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Regard for natural resources is actually a pretty mainstream idea in economics. The concepts of tragedy of the commons, public goods, pollution as a negative ex
by mr_overalls 8y ago
Regard for natural resources is actually a pretty mainstream idea in economics. The concepts of tragedy of the commons, public goods, pollution as a negative externality, etc. are quite well-established.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_economics
- tim333 8y agoThere's kind of an issue with discount rates though in that if you say a dollar today is worth say $1.05 next year it implies you should discount global warming damage a couple of centuries ahead by a factor of over 17000. But I'm not sure that's reasonable.
- leroman 8y agoI'm far from knowledgeable on the technicalities of economics (I'm in the software engineering business), but observing the dialogue that takes place between economists and seeing the results, its hard to accept economists actually make effort to factor this in, my experience is that they are only reacting to public outcry. I find it hard to believe they even have the tools to factor environmental impact into their models. (don't tell me factoring damage due to sea rise as a "tool".)