While it seems to make sense that increasing the costs of polluting would optimize the market for sustainable business, it contradicts the message of the Breakthrough Institute which is that making dirty energy more expensive is politically impossible. Instead, they champion government investment in clean energy research and in general, they believe that increasing people's living standards will cause them to have fewer children and also care more about the environment. This does not explain how the economy and industrial processes will become more sustainable, though.
I should also write up a summary of the Administrative Law class I took and try to describe the Ashford school of thought.
2 comments:
why is it politically impossible to make dirty energy more expensive?
Well, the Breakthrough people basically make a good argument that even though people think clean energy is important, they do not support things like green tax or gas taxes and things that explicitely are there to make energy more expensive. They can sometimes be convinced that these taxes are worth it if you say funding will go to research, but Hawken asserts that these taxes all need to be "revenue neutral" so no programs should depend on these taxes. Their goal should be so that the true costs of dirty energy is reflected in the price tag. Also, because of the power of industry lobbying and the distrust of Americans of the government, any taxes that do get imposed will not be significant enough to affect the market. Even Paul Hawken says that half measures will not work. The taxes need to be significant. This is completely impossible in the American political environment. Also also, cap and trade programs are just really difficult to implement. With that said, there are probably other monetary incentive programs that can work.
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