[throwawaylinux]

I don't understand how what you wrote addresses my comment. I listed some groups who might be motivated to do it, and gave an example of somewhat similar private groups organizing to take action that collectively benefit their member groups with industry associations that are not a government.

> Granted, but who is going to spearhead such an effort?

I suppose this is a rhetorical question, which does not help me understand your point of view. Can you just explain why for example a home insurance industry group (or any of the other interested groups) would not organize to deal with this problem in the absence of government action?

[fisherjeff]

Home insurers have three options, as I see it:

1) Pay for a super expensive termite remediation on someone’s property in hopes that it will guarantee that other customers’ properties won’t get termites

2) Raise premiums to account for termite infestation risk

3) Deny termite damage claims

There’s only one thing on that list I can’t imagine them doing

[throwawaylinux]

I'm not going to get too far into hypotheticals about who exactly would end up losing out, I gave some examples of groups (which included not only insurance industry but others) who would plausibly have a profit motive to address this problem, and an example of another case where similar did happen. You don't think the home insurance industry would be made to pay for these costs, okay without knowing what UK insurance policies and laws look like maybe that is the case, but it's sort of avoiding what I'm asking because then then we know the building industry or home or other property owner groups will be out of pocket so why would they not organize and take action?

I never said I had a crystal ball and could tell you that would happen, or claim that private is better than government (which I assume is what is upsetting people who are reading that into it). Read the post I originally replied to and look at the context.

If you did want to get into government vs private, there are plenty of examples of government failure to deal with introduced and other invasive pest species, not to mention countless examples of large scale collective organization or lack thereof which have been spectacular failures of government incompetence and corruption to the detriment of the public good everywhere you look. Not just in invasive species control failures, but from wars to healthcare to drug policy to homelessness to climate change. So anecdotes won't be enough to demonstrate the case one way or the other, unfortunately.