting in bad faith, either. They are just pursuing their own set of incentives. In total good faith and to the best of their capacities. And using other people’s money with very limited accountability (if any), which is known to significantly stretch the imagination.
Floccina
Jan 17 2022 at 12:13pm
Is that what representative Government is supposed to solve? Is it why some people advocate a huge expansion in the House of Representatives. Is the theory that voters personally know their representative and trust him to go to DC and listen to congressional hearings and understand more that people have time to understand and do the right thing according to our shared values, in this case environmental values. Candidates would run on shared values and explain why they did what they did.
So would it help if we had say 10,000 congressional representatives, one near me.
johnson85
Jan 17 2022 at 12:29pm
I think you’re missing the point of “emotional environmentalism”. They’re not focused on the interest of humans. They are focused on getting individual meaning from fighting “for the environment” or “against pollution”. So yes, if you look at it from a perspective of doing what’s best for the environment or trying to optimize between tradeoffs for human quality of life and the environment, what they are doing looks counterproductive.
But if you look at it from them getting individual meaning from being part of “the fight”, what they are doing makes perfect sense. They get involved in a particular fight because of some combination of being exposed to the fight, it being local, and/or the issue resonating with their personal feelings for whatever reason (e.g., one person might like animals and fight against logging because of a particular animal’s habitat being impacted, another person that is more interested in their “fight” being more dramatic, might fight against logging because they think it contributed to the “existential issue” of climate change).
So the transmission line gets fought not because it’s bad for the environment, but because it’s a fight that is local and easily accessible to some number of emotional environmentalists, and fighting it provides personal meaning to those environmentalists. And there will also be a small minority of them that have managed to turn those type fights into profit making ventures that allows them to make a career of “fighting” and fundraising.
uncertain
Jan 18 2022 at 12:53pm
Good points here. I think the axis of ‘particular vs. universal’ environmentalism is illuminating. The former is focused on things like local organic food production, land conservation, recreational access, and charismatic wildlife. It’s less about either human welfare or the environment as a whole, but about this mountain, this endangered bird of prey, this community of small farmers and their land. Some of this is about human value (nature as consumption amenity) and some is about emotional attachment to specific animals, habitats, etc.
It’s much easier to get emotionally invested in these concrete, local things than the global average CO2 PPM concentration… which is I guess just another way of saying concentrated costs swamp diffuse benefits.
Thomas Strenge
Jan 18 2022 at 11:07am
I am reminded of Vaclav Havel’s watermelon analogy: environmentalists are green on the outside, but red on the inside. I think finding the cure to emotional environmentalism might also be the cure for all those who still fall in love with socialism. But what could it be? We know that reason is not the answer.
Michael Rulle
Jan 18 2022 at 2:00pm
Keep in mind that this political movement has been driven by believers of climate catastrophe who think that CO2 from human activity will cause irreversible damage to the earth. The IPCC does not assert anything close to this. It also has studies that even suggest that manmade made CO2 has no impact—although that is a clear minority. Their biggest point was that by 210o, GDP would be modestly lower if trends continue as they have for the last 50 years.—no Catastrophe is in their forecast.
Politicians know this is not a real problem —–or they would actually do something–even China and India. If an asteroid had a 98% chance of hitting us in 2120—would we be doing this dance of the absurd? It is a perfect political issue, for both the left and the right—call the other side stupid or evil and to be for or against wind/gas also sell influence—-and even Exxon and Musk can win from both sides.
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