In a nutshell
Apr. 14th, 2008 12:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forsythOne of the most common complaints (I hesitate to call it a counter-argument, because it's not really an argument, just a reflexive cry) against any kind of environmental stuff is always "It's expensive and it will hurt businesses! It'll slow down economic growth!"
This argument basically relies on innumeracy. It depends confusing people with numbers that sound big, but aren't in their context. There's an excellent post over at Crooked Timber about sustainability and living standards, there's a lot of economist-speak in it, so let me highlight the key paragraph.
"Even the sharpest critics among economists only suggested that Stern’s estimates were at the optimistic end of a plausible range, the upper end of which might be 5 per cent of national income, or around two years of economic growth. That is, by 2050, a low-carbon economy might have the material living standards that would otherwise have been reached by 2048."
That's the thing about economic growth. If we grow more slowly than we might have, we're not poorer, we're just less richer than we theoretically might have been. But we're still richer!
This has been tonight's installment of explanations.
This argument basically relies on innumeracy. It depends confusing people with numbers that sound big, but aren't in their context. There's an excellent post over at Crooked Timber about sustainability and living standards, there's a lot of economist-speak in it, so let me highlight the key paragraph.
"Even the sharpest critics among economists only suggested that Stern’s estimates were at the optimistic end of a plausible range, the upper end of which might be 5 per cent of national income, or around two years of economic growth. That is, by 2050, a low-carbon economy might have the material living standards that would otherwise have been reached by 2048."
That's the thing about economic growth. If we grow more slowly than we might have, we're not poorer, we're just less richer than we theoretically might have been. But we're still richer!
This has been tonight's installment of explanations.
