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> What a waste of tax dollars The better point is we can spend the dollars more effectively to improve the environment. The military / military spending has n

by zaroth 8y ago

> What a waste of tax dollars The better point is we can spend the dollars more effectively to improve the environment. The military / military spending has nothing to do with it.

dahart 8y ago
Recycling already is a more effective expenditure than landfill. If there are even better ways, please contribute them to the discussion! > military spending has nothing to do with it. That’s right. Military spending is simply what one should be concerned about if they are worried about taxes. Military spending is greater than 50% of all tax expenditure in the US. Waste management is such a small fraction, it’s in the noise, far below military, and other things like roads and education.
- zaroth 8y ago
  > Recycling already is a more effective expenditure than landfill. There are some materials where there is a net economic benefit to recycling, such as aluminum and to a lesser extent steel and glass. There are also materials where it’s a net cost (in excess of landfill dumping fees) to recycle the material, such as many plastics. If we are paying in aggregate millions of dollars to recycle this material, it makes sense to ask could those dollars be put to better use. Also worth noting I don’t pay for garbage and refuse through my local taxes, I have a private service which I pay to pickup my trash. Many towns are moving to this model so that residents who make less trash can pay less. Military spending is 50% of “discretionary” spending, but about 1/6th of total spending. “Discretionary” means spending appropriated each year, versus spending which is based on existing laws and not the annual budget. I’m sure there’s many ways that money could be better spent as well, but it doesn’t change the fact that we should invest efficiently in environmental protection.
  - dahart 8y ago
    First, thanks for the reply. What I like about the discussion, even when I disagree, is that I think you and everyone here are truly pro-conservation as a goal and ideal, both economically and environmentally. We all want the same thing, less waste, there are just minor differences of opinion about how to get there. What I don’t like about the article posted and about Tierney’s quite misguided writing is the negative headlines that immediately give the reader the impression that inaction is better than action. There are many cherry-picked statistics being used to paint a narrative that is more or less the opposite of truth, at least in Tierney’s work. I encourage you to read it and the rebuttals I posted and make up your own mind. > There are some materials where there is a net economic benefit to recycling Personally speaking, money is not what I care about. Recycling’s primary goals are to stop using non-renewables and stop toxic pollution and damage to the environment, not to be cheaper than being lazy. I don’t care if it costs more to value the environment, I want clean air and water, forever. I realize it’s going to take strong economic arguments to get us all moving, and I’m in no way in favor of wasting money, but in terms of priorities and the way we evaluate what’s worth doing, I believe waiting for clear and undeniable and unarguable economic benefit is probably a mistake. I furthermore think that cost-benefit analysis of environmental factors is a deeply flawed idea. By reducing things to dollars, we’re losing our actual values. This study examined previous environmental cost-benefit analyses, and concluded they were wrong by orders of magnitude: https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1326&context=facpub https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a... I think in a hundred or two hundred years if we run out of petroleum, if we need expensive air and water filters in order to survive, our great great grandchildren might look back and realize how pathetic and petty the idea was that we decided we needed to make valuing the earth cheaper than screwing it up before we were willing to budge.
    - zaroth 8y ago
      I agree with everything you are saying. I just want to be clear I'm not saying we should only do things that protect the environment if they don't have a net economic cost. i mean, there are a lot of basic environmental protective measures which actually save money too. Any time you can make something more efficient there might be upfront capex / R&D to get there, but the value inherent in the efficiency pays you back over time. E.g. airplane engines. But that's not my point. If we are going to ask people to spend $X/day to improve their environment, it's possible that some of those hours and dollars should go toward the costs of recycling. But maybe not all $10 should go there. We should ask people to spend their time and money in the ways which will be most productive toward helping the environment. It may be that recycling is the best bang for the buck because you can do it without leaving your home, it feels akin to doing a daily household chore rather than some special big task I have to go prepare for and schedule, and trying to get someone to do the equivalent amount of work at the equivalent cost (e.g. 10 hours and $250 a year) is never going to happen at the scale that we can get households participating in recycling. For example, we should be increasing the cost of things to cover their environmental impact. Products should get cheaper to sell if they last longer or have a smaller environmental footprint. Most particularly this should tax environmentally unfriendly packaging, since the packaging is the first to be discarded. This aligns incentives.
- nazgulnarsil 8y ago
  military spending is greater than 50% of discretionary spending, which is 29% of the budget iirc. Which means military spending is around 15-16% of total spending.

