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Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

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Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole context of this discussion is "creat[ing] a better world for nothing" through government intervention on pollution. I didn't think I had to spell it out when it's part of the topic of the conversation. I'm curious as to why you think completely unregulated industry would result in the most reduction in pollution, when industries with no pollution regulations (but with other regulations) have repeatedly show…

> I'm curious as to why you think completely unregulated industry would result in the most reduction in pollution, when industries with no pollution regulations (but with other regulations) have repeatedly shown to pollute enormously at every opportunity. What mechanism would cause industry to suddenly care about their pollution in that scenario? How could those industries not pollute enormously, when they have to qu…

The lawsuit answer is the standard one I pretty much always get for this question. The problem I have is transaction costs.

Your example is very good for the lawsuit approach, because there's one polluter and one pollutee and it's very clear with liability, cause and effect, etc.

I accept that this solution works for cases like this. Indeed, it's why I mostly don't have to deal with people dumping trash on my front door and such. Property rights work fine for that sort of thing.

The problem I have is when both pollution and harm is much more diffuse. You might have thousands or millions of polluters, and millions or billions of victims. For any given polluter-pollutee pairing, the harm is far below the cost of litigation. Yet the total harm can be enormous.

For example, let's say there's a city with ten thousand factories and 20 million people. The factories are polluting the air like crazy which makes it unpleasant to be outside and causing all sorts of long-term health problems. (I just got back from Beijing so this is a particularly significant example for me.) Someone living in this city wants to sue the polluters for the massive amount of harm they're causing. How does this work?

Here's how I see it not working. They can't sue every factory because they can't afford the legal fees for ten thousand lawsuits. They'll have to pick one, or maybe a few. Now they get to court and have to prove damages. Well, the defendant's pollution is causing about 0.01% of the total pollution affecting the plaintiff. It's negligible. Even if you say that the total harm to the plaintiff is, say, $10 million, the defendant's share of that liability is $1,000. Hardly worth the time to litigate. And will you even be able to prove to the court that that particular factory is responsible for any of the pollution harming that particular plaintiff? Particles don't have serial numbers, after all, and neither do cancer cells.

Maybe you manage to put together a class action lawsuit so all 20 million citizens can band together. You still have the same problems of going after an individual factory.

Maybe the legal system is structured such that all 20 million citizens can band together and sue all 10,000 factories simultaneously. Aggregate harm can be demonstrated and liability apportioned even though no individual factory can be blamed, and no individual plaintiff can conclusively trace any ailment to the pollution. This works, but all you've done is reinvent something identical to modern environmental regulations, only they're ad-hoc regulations dictated by courts rather than concrete regulations dictated by the legislature.

And this is a relatively simple example. How would this deal with, for example, atmospheric mercury pollution that has already caused seafood to be dangerously toxic to children and pregnant women if eaten in large quantities? How would it deal with greenhouse gas pollution which won't cause any catastrophic effects for decades?

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#162
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people have been talking about population explosion since forever No, that's not true. Thomas Malthus wrote his famous essay less than 200 years ago. The oldest human writings are only a few thousand years old. That's the blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things. > How can you predict what will be relevant in 100 years? Because I can do math. So I can understand that exponential growth cannot be sustained in a…

600 years to figure out space colonization with efforts under way already and likely to happen in a 100 years ... I see that you're trying to make a point it's just not making any sense. Honestly we have no idea how society will look like in 50 years with the advent of AI and such nobody knows what close future holds let alone 100 years - this "we're doing it to save the future" is like people talking how there's goi…

> space colonization

That won't help.

Suppose we manage to completely terraform Mars (extremely unlikely in just 600 years) and suppose that the biomass of Mars can be made equal to that of earth. It will only be one more doubling time (i.e. 60 years) before Mars is completely full as well. Then what?

> you think that limits you think matter (like biomass, or planet size, or w/e) are somehow intrinsically relevant and unsolvable

No. I don't know what the limiting factor will ultimately turn out to be. It may be that we will eventually succeed in transmuting matter and turning the entire mass of the universe into homo sapiens. You can do the math on that too. That will get you out to a couple of thousand years. After that we would need to find a way to get around the law of conservation of mass. You have to be a pretty extreme optimist to believe we'll have that figured out by then.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you understand how small Singapore is? (Not trying to be snarky) But yeah, they are not invading anyone anytime soon.

