[thaumaturgy]

A friend and I once carried several large pieces of trash out of a wilderness area. We were sore, and tired, and our packs were heavy, and we were eager to go home and shower and eat some junk food.

I'm glad we didn't make a rational decision.

[koningrobot]

You are glad based on how it made you feel, not on what impact it made. Most probably it didn't have much impact and you might as well have dropped the trash. Not that that's what I would've done, but saying we should trust our emotions on this big and costly problem makes no sense. Of course, throwing rationality out of the window by definition doesn't make any sense. I'm not sure what your point is.

[thaumaturgy]

I was taking issue with the definition of a "rational" decision in terms of environment as merely a cost-benefit analysis.

I'm, frankly, sick of cost-benefit analysis being applied to everything. It has become the hammer that's turning everything into a nail. It's led to a pretty ugly state of software in a lot of different arenas, because a CBA doesn't support spending much time running down memory leaks, or trying to reduce software footprint.

The problem with using CBA in software -- and more to the point, in the environment -- is that it ignores the cumulative effect of lots of small decisions. Each individual action may not make "rational" sense in terms of CBA, but the consequences quickly add up.

To go back to my specific example, you're right that our hauling out some of the trash probably had very little positive impact on our environment. However, it is the cumulative actions of us and others like us who ensure that our trails stay clean.

For yet another example, if you climb Mount Rainier in Washington, you are expected to pack out all of your waste. I would guess the average trip time to the summit and back to be about three to four days, so that means that parties must carry their poop in their pack.

From an individual cost-benefit point of view, that's ridiculous and not rational. It requires a lot of effort for -- on an individual basis -- little environmental benefit.

However, it's the cumulative impact of thousands of summit parties every year that has a very real, and very detrimental, impact on the mountain's ecology.

Basically, cost-benefit analysis is a stupid, shortsighted way to make decisions.

[jacoblyles]

You are suggesting that we ought to take all costs into account when doing cost-benefit analysis. You are not providing a substantive criticism of cost-benefit analysis.

[thaumaturgy]

If I had wanted to suggest that, I would have.

How does a group of people take all costs into account when doing a cost-benefit analysis if they can't agree on what constitutes a cost and what constitutes a benefit, and their relative values?

You and others here are talking about CBA as the basis for rational decision making, and yet I bet you couldn't even describe it in any formal way that could apply to all logical decisions.

What does it mean to do a CBA in terms of your immediate environment? What factors are you taking into consideration? Aesthetics? Health? How much money is clean water worth to you? Or, from a CBA standpoint: is it worth pouring a gallon of paint into your drinking water, or is it better to transport that paint to a remote facility which will handle it in some fashion? And in that one relatively minor decision alone, how many different factors are you going to account for? The size of your drinking water supply, the chemical composition of the paint, the ecology of your drinking water supply, the distance to the waste managing facility, the vehicle used to get it there, the methods the facility uses to handle it ...

This CBA hand-waving is bullshit. It's impossible to take all costs into account for this kind of stuff. Most people -- even the most knowledgeable climate scientists -- don't even know what all the costs are. So just how are we supposed to justify our environmental decisions using a CBA when you can't even correctly do the accounting in the costs column?

And this is what constitutes the basis for rational decision making? Bah! Bah, I say!

I think it's perfectly rational to make decisions based on morals and ethics, and whether or not the consequences of that decision get you closer to your goals or not. So, for example, one of my goals is to experience wilderness areas in as pristine a state as possible. I see trash there. The trash is heavy, and I have a long distance to hike out. It will cost me a great deal of effort to remove it. But, it still does help to accomplish my goal: the next time I visit that place, the trash won't be there (nor will it be there for the next visitor). Thus, I will remove it, if possible.

Is that not a rational decision-making process? Does that not make sense from an environmental standpoint, as a species?

[jacoblyles]

Sure, it's hard to measure some costs and some benefits. It's hard, even impossible, to objectively compare them. But it is important to acknowledge that trade-offs exist, and foolish to ignore them. The cost-benefit framework is useful for the reason that it forces people to look at the trade-offs.

It is foolish to give infinite value to the benefit of preserving nature. If we are willing to preserve nature at any price, then we ought to shut down industrial civilization, kill off 5.8 billion people, and go back to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. However, few people think that cost would be worth the resulting benefits to the environment.

Ignoring the costs of environmental activism is short-sighted. Environmental restrictions are not free. They cause real deprivations. We ought to acknowledge these deprivations and consider whether or not they are worth the benefits, even if there is no objective "right" answer.

Sometimes we will decide environmental rules are worth it. Banning CFCs was probably a smart idea. Sometimes, however, we will decide environmental rules are not worth the cost. The Kyoto treaty would cost hundreds of billions of dollars to implement but only push off warming by a few years.

As for the rest of your posts, sorry I just can't follow the logic. I do think cost-benefit analysis is worthwhile, though.

[koningrobot]

CBA is handwaving, but so is saying "what if everybody did it". I'll concede that CBA gives a false sense of accuracy.

You initially said "I'm glad we didn't make a rational decision", and I don't agree with that sentiment at all. You are free to base your decisions on your morals and ethics, but when it comes to something as global as global warming I'm not sure you can just force them onto the rest of us.