‘Now said Poseidon, god of earthquakes, …
the sleek Phaiakan cutter, even now
has carried out her mission and glides home
over the misty sea. Let me impale her,
end her voyage, and end all ocean-crossing
with passengers, then heave a mass of mountain
around the city.’
The Odyssey Homer Bk 13.
HAS –
==> “The loss I was referring to was the arbitrary loss of value as a consequence of regulatory fiat. You protect against that by not regulating based on precaution.”
Perhaps you’re being too cryptic for someone of my limited intellect – or maybe you’re assuming knowledge on my part that I don’t have, but I’m having a lot of trouble following your argument.
I don’t understand how you determine the state of being arbitrary. Do you mean arbitrary as in random? Do you mean arbitrary as in based on subjective values?
If it is the latter, it leads to my next question.
How do you non-arbitrarily protect the existing home-owner against loss? If you don’t subsidize insurance, you aren’t protecting them against loss.
Now maybe you think that they shouldn’t be protected against loss – but you aren’t “protecting” them against loss simply by not restricting future development. You are subjecting them to a risk of one form of loss against a risk of another form of loss.
It seems to me that you are calling some losses losses and some losses not losses. That seems rather arbitrary (in the sense of based on subjective criteria).
HAS –
Maybe you can give a relevant example (i.e., related to environmental regulation), where regulatory fiat created a risk of loss where none would exist otherwise?
You really do have a single-sided world-view, don’t you?
NW – the curious thing is that a regulation that is capricious, even if in the interests of giving certainty, ends up creating uncertainty (eg from regulatory risk), and this kills markets for the asset and hence causes loss of value.
Joshua, the example where 100 year hazard lines are put on the coast based on extremely unlikely and uncertain scenarios justified by a sense of precaution (and unaccountable scientific advice). A risk that is best managed by waiting and not replacing structures that might last 50 years if concrete evidence emerges, gets converted into an immediate loss of value (see para above).
Grock invent wheel.
Me invent fire and CO2 blame Big Grock for global warming.
Beware snake oil sales
man peddling blame.
A precautionary tale.
http://bootless.net/mouse.html
Some progressives are starting to drop the pretense of trying to teach children to read, write, add and subtract.
http://michellemalkin.com/2014/08/08/readin-writin-and-social-justice-agitatin/
This article reminds me of this
”
There Was An Old Woman
There was an old woman who swallowed a fly,
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly,
Perhaps she’ll die.
There was an old woman who swallowed a spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don’t know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she’ll die. ”
(Full lyrics)
http://www.poppyfields.net/poppy/songs/oldwoman.html
There are always unintended consequences as the descendants of those who introduced alien species into their local habitat came to realise. Think of the Romans introducing rabbits into Britain-we are now knee deep in them. I had to clear one from my keyboard before I could use it. They also introduced wild garlic here with which my garden is infested.
The potential of ‘doing’ something about co2-such as these mad engineering fixes sometimes featured here- seem far worse than the non problem we currently have.
tonyb
When the risk is of the nature of that presented by global warming, I cannot see dropping the precautionary principle as acceptable. Having said that I notice also that using the precautionary principle properly for global warming is extremely difficult.
The principle is to me indisputably a valid principle, but it’s a poor guide for practical decision making as it allows interpretations that cover virtually all proposed policies.
Applying precautionary principle as an absolute rule leads to irrational conclusions. Thus every practical application implies a comparison of alternatives that’s quantitative in nature even, when done without explicit analysis. Rational application of the principle requires that a risk-benefit analysis is done as quantitatively as possible.
ITT VoTech of Tulsa beats University of California at Berkeley.
That’s because “BEST adds a huge warming trend”.
Thank you very much Jim D; that is useful. But it is not the debate I’m looking for. Here is Roger Pielke, Jr’s tweet yesterday:
“I debated Trenberth last week. From Kevin there was yelling, spittle & an apology. I stuck to IPCC AR5 which he called totally wrong. Weird.”
===============
“The EU plans new regulations for scientific risk-taking, based on the principle of sustainable development. US big business is furious.”
Regulations increased anthropogenic CO2 emissions (Germany), business decreased them (USA).
”
phatboy | August 11, 2014 at 1:31 am | Reply
You really do have a single-sided world-view, don’t you?
”
Yes, it is better to have a two-sided world-view where we consider both (1) the finiteness of non-renewable fossil fuels along with (2) the potential of fossil-fuel emissions to raise global temperatures.
phatboy probably wants a zero-sided world-view, which is the ostrich’s view-point.
Heh, lovely, and valuable, Pekka; you are applying the Precautionary Principle to the Precautionary Principle.
I was also very pleased a few months ago when you agreed that Stern’s stuff was whacko, though maybe not exactly in those terms.
Now we just have to work on your fear of the future. Global warming, to the extent man can cause it through fossil fuels, will be a net benefit to mankind.
H/t Max Anacker.
===========================
Also, your formula will work when we finally can put numbers on values.
==============
‘Sustainable’, as commonly used, is paralytic. It is a pithing, and a pity.
===================
FOMD…”Plain answer Yes; see for example, the Bruderhof justification for purchasing a Gulfstream III.”
Should we understand from your using this as an example of Steve Postrel’s challenge that you’re a Christian Communist?
Susan, I did and it seems quite a stretch.