Yeah, but Israel is also tiny and can still kick the ass of everyone else in the Middle East. Similar to Israel, Singapore has a lot going for it with respect to modern warfare that makes up for its population and landmass deficit. I agree that total invasion is probably very unlikely in the foreseeable immediate future.

Israel - 8522 sq miles

Singapore - 278 sq miles

You are off by quite a bit there. Besides, whether you are willing to admit it or not, a LARGE part of the Israeli swagger is the understanding that they have the full might of the US army behind them (be it right or not). Singapore does not have an equivalent relationship.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm curious as to why you think completely unregulated industry would result in the most reduction in pollution, when industries with no pollution regulations (but with other regulations) have repeatedly shown to pollute enormously at every opportunity. What mechanism would cause industry to suddenly care about their pollution in that scenario? How could those industries not pollute enormously, when they have to qu…

The lawsuit answer is the standard one I pretty much always get for this question. The problem I have is transaction costs. Your example is very good for the lawsuit approach, because there's one polluter and one pollutee and it's very clear with liability, cause and effect, etc. I accept that this solution works for cases like this. Indeed, it's why I mostly don't have to deal with people dumping trash on my front d…

> Maybe the legal system is structured such that all 20 million citizens can band together and sue all 10,000 factories simultaneously.

Yes, this is the scenario that would occur. It's obvious, in retrospect, you've debated this before. ;)

Are you familiar with the concept of DROs? I would need to introduce the concept of Dispute Resolution Organizations and Polycentric Law in order to explain this fully, which I am afraid would take far too long. The gist is that, due to many advantages I will skip over here, people would subscribe to DROs (like they do today for life insurance) which would mediate disputes through negotiation with a view to establishing new contracts that will repair the initial damage that is under scrutiny. People would choose DROs based on the promises and rules that DROs make and abide by when they sign their contracts with those they represent, and based on the process they have for negotiating and establishing new rules, and also their tie-breaking process.

There would be DROs for people in general, DROs for specialized trades (like medical doctors and engineers due to different liabilities), and of course DROs for companies.

If several companies are polluting the air in a given city full of people, and those people want to sue those companies for their smog having caused them bodily harm (under tort law, since your body is your property), then they could notify their DROs of their intent; those DROs already talk to each other on a consistent basis since that is how disputes are solved between people that belong to different DROs, so they already have rules amongst themselves for how to deal with lawsuits that are many-to-many in relationship, as it were. Upon asked to effectuate this plural lawsuit, the DROs representing both plural parties would engage in negotiation amongst themselves on behalf of their clients and would need to find a solution that would make most of their clients happy. Here we have the DROs interests perfectly aligned with the interests of those they represent, because if the DRO makes an unpopular decision, it will lose clients.

> This works, but all you've done is reinvent something identical to modern environmental regulations

Yes, but now without the coercion that is sine-qua-non to regulations. That means a huge decrease in the initiation of violence among people.

> And this is a relatively simple example.

It is, and I hope my sketch-answer above has enough information to inform you that there are very good and well-fleshed-out solutions to this problem as discovered by the philosophers that explore this field. Nozick is particularly good at taking readers through complicated examples of real-life situations that at first seem hard or impossible to solve with a free market.

> How would this deal with, for example, atmospheric mercury pollution that has already caused seafood to be dangerously toxic to children and pregnant women if eaten in large quantities? How would it deal with greenhouse gas pollution which won't cause any catastrophic effects for decades?

I do not know if there are proposed solutions for those issues where there is a large delay between cause and effect. Here I am speaking from my own head and not remembering things I've read as I was above for the DRO answer: I would guess that for the first case, where a present issue was caused by something/someone(s) in a hazy past, that the tortfeasor may be impossible to track down to engage the plaintiffs. If the tortfeasor companies are still around and haven't engaged in this issue before, and proof can be established to link cause and effect to them, I imagine it could be treated as a normal lawsuit from here on (having identified both parties in the suit); their representative DROs will have to negotiate and come up with a solution that is satisfying for all parties involved; if rectification is impossible, then perhaps reparations would be in order. If there is a known method for fish-mercury removal (or the like), then depending on the pressure put on the DROs by their clients, the resolution could include the company having to pay to employ this solution, even though the person who was responsible for the mercury leak (let's suppose) might be long gone.

