Climate Change ( née Global Warming) is based on three premises: the earth’s atmosphere is warming; humans are responsible for that warming; and warming is inherently bad. But even if we accept these premises, what economic trade-offs are warranted in response? No more air conditioning or private automobiles? Heavy carbon taxes? Outlawing
[ Reprinted from Free Market Economics: A Basic Reader compiled by Bettina G. Greaves and The Freeman July 1962. ] “Who should conserve our resources?” If a poll were taken, a large majority probably would answer: “Our federal and state governments.” And if one were to ask why this view is so widely held, he would find among other “reasons” the
The Executive Branch’s recently released Volume II of the National Climate Assessment (NCA) is a massive document that is being cited as yet further evidence that the U.S. government should act quickly and boldly in the fight against climate change. The coverage in the New York Times was typical: “All told, the report says, climate change
In “ How Capitalists Created a “War on Waste ”,” Chris Calton did an excellent job of laying out how the “profit motive encourages the natural reduction of waste,” without requiring government coercion. Selling part of the output of a productive process that would otherwise be thrown away or require costly disposal is as much a source of profit as
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2017 Hope Jahren, ed. Wilmington, Mass.: Mariner Books, 2017, 352 pp. Jason Morgan (jmorgan@reitaku-u.ac.jp) is an assistant professor at Reitaku University in Chiba, Japan. Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 21, no. 2 (Summer 2018) full issue, click here . The Earth’s climate is extraordinarily
In my previous IER post , I pointed out the huge contradiction in the major media treatment of climate change policy. The same day William Nordhaus shared the Nobel Prize in economics, the United Nations’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its latest report. The media lauded Nordhaus and his support of a carbon tax, while
Last week, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a sizable new report titled “ Global Warming of 1.5°C. “ The basic premise of the report is that if the governments of the world do what the UN tells them to do, then global temperature rise will be limited to 1.5°C. The report comes out of the Paris Agreement
According to the Global Footprint Network, humans have already used a year’s worth of Earth’s resources in 2018. “Earth Overshoot Day” has crept up the calendar from December 29th in 1970 to August 1st in 2018. Source: https://www.overshootday.org/newsroom/past-earth-overshoot-days/ The more we consume beyond their estimate of Earth’s ability
In the United States, fisheries are regulated via licenses, regulations, and quotas. The issues with a broad enforcement through regulations and quotas is twofold. They do not prevent overfishing in certain areas and they do not incentivize any actions that might improve conditions in the future. Owning sections of the ocean, however, would create
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.