by zaroth 8y ago

> What a waste of tax dollars The better point is we can spend the dollars more effectively to improve the environment. The military / military spending has nothing to do with it.

dahart 8y ago

Recycling already is a more effective expenditure than landfill. If there are even better ways, please contribute them to the discussion! > military spending has nothing to do with it. That’s right. Military spending is simply what one should be concerned about if they are worried about taxes. Military spending is greater than 50% of all tax expenditure in the US. Waste management is such a small fraction, it’s in the noise, far below military, and other things like roads and education.

zaroth 8y ago
> Recycling already is a more effective expenditure than landfill. There are some materials where there is a net economic benefit to recycling, such as aluminum and to a lesser extent steel and glass. There are also materials where it’s a net cost (in excess of landfill dumping fees) to recycle the material, such as many plastics. If we are paying in aggregate millions of dollars to recycle this material, it makes sense to ask could those dollars be put to better use. Also worth noting I don’t pay for garbage and refuse through my local taxes, I have a private service which I pay to pickup my trash. Many towns are moving to this model so that residents who make less trash can pay less. Military spending is 50% of “discretionary” spending, but about 1/6th of total spending. “Discretionary” means spending appropriated each year, versus spending which is based on existing laws and not the annual budget. I’m sure there’s many ways that money could be better spent as well, but it doesn’t change the fact that we should invest efficiently in environmental protection.
- dahart 8y ago
  First, thanks for the reply. What I like about the discussion, even when I disagree, is that I think you and everyone here are truly pro-conservation as a goal and ideal, both economically and environmentally. We all want the same thing, less waste, there are just minor differences of opinion about how to get there. What I don’t like about the article posted and about Tierney’s quite misguided writing is the negative headlines that immediately give the reader the impression that inaction is better than action. There are many cherry-picked statistics being used to paint a narrative that is more or less the opposite of truth, at least in Tierney’s work. I encourage you to read it and the rebuttals I posted and make up your own mind. > There are some materials where there is a net economic benefit to recycling Personally speaking, money is not what I care about. Recycling’s primary goals are to stop using non-renewables and stop toxic pollution and damage to the environment, not to be cheaper than being lazy. I don’t care if it costs more to value the environment, I want clean air and water, forever. I realize it’s going to take strong economic arguments to get us all moving, and I’m in no way in favor of wasting money, but in terms of priorities and the way we evaluate what’s worth doing, I believe waiting for clear and undeniable and unarguable economic benefit is probably a mistake. I furthermore think that cost-benefit analysis of environmental factors is a deeply flawed idea. By reducing things to dollars, we’re losing our actual values. This study examined previous environmental cost-benefit analyses, and concluded they were wrong by orders of magnitude: https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1326&context=facpub https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a... I think in a hundred or two hundred years if we run out of petroleum, if we need expensive air and water filters in order to survive, our great great grandchildren might look back and realize how pathetic and petty the idea was that we decided we needed to make valuing the earth cheaper than screwing it up before we were willing to budge.
  - zaroth 8y ago
    I agree with everything you are saying. I just want to be clear I'm not saying we should only do things that protect the environment if they don't have a net economic cost. i mean, there are a lot of basic environmental protective measures which actually save money too. Any time you can make something more efficient there might be upfront capex / R&D to get there, but the value inherent in the efficiency pays you back over time. E.g. airplane engines. But that's not my point. If we are going to ask people to spend $X/day to improve their environment, it's possible that some of those hours and dollars should go toward the costs of recycling. But maybe not all $10 should go there. We should ask people to spend their time and money in the ways which will be most productive toward helping the environment. It may be that recycling is the best bang for the buck because you can do it without leaving your home, it feels akin to doing a daily household chore rather than some special big task I have to go prepare for and schedule, and trying to get someone to do the equivalent amount of work at the equivalent cost (e.g. 10 hours and $250 a year) is never going to happen at the scale that we can get households participating in recycling. For example, we should be increasing the cost of things to cover their environmental impact. Products should get cheaper to sell if they last longer or have a smaller environmental footprint. Most particularly this should tax environmentally unfriendly packaging, since the packaging is the first to be discarded. This aligns incentives.
nazgulnarsil 8y ago
military spending is greater than 50% of discretionary spending, which is 29% of the budget iirc. Which means military spending is around 15-16% of total spending.