As for the greenhouse problem where the cause is in the present and the effect is in a hazy future, the DROs would first expect good evidence that there is indeed a cause of something going on, and sufficient evidence that this cause will result in a definable effect. Having established as much, there may be grounds for a lawsuit under threat of violence (threats of violence are considered initiation of violence by most philosophers in this area) since the noxious gases being dispersed now are threatening the lives of children and infant (we can't use "future generations") in the future, just like a threat to kill someone works.

This has been very enjoyable, and I hope you can take something away from this. Most free marketers I meet are well read and reached their conclusions from carefully reading the extremely counter-intuitive stuff that Nozick et alii put forth, or whoever else is their favorite Jew, since most of the best free market philosophers have been Jews for some reason [1] (my guess: high verbal intelligence coupled with propensity towards radicalization and high self-confidence and courage, or as they call it, chutzpah) and I feel like mentioning it because I owe my education largely to them (as an autodidact in economics), even though I am a harsh critic of their version of WW2 history (critiques which are purely based on science (especially chemical analysis) and not on any form of bigotry as many are quick to suggest).

[1] The current best jewish free marketer philosopher is unbeatably Walter Block. You owe it to yourself to listen to some of his arguments; you will undoubtedly catch a glimpse of the whole free market machinery at work through his astoundingly clear explanations. No one comes close. His defense of slander and libel are among my favorites - students that at first disagree with him are left speechless after having their contentions undone by Block.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole context of this discussion is "creat[ing] a better world for nothing" through government intervention on pollution. I didn't think I had to spell it out when it's part of the topic of the conversation. I'm curious as to why you think completely unregulated industry would result in the most reduction in pollution, when industries with no pollution regulations (but with other regulations) have repeatedly show…

> I'm curious as to why you think completely unregulated industry would result in the most reduction in pollution, when industries with no pollution regulations (but with other regulations) have repeatedly shown to pollute enormously at every opportunity. What mechanism would cause industry to suddenly care about their pollution in that scenario? How could those industries not pollute enormously, when they have to qu…

> The government's job, in this scenario, is to enforce contract law and property rights (via tort law) through its justice courts. Since the river owners and the polluting company (in our example) don't have a contract with each other, only tort law applies. Clearly the company damaged these owners' rivers downstream (let's suppose) so the courts will decide the company must either cease and desist (destroying the property of river owners) and compensate them for the damage caused, or offer to buy them out, or offer to draw a contract that the river owners would agree to instead of winning the lawsuit.

The governments job in the present US system includes that, and its demonstrable that that function of government alone is not sufficient to encourage polluters to take great pains not to pollute others property, especially with pollutants that are difficult to trace to a single source such that ascribing liability to a particular polluter is difficult.

You suggest that things like property tax, eminent domain, etc. are problematic to your vision of "private property" (which seems a lot more like sovereign territory than private property), but you don't actually trace any causal link between the features you complain about and companies' propensity to pollute, and the avenues you point to as solutions in a "private property" (by your rather atypical definition of the term) system are, in fact, avenues that are equally present in the existing system and which have proven insufficient to the task.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lawsuit answer is the standard one I pretty much always get for this question. The problem I have is transaction costs. Your example is very good for the lawsuit approach, because there's one polluter and one pollutee and it's very clear with liability, cause and effect, etc. I accept that this solution works for cases like this. Indeed, it's why I mostly don't have to deal with people dumping trash on my front d…

> Maybe the legal system is structured such that all 20 million citizens can band together and sue all 10,000 factories simultaneously. Yes, this is the scenario that would occur. It's obvious, in retrospect, you've debated this before. ;) Are you familiar with the concept of DROs? I would need to introduce the concept of Dispute Resolution Organizations and Polycentric Law in order to explain this fully, which I am…

> Yes, but now without the coercion that is sine-qua-non to regulations. That means a huge decrease in the initiation of violence among people.

