Today we started to look at what the world would look like for a public sector to be unnecessary. Adam Smith's Invisible Hand would solve all market issues. In my notes I wrote that there are three main violated market assumptions: property rights & enforceable contracts, economies of scale, and private information. Public goods falls into this violation.
Who owns the trees that take in CO2 and give us O2? We all do, some privately and some publicly. NYT's blogger Nancy Folbre more eloquently states the argument between public and private common goods here.
Read the article, it's shorter than it seems. Are there other common resources that may need to be regulated so the public uses them most efficiently and/or equitably? Or will the Father Smith's theorem take care of it all?
Water is an example of another resource that may need to be regulated. As with trees, there are public and private owners of water. Water is undoubtedly used inefficiently in most parts of the world. The following link has some astonishing facts about water:
ReplyDeletehttp://water.org/learn-about-the-water-crisis/facts/
Is water access/use equitable?
"Poor people living in the slums often pay 5-10 times more per liter of water than wealthy people living in the same city."
Is it efficient?
"Approximately one in eight people lack access to safe water supplies."
I would answer "no" to both of these questions. Adam's invisible hand doesn't seem to be solving the problem.
In response to the article by Folbre, I agree that private landowners that have the choice to do whatever they want with their trees with potentially little social motivation could lead some communities to want to regulate tree management. However, I found an interesting website (http://www.internationalpaper.com/apps/gopaper/index.html) which shows that 56% of forests in the US are privately owned by family forest owners and commercial landowners, and these private landowners plant about 4 million trees every day (which is 3-4 times more than they harvest). These private forests are "ecological life-supports systems" that provide clean air, clean water, wildlife and biodiversity to our planet, and these responsibly managed forests are one of the best ways to fight climate change. But these private landowners can only continue to responsibly maintain these tree farms if they make an income. If we use paper, we will continue to provide income to these private forest owners who will continue to plant more trees to accomodate the paper demand. This surely challenges the myth that paper destroys forests.
ReplyDeleteSince these private landowners do have the right to decide what to do with their forests (e.g., they could sell the land for development), perhaps the government could step in and put some sort of regulations to ensure that these landowners continue to keep planting and maintaining tree farms.
Well, I have a couple things to say about this matter because my SIP was mostly based on this. My SIP in a nutshell was shadowing a water municipality in Colorado. And to kind of follow and expand on Dave's point, it is really tough for environmentalists to get their point across. Working with a municipality I got to witness firsthand how secondary people take natural resources. It is always on the back burner, which is sad because the rate that we are using and wasting necessities like water is staggering (Dave's website shows some of these). One of the guys I worked with summed it up in a 2 line conversation with a citizen who pays for the water. Colorado is a desert and the area I visited is running out of water, while expecting huge population increases. The guy I worked with tries to inform the public and actively goes out and talks with individuals to stop wasting water, whether it be washing dishes without a dishwasher to running sprinklers at night. However, the response he gets the most is "Am I paying for the water? Then I should be able to do as I wish with it." Its frustrating to him that this fact is indeed true; however, people are too stubborn to realize that if they do not change, there won't be water in 20 years. I could definitely go on for 2-3 pages on this subject, but I feel it is on the public to realize, even with private help and other types of intervention, it is ON US to make a change. And every little bit helps...cliche but true.
ReplyDeleteGreat discussion about water. It is clearly underpriced. If it cost more to use water, then the law of demand tells us that we would use less. Simple, huh? In Kalamazoo, a looming political battle is over the relative cost of water in the townships and the city. The city did an analysis that showed the biggest usage occurs in the suburbs (not within the city limits) during the day in the summer. Watering lawns, perhaps? But the folks out there do not think it is fair that water will cost more and many are also upset that water pressures go down as they live further from the water plants which means that they can't water their lawns and wash dishes at the same time. So unfair because as Brooks said, they pay for the water, and they expect top quality service.
ReplyDeleteI believe that private landowners have every right to do whatever they want with their trees. However, I think that government regulation could help manage the large privately and commercially owned land to benefit society as a whole in terms of CO2. When I think of other natural resources, solar and wind energy come to mind but I'm not sure how much can be done with these resources in regards to the private sector. Don't get me wrong both solar and wind energy are great alternative energy solutions, but they are very expensive and so new that technology is going to have to contiune to improve to make these more efficient on a small scale as well as more affordable. Kaitlin also brought up an interesting article regarding the number of trees being replanted by private and commercial land owners every year. My family owns a cabin in West Branch, MI and over the last 10 years a significant percentage of the stateland has been harvested. Every section of stateland, to my knowledge, has also been replanted which is great; however these trees will take a good 15 to 20 years to grow to a decent size. My questions is how much CO2 do we lose during this time when the trees are maturing, and is there government regulation that can efficiently stage these replants?
ReplyDeleteA lot of people have stolen my thunder so far on water, but I couldn't agree more. In regards to trees, CO2 emissions are a huge problem as well, but they're a shared problem with an inneficient amount of support.
ReplyDeleteThe "free-rider" problem is really detrimental to the cause, everyone thinks that someone else will fix the problem. But not only will planting trees help reduce the damage we do to the environment, it also aids economies. An article I read on http://www.plant-trees.org/about/faq.htm describes the process of planting trees to aid agriculture in developing countries. The trees provide nourishment for the soil, and also act as a windbreaker to prevent wind and soil erosion.
In Pakistan, the rich areas or otherwise, water is more of a scarce commodity than it is over here. the public sector's supply of water has to be complemented by the private sector's water delivery system and it cost's a lot more. This definitely does help curb people's water usage cause they know that once the public water runs out they will have to pay an exorbitant fee to get more water. This is not the government's solution to water being a scarce public good but actually due to it's inability to provide ample water to all. I never really thought about water as just a public good before now! If it wasn't a friday night i'd talk about all this in more detail!
ReplyDeleteI agree with the many points made about both water and trees being provided as public goods. Society in general truly underappreciates the value of these common commodities because we pay so little (if at all).
ReplyDeletethe most recent water bill for our house for the last three months combined was a ridiculously low number (like $100) for four guys who shower daily (for the most part haha), wash dishes, and do laundry for ourselves as well as several other people who live on campus. Compared to other costs of daily living, water might as well be free!
and we truly do take it for granite.. Has anyone else traveled to a place where water was a luxury? Even if it is just trying to find some to drink, I've been stuck having to pay considerably for a warm jug full of water.
But would raising the price of water or trees and the goods they produce really do anything to help this problem?