[mytailorisrich]

IMO, he puts forward a purely economic approach about how to produce enough to ensure a growing population remains materially prosperous.

This blissfully ignores the key issue under discussion: Our impact on the planet in doing so.

[paganel]

> This blissfully ignores the key issue under discussion: Our impact on the planet in doing so.

It still baffles me that we choose to ignore externalities in part because we cannot attach any “rational” prices to them, it’s like they don’t even exist to us as long as we cannot put them in an exact Excel sheet with a well-defined value.

[aww_dang]

In terms of political economy we could easily tabulate the money paid to lobbyists. For example, it is much cheaper for a coal fired power plant to pay politicians to implement their desired environmental regulations.

Instead of being liable for damages caused by their pollution, these energy producers can simply claim that they are within the regulations set forth by the EPA. The price discovery mechanism has been hampered by the victim's inability to collect damages.