I find it extremely difficult to take anything you say seriously when you make absurd statements like this. Environmental regulation is responsible for so much violence that its lack can cause a "huge decrease" in it?

Reading further, you are apparently using a definition of the word "violence" which is essentially unrelated to how normal people understand the word. What other words are you using your own definitions for? How am I to understand anything you're saying in any of this when apparently any word can mean anything at any time?

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe the legal system is structured such that all 20 million citizens can band together and sue all 10,000 factories simultaneously. Yes, this is the scenario that would occur. It's obvious, in retrospect, you've debated this before. ;) Are you familiar with the concept of DROs? I would need to introduce the concept of Dispute Resolution Organizations and Polycentric Law in order to explain this fully, which I am…

> Yes, but now without the coercion that is sine-qua-non to regulations. That means a huge decrease in the initiation of violence among people. I find it extremely difficult to take anything you say seriously when you make absurd statements like this. Environmental regulation is responsible for so much violence that its lack can cause a "huge decrease" in it? Reading further, you are apparently using a definition of…

Violence, noun. Tertiary meaning, under the rubric of Law:

The unlawful exercise of physical force or intimidation by the exhibition of such force.

(Emphasis mine.)

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_eng...

Regulation is intimidation by the exhibition of force (the regulatory body's authority is an exhibition of the threat of violence that backs its ability to fine and imprison).

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, but now without the coercion that is sine-qua-non to regulations. That means a huge decrease in the initiation of violence among people. I find it extremely difficult to take anything you say seriously when you make absurd statements like this. Environmental regulation is responsible for so much violence that its lack can cause a "huge decrease" in it? Reading further, you are apparently using a definition of…

Violence, noun. Tertiary meaning, under the rubric of Law: The unlawful exercise of physical force or intimidation by the exhibition of such force . (Emphasis mine.) http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_eng... Regulation is intimidation by the exhibition of force (the regulatory body's authority is an exhibition of the threat of violence that backs its ability to fine and imprison).

If you break environmental regulations they'll just seize company assets, which just involves contacting your bank and such. No violence involved at any time, even hypothetically.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#169
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

600 years to figure out space colonization with efforts under way already and likely to happen in a 100 years ... I see that you're trying to make a point it's just not making any sense. Honestly we have no idea how society will look like in 50 years with the advent of AI and such nobody knows what close future holds let alone 100 years - this "we're doing it to save the future" is like people talking how there's goi…

> space colonization That won't help. Suppose we manage to completely terraform Mars (extremely unlikely in just 600 years) and suppose that the biomass of Mars can be made equal to that of earth. It will only be one more doubling time (i.e. 60 years) before Mars is completely full as well. Then what? > you think that limits you think matter (like biomass, or planet size, or w/e) are somehow intrinsically relevant an…

I think we've gone so far from what I was arguing - we can talk hypothetical 500 year future - but that has no bearing on what we should do right now. We still have more than enough resources even with current technology to sustain current population growth for the foreseeable future - suggesting that we should start population control is just green bullshit these so called environmentalist bring up because they are afraid that their favorite animal is going extinct.

I'm not much in to that "native American wisdom" about how we should be one with nature and how we can't eat money - money = resources + capital + labor = solution to whatever problem you're facing given enough time. As far as I'm concerned we should be working on solutions to reduce our dependence on the ecosystem - climate change is just an a symptom of a bigger problem - the environment we depend on is fragile - the solution isn't praying that everything stays the same and maiming ourselves so we stay within some magical limit they think is going to "appease" the "balance of nature" - we should be working towards replacing it with a more robust systems (eg. like controlled/engineered food production instead of relying on weather, pesticides, herbicides, etc. and hoping all goes well). This is what I mean by regressive thinking - instead of focusing on how these eventual problems could be solved trough innovation their solution is "stop doing whatever we beleive might cause that and hope for the best".

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#170

palm oil is a terrible, terrible thing. If you have travelled at all to central america or asia, you know what i mean. (ok yes, you got me... traveling to asia isn't so hot for the environment either) Wherever you think a jungle should be, you see palm trees. As far as the eye can see. If you care about this. And you probably should. Then have a look at the ingredient list & don't buy products with palm oil.

IMO, it also tastes bloody horrible!
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