I posted a comment in three segments, with the intent of relating the concept of public property rights to the problem of obesity, in response to a story about Michelle Obama's effort to combat childhood obesity. http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/01/michelle_obama_launches_person.html
One of the segments of my comment was deleted for violating the Discussion Rules, (which include "we have the right... to ... delete... any content"). This would not be so disturbing were it possible to find some discussion of the concept of public property rights somewhere on the public airwaves or on npr.org A respect of public property rights, (equal ownership of natural resource wealth and effective accounting for economic externalities), would mean an end to extreme poverty in the world AND an efficient and fair way to limit our environmental impacts, (including greenhouse gas emissions). Why no discussion of public property rights on NPR?
If we start to respect public property rights, then all the world's people will own the decision about how much of the earth's surface ought to be devoted to the support of diverse ecosystems, as opposed to that devoted to other uses, such as monoculture or paving, (assuming that biodiversity is recognized by most people as a value worth preserving).
We will respect public property rights if we are truly committed to basic moral principles. Moral principles are the basis of our concepts of human rights, including private property rights. Public property rights refers to the idea that we all own the air and water and other natural resources. We have a right to use them and to stop others from messing them up. If meadows and forests are of value to human beings and the larger community of life on earth, then destruction of these diverse ecosystems should be limited by rational public policy.
One way to limit the extent of paving or of other human impacts that adversely affect environmental quality would be to charge a fee to those who cause the adverse impact. We could use a random-sample survey as a basic instrument to discern what is the average opinion on questions regarding appropriate limits to various kinds of environmental impacts. If most people felt that monoculture and other more severe impacts ought to be limited to, say, 14 percent of the Earth's surface, then permits to cause such impacts could be offered in a free market auction. (In reality, some people will hold the view that 15 percent is an appropriate limit, while others may say 12 percent is permissible. There will be a number that reflects the mean or average opinion. If we are committed to democratic principles, we will strive to create a public policy that brings about a reality that matches what the largest number of people say is the best balance of possible uses of the earth's surface. (I am using the word 'uses' in a broad sense here. Leaving some portion of the landscape undisturbed by humans for the benefit of other inhabitants of the planet could be a normal consequence of the political process within a public property rights paradigm.))
If the opinion of the people is that limiting monoculture and promoting a healthy ecosystem serves the public interest, and if we determine to create public policy to reflect this belief, we might also decide that monoculture devoted to production of sugar cane or corn syrup or tobacco includes these environmental impacts AND that such land use involves other adverse impacts on society.
We could attach a HIGHER fee to monoculture that supports production of things that most people feel are harming the human community, so that the overall abundance of these problematic commodities does not exceed what most people feel is acceptable. The mix of foods in the marketplace could come to match what most nutritionists and most people agree is a healthy balance.
BTW, a pollution fee would mean that walking and bicycling would become more attractive choices for getting around our cities and neighborhoods. A pollution fee is also the most efficient and fair way to limit greenhouse gases. A pollution fee is the obvious policy of choice within a public property rights paradigm.
The proceeds of all fees collected as compensation for natural resources taken or environmental degradation caused should be shared equally among all the worlds people. This would mean an end to grinding poverty across the globe. http://gaiabrain.blogspot.com
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Attempt at a dialogue
Tom,
If we SAY we are for democracy, then object to the suggestion that the people at large should have the power and responsibility to set overall limits on pollution and other environmental impacts, arguing that scientists should decide for us, aren't we acting more like a technocrat than a democrat?
Do you think we have a system now that ensures overall levels of pollution and rates of taking of natural resources are set by scientists operating in the public interest? I understand that this is the system that you want.
It seems to me that, on the contrary, what we have now is more tailored to the interests of industry than to sound, dispassionate science.
You never responded when I asked whether the people's preference should hold sway if popular opinion pointed to a more strict limit on pollution levels and other environmental impacts than what established scientific opinion called for. Your objection seemed based on a fear that the people at large, being non-experts and generally not educated about the particulars, would make bad judgements about acceptable levels of pollution and rates of taking of resources.
