The Hidden Costs of Environmentalism
(via Greg Mankiw’s blog, Edward Glaeser, a quite well-known Harvard professor of economics, has a wonderfully written piece on environmentalism, and how to implement environmental policies well. He talks about various hidden costs and downsides to certain environmentalist policies that can undermine the good intentions of the movement to stop global warming, such as the ineffectiveness of emissions standards as they are implemented today, the counter-productiveness of conserving suburban greenspace (urban development is one of his specialties), and the problems of the patent system in encouraging environmental innovation.
I’m a big fan of Ed Glaeser’s work, and I found him quite entertaining as a professor. Sometimes he might come off as an arrogant, aristocratic know-it-all, but he’s also absolutely brilliant and witty.
