Peter_Puget

would this be due to known unknowns or unknown unknowns? unless you are talking about non-toxic pesticides, this is so rarely the case that i don't think it's really worthy of mention shouldn't be a problem to cite a few examples then ... it would be because such people do not know any better "When we combine data from North America on preterm delivery or duration of lactation and DDE with African data on DDT spraying and the effect of preterm birth or lactation duration on infant deaths, we estimate an increase in infant deaths that is of the same order of magnitude as that from eliminating infant malaria. Therefore, the side effects of DDT spraying might reduce or abolish its benefit from the control of malaria in infants, even if such spraying prevents all infant deaths from malaria." http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol9no8/03-0082.htm Your study while not conclusive considers only ifnat deaths thus if it is accurate it does not contradict my contention it is clear that each case has to be assessed on its merit. but we are really far from such process in decision making, on the contrary, the private sector has little accountalibity to the public (by opposition to public officials), and little incentive to promote environmental conservation. You response below show that you missed the my problem. (probably my fault) Restated: How can all the different and often mutually exclusive values that Americans hold be coordinated and evaluated. a) don't politicize the epa, i.e. let the scientists do their jobs free of political influence b) enforce standards of emissions, toxicity levels, etc ... as determined by science c) institute widespread carbon credit schemes, etc ... to integrate environmental costs to that of doing business. environmental ideals are not only abstract concepts such as that of open space but also every day matters that have life and death consequences. for example, global warming causes the expansion of the range of mosquito-borne deseases to speak of only one example related to malaria.

NO! But in my defense I have only seconds to write each post

I say absent a free market they have no way to value things such as externalities and public good. Governmental agencies over time have consistently shown no better long term vision or better management in fact they have often sacrificed long term objectives to short term goals exactly what you consider private industry greatest flaw. I believe we have more to fear from government controls than private industry governed by the marketplace. Jjd’s post is quite relent and shows how the problem of externalities can be somewhat solved and the problems of government control avoided. That said I find that public ownership of the National Forests and Parks is a good thing because it helps foster a sense of community and shared identity. I know that sounds silly but to me that is a very important issue.

What are you talking about? I badmouth my neighbors' pursuit of the perfect green lawn? Matt - again you twist my quote out of context. reread my entire post and reread my earlier posts.

that was my question I have asked how we are to judge good management of resources and how competing values are to be evaluated. to date no answer.

We hadnt come to where the market can be improved Mattp is arguing that Government control of resources results in better management.

"But speaking here in my capacity as a polished, sophisticated European as well, it seems to me the laugh here is on the polished, sophisticated Europeans. They think Americans are fat, vulgar, greedy, stupid, ambitious and ignorant and so on. And they've taken as their own, as their representative American, someone who actually embodies all of those qualities." - Christopher Hitchens on "Scarborough Country

YOur obsesion with ignoring the benefits results in the glass always being half empty! Imagine a group stranded by a in a water hole. They survive by eating the last remaining giant pup fish. Now you can view this extinction as a tragedy? Or as the means to survival. If you view only the death of the fish it is easy to see the harm. If you consider the lives saved it becomes more difficult to see a net bad thing.

It is quite clearly absurd if you only look ant the cost side of the equation. You cannot find me arguing that externalities are absurd or that the "tragedy" of the commons is absurd. (sidebar: if everything was privately held could there be a tragedy of the commons?) Please show me where I have, but first explain why you think government is better at dealing with externalities than the market and how we are to judge good managment.

...I think there is a consistent pattern of private enterprises completely mismanaging resources in the interest of short term profits. wasn't the quote in support of the above?

Simple question: How do we judge good management of resources?

Mattp - tradeoffs equal costs. we may find (in fact we usually find) that our analysis of future costs and benefits is in error. As far as externalities your example was not clear but I was simply responding to pesticides being never a good thing. You can reduce your analysis to absurd levels if you wish. Enough of the dodge talk I certainly dont take it seriously when I attempt to address your points after your repeated decisions not to answer my simple questions. Externalities are present in almost every human action. I ask what is your point? Can you provide me with a theory as to why they would be better addressed by the government? You have made statements such as: "Pretty much all the big single source polluters except some particular facilities associated with the power industry are all private enterprises, aren't they? " In a society where industry is for the most part privately held that would be expected even if government was a worse polluter by some common standard. As a general rule markets are better for transmitting and responding to flows of information than governments are.

Mattp - the simple matter is all human actions require trade off - require future projections - that hints at the first problem: knowledge. It is never perfect we make mistakes. Yes pesticide runoff is a good thing if we judge the effects of the runoff to be less costly thant he benefits. I consider that to be obvious. I consider your isolation of the runoff problem to be more of a dodge than any request for definitions on my part. Here is an example: Due to "enviromental considerations" the use of DDT has been curtailed to the extent that Malaria control projects in the poorest section sof Afric have been stopped due to lack of $$$. Some estimate 2million mostly children and mostly in Africa die of malaria every year. The UN wont even fund any indoor residential spraying and yet people die. My point here is not to say that the deaths that spraying should go on but to merely point out that many could reasonably conclude that a but of pesticide runoff is a small price to pay for reduced malaria rates. Perhaps you consider a nice lawn not worth the price of pesticide runoff here in seattle that ok thats you evaluation - you are not willing to make that trade off. my guess is some are. This leads to a second problem: How do we coordinate and evaluate all these often mutually exclusive values?

