{"id":8715,"date":"2015-06-02T07:22:04","date_gmt":"2015-06-02T12:22:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=8715"},"modified":"2015-06-02T07:22:04","modified_gmt":"2015-06-02T12:22:04","slug":"green-policies-dont-make-economic-sense-even-on-their-own-terms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=8715","title":{"rendered":"\u201cGreen\u201d Policies Don\u2019t Make Economic Sense Even on Their Own Terms"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><span class=\"blue\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mises.ca\/posts\/blog\/green-policies-dont-make-economic-sense-even-on-their-own-terms\/\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cGreen\u201d Policies Don\u2019t Make Economic Sense Even on Their Own Terms<\/a><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>When confronting the typical proponents of \u201cgreen\u201d government policies, the free-market economist must make a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/mises.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/turbine.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-11844 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/mises.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/turbine-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"turbine\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" \/><\/a>strategic decision: Since most of these recommended (and often, actually implemented) State measures make no sense even on their own terms, one course of action is to stipulate the alleged goals and simply point out that the policies do not achieve them.<\/p>\n<p>However, the danger with such concessions \u201cfor the sake of argument\u201d is that the interventionists can then say, \u201cSo you agree with us that the free market, left to its own devices, will drive humanity over a cliff, and now we\u2019re all just quibbling over the details.\u201d That\u2019s why it\u2019s also important to stress that the underlying fearmongering is baseless, too.<\/p>\n<p>In the present blog post, I\u2019ll move through the spectrum of possible responses. First, Ross McKitrick\u2013who wrote a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.rossmckitrick.com\/textbook.html\">graduate-level textbook<\/a>\u00a0on the economic analysis of environmental policy\u2013has\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fraserinstitute.org\/research-news\/news\/news-releases\/Governments-missing-the-mark-on-energy-and-environmental-regulations\/\">a new study for the Canadian Fraser Institute<\/a>, critiquing Canadian \u201cgreen\u201d regulations that make no sense on their own terms.<\/p>\n<p>Specifically, McKitrick shows that if we stipulate for the sake of argument that (say) Canadians are emitting too much carbon dioxide, then the proper policy response would directly target CO2 emissions. So even if you thought this were a worthy objective, it would still be ludicrous (McKitrick argues) to ban 100W incandescent light bulbs\u2013especially in Canada, where most of the electricity is generated through hydro and nuclear.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, direct mandates on \u201cenergy efficiency\u201d in household appliances are also absurd. The government is playing \u201ccentral planner,\u201d telling Canadians how to achieve reductions in CO2 emissions which any textbook will say is a very costly way to achieve targeted emission reductions. (Naturally, the U.S. federal and state governments have similarly absurd regulations.)<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cGreen\u201d Policies Don\u2019t Make Economic Sense Even on Their Own Terms When confronting the typical proponents of \u201cgreen\u201d government policies, the free-market economist must make a\u00a0strategic decision: Since most of these recommended (and often, actually implemented) State measures make no sense even on their own terms, one course of action is to stipulate the alleged [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[5956,113,1290,1406,5953,2349,5955,674,5954],"class_list":["post-8715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-environment","tag-canadian-fraser-institute","tag-carbon-emissions","tag-energy-efficiency","tag-green-energy","tag-green-policies","tag-interventionists","tag-mises-blog","tag-renewable-energy","tag-ross-mckitrick"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8715"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8716,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8715\/revisions\/8716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}