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I found this article on some of the strange reasoning that has gone into economic cost-benefit analyses of climate change both thought-provoking and disturbing:
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-11-15/the-climate-crisis-as-seen-by-the-economics-mainstream-2/
A quote:
"Another ecological economist, Clive Spash, explains how a methodology like this, that aggregates gains and losses in money figures, means that dead people in China and India are compensated for by extra golfing holidays in Florida."
There's other weird stuff in there too, like some models valuing the lives of rich people more highly than the lives of poor people.
These examples strike me as obviously wrong, but I wonder how common this type of thinking is in environmental cost-benefit analyses.
Thoughts?
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https://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-11-15/the-climate-crisis-as-seen-by-the-economics-mainstream-2/
A quote:
"Another ecological economist, Clive Spash, explains how a methodology like this, that aggregates gains and losses in money figures, means that dead people in China and India are compensated for by extra golfing holidays in Florida."
There's other weird stuff in there too, like some models valuing the lives of rich people more highly than the lives of poor people.
These examples strike me as obviously wrong, but I wonder how common this type of thinking is in environmental cost-benefit analyses.
Thoughts?
Comments
First: Yes! I agree!
Second: The other one that makes me uneasy is the idea of "payment for ecosystem services", which I have the feeling often comes down to paying people not to destroy natural resources that we *ought* to be able to take for granted. Somehow the idea of instead punishing people for destroying things (or polluting them, or whathaveyou) is taboo.