This analysis ignores the benefits of environmental regulation entirely! Air quality improvements avoided lots of deaths and chronic diseases. Water quality improvements and the removal of lead from gasoline did the same. Would our knowledge economy still be as strong if we were still poisoning all our children with lead as much as we were? You highlight some notable examples of environmental movement overreach, and degrowth has always been an unfortunate part of the environmental movement, but it has unquestionably benefited our society and since America is primarily a service economy these days the fact that our brains aren’t full of poison and we have nice parks to relax and think in has to have many broad economic benefits. It would be helpful if you at least engaged with those ideas. Do you think the costs avoided from environmental regulation stuff is completely bunk? It seems clear that many of our chronic diseases are environmental in nature.
This analysis ignores the benefits of environmental regulation entirely! Air quality improvements avoided lots of deaths and chronic diseases. Water quality improvements and the removal of lead from gasoline did the same. Would our knowledge economy still be as strong if we were still poisoning all our children with lead as much as we were? You highlight some notable examples of environmental movement overreach, and degrowth has always been an unfortunate part of the environmental movement, but it has unquestionably benefited our society and since America is primarily a service economy these days the fact that our brains aren’t full of poison and we have nice parks to relax and think in has to have many broad economic benefits. It would be helpful if you at least engaged with those ideas. Do you think the costs avoided from environmental regulation stuff is completely bunk? It seems clear that many of our chronic diseases are environmental in nature.