I would suggest going to the UW Rock and start practicing on the cracks there. After you get them wired w/o feet start doing things like seeing how many jams you can fit into a particular crack. The crux on Thin Fingers is a face move at the bottom. If you have the UW Rock mastered, Thin Fingers will be easy.

One "conceptual problem" we have here is that you fail to say what your argument is but another is that you don't want to respond to the arguments sent your way. There was no mystery about what I meant by the word "cooperation" the other day, and no nuance to what I meant when I asked you if it was "cooperative" to refuse to comply with the expressed wishes of nearly every single one of (if not all of) our allies. Had you wanted to say, it was uncooperative but cooperation was not justified, or something like that, I might have been interested in continuing the discussion. Where you wanted to talk in circles to avoid the question, I lost interest. Mattp there was ambiguity in what you meant by cooperation. I asked in several ways what you meant by the term cooperation. You failed to respond. Your statement here is not in accordance with the facts. My original argument was simply that the environmental correctness of lawn care was not the point of the post. I believe I was quite clear on that,but I was confused by many responses in this thread and asked a simply question: what does good mean in “good for the environment”. No definition was given. I assume that people here believe that pesticide runoff is bad, in a sense I was asking why? Seems like a straightforward question. To say that I have failed to respond is mumbo jumbo. I asked clear questions and received no answers. You call it talking in circles I say it is creating a common ground. My own reply, echoing those of others, contained two equally simple ideas: the idea that future expectations are severely discounted in standard business accounting, and the idea that the actual costs or impacts associated with one's economic activity may be external and left completely out of the balance sheet. You dismiss both concepts, without discussing either. No I responded that standard business accounting does not severely discount cost of future actions. The concept of externalities is a well known concept and you brought up both ideas as something more relevant to private industry than government without any theory supporting it other than “I think”. What is even more weird is that you seem to be comparing an imperfect private system with an ideally perfect governmental system. Such a comparison seems silly to me. As the discussion moved I tried to address the first points raised and seek a common definition as to what good for the environment means. My simple definition subject to refinement is a “good” environment is what ever we want it to be – knowing all the time that our knowledge is imperfect. . I also asked a question about what book value means. Perhaps not surprisingly on page two CBS brings up the point of differing definitions. This reinforces my belief that asking for a definiton is worthwhile. After all if we are talking of better management we had better know how we will measure it. PP

If they haven't declared bankruptcy. PP- Name one industry that CARES about a ROI 40 years from now! The timber companies care only about maintaining the same book value of their cutting lands - which is based on lumber extant. What do you mean by book value?

You as well as JK miss the point. Your last sentence is a joke - certainly you can't be serious. Try this as a starting point: link Then think about coordinating governmental agencies. In a discussion over US international cooperation under the Bush dministration I asked for clarification as to what you meant by cooperation. You repsonded with a smart alec retort but I was being competely honest pointing out how we both considered the Kyoto treaty an example of cdooperation (Me) and uncooperation (you). Again I think we have a conceptual problem - namely what does good mean. Here is a quote from a Mr. Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D., Professor at Univ of Texas: When a philosopher is asked an evaluative question, such as "Is cloning wrong?" he or she is likely to reply with a question: "What do you mean by 'cloning'?" The philosopher is not being obtuse, coy, or disrespectful. He or she is ensuring that the exchange is productive rather than wasteful.

Last sentence: Private ownership: pride and attention. Government ownership: the potential for neglect Whether a lawn is "enviromentally" correct or not is not the point. Another way to point this out would be to show differences in how companies such as LP, GP or Simpson treat land they own outright differently than they do land owned by the US government.

wsssshhh.. That was the sound of the "point" of the post wizzing over your head.

CBS - Please go back a reread the post you are referring to. You will find that it is not Amy discussing her lawn at all.

from a sometimes reliable website: AFP Reports: Four arrested in Baghdad for beheading of Nicholas Berg earlier this month by al Qaeda arch-terrorist Musab Zarqawi. No official confirmation of this.

Here is good link you might interesting: The Commons. It's an enviromental site and safe for public viewing. PP

Peter, I agree with your views about 99% of the time, and trust the links you post are solid. You just linked me to the fucking HAMAS WEBSITE! Call me paranoid, but that is one link I don't want my IP Address attached to. I typically only link to sites that are posted in the raw, and will not go to modified links posted by j_b or others on the left. I make exceptions for those posted by you, JayB, GregW and others with whom I usually agree politically. I have no interest in what Hamas butchers have to say about anything. The sooner Israel kills their leadership and demoralizes their members into oblivion, the better. Ditto Hezbollah, and Arafat's Alaxa Martyrs personal militia. Not a slam here PP, just a request...let me know where I'm going when I click on a link. Sorry Fairweather. I posted that link only to suggest by association how little regard I have for the idea that the US Government killed Nick Berg. Thanks for letting me know about not wanting to open such links. PP

this link has another write-up on this.