Even as an environmentalist, I'm okay with this. The political reaction to climate change is a farce. The Paris accord isn't going to do anything, just like the Kyoto protocol didn't do anything. It's just a way for people to feel good without making any real lifestyle changes.
Some environmentalists are anti-technology types or nihilists, who look forward with pleasure at the idea of humanity suffering for its hubris. The only solution they'll consider is people changing their behavior for moral reasons, which is comfortingly unlikely.
They're not fans of other environmentalists discussing happier ideas, like setting up incentives for economic and technological growth beyond fossil fuels.
This is true, however rayiner appears to be neither the anti-tech/nihilist type of environmentalist nor the "set up incentives" type of environmentalist. (E.g., on the specific issue of climate he explicitly rejects setting up incentives or any other "political fix".)
Rather, he seems to believe that the market will provide for all, even when externalities make that irrational for individual actors in the market without some regulatort regime internalizing those externalities.
Hence, my description of him as a laissez-faire capitalist rather than any kind of environmentalist.
I don't like regulation, in the sense of eggheads sitting around trying to micromanage the market, or thinking that high minded principle insulates them from the market. I think that's a recipe for failure. But you don't need eggheads to internalize externalities. It's easier to just tax bad things, or if the thing is sufficiently unjustifiable, to ban the categorically. Banning leaded gasoline was a great idea. Let's ban coal next. Let's impose crippling liability on companies who pollute the water or air.
The ironic thing is that regulation is bad for the environment. The EPA spends as much time litigating against environmental groups if not more than it does fighting the industry.
You misconstrue my point about there not being a "political fix" to climate change. Obviously we could just ban CO2 emissions. My point is that the set of fixes the political system can generate and the set of fixes that will work are disjoint.
Is this an endorsement of treaties with actual teeth then? Or are you saying that there needs to be rules that directly change peoples' lifestyles because they won't do it themselves?
I'm trying to understand where you're coming from, usually when people say, "I don't like X because it's ineffectual", they follow it up with a recommendation that they do think will be effective.