If a random-sample survey were to show that the people at large actually supported more strict limits on environmental impacts, would you be willing to reconsider your objection to the random-sample survey as an instrument of policy?
wondering,
john
If we SAY we are for democracy, then object to the suggestion that the people at large should have the power and responsibility to set overall limits on pollution and other environmental impacts, arguing that scientists should decide for us, aren't we acting more like a technocrat than a democrat?
Do you think we have a system now that ensures overall levels of pollution and rates of taking of natural resources are set by scientists operating in the public interest? I understand that this is the system that you want.
It seems to me that, on the contrary, what we have now is more tailored to the interests of industry than to sound, dispassionate science.
You never responded when I asked whether the people's preference should hold sway if popular opinion pointed to a more strict limit on pollution levels and other environmental impacts than what established scientific opinion called for. Your objection seemed based on a fear that the people at large, being non-experts and generally not educated about the particulars, would make bad judgements about acceptable levels of pollution and rates of taking of resources.
If a random-sample survey were to show that the people at large actually supported more strict limits on environmental impacts, would you be willing to reconsider your objection to the random-sample survey as an instrument of policy?
wondering,
john
Saturday, April 25, 2009
In the 44 months since the first post to this blog, there have been about four or five comments.
If you agree that a society that respects public AND private property rights could mean an end to grinding poverty in the world and bring human impacts on the environment into line with what most people feel is acceptable, then I hope you will put a comment to voice your support of the idea. You could tell how you can help to spread the idea. Or tell how this paradigm shift might help to alleviate a particular problem.
If you see that this proposal, (charge a fee to polluters and those who take natural resources - give the proceeds to the people), could not work because it contains serious flaws or invalid assumptions, please share your critique in a comment.
When Kevin Hickey and Demetri Kantarelis said that they would not publish this proposal to a wider audience as part of the Proceedings of the Interdisciplinary Environmental Association conference, (after inviting me to share the proposal at the conference), they did not explain their objection other than to say that this paradigm shift would require "changes in human nature".
(The reviewer of the paper did say that the paper was a "radical proposal" with "leftist tendencies", but they knew that when they invited me to attend and present, so it hardly seems fair that they would reject it for publication on those grounds.)
Only if someone other than the author of the proposal asks them to explain will they know that anyone other than the author actually cares.
Kevin Hickey (khickey@assumption.edu)
Demetri Kantarelis (dkantar@assumption.edu)
(If you want to communicate to those professors, I hope you will cc: or bcc: to me, or cut and paste to my comments section. Thanks!)
John
P.S.: Is it a fair assumption that, if no one objects when professors say "We won't publish this", that the goals that might be achieved are not really that important, or that the proposal has fatal flaws? If you see flaws, please tell me. If the goals are important, in your mind, please speak up. Thank you.
If you agree that a society that respects public AND private property rights could mean an end to grinding poverty in the world and bring human impacts on the environment into line with what most people feel is acceptable, then I hope you will put a comment to voice your support of the idea. You could tell how you can help to spread the idea. Or tell how this paradigm shift might help to alleviate a particular problem.
If you see that this proposal, (charge a fee to polluters and those who take natural resources - give the proceeds to the people), could not work because it contains serious flaws or invalid assumptions, please share your critique in a comment.
When Kevin Hickey and Demetri Kantarelis said that they would not publish this proposal to a wider audience as part of the Proceedings of the Interdisciplinary Environmental Association conference, (after inviting me to share the proposal at the conference), they did not explain their objection other than to say that this paradigm shift would require "changes in human nature".
(The reviewer of the paper did say that the paper was a "radical proposal" with "leftist tendencies", but they knew that when they invited me to attend and present, so it hardly seems fair that they would reject it for publication on those grounds.)
Only if someone other than the author of the proposal asks them to explain will they know that anyone other than the author actually cares.
Kevin Hickey (khickey@assumption.edu)
Demetri Kantarelis (dkantar@assumption.edu)
(If you want to communicate to those professors, I hope you will cc: or bcc: to me, or cut and paste to my comments section. Thanks!)
John
P.S.: Is it a fair assumption that, if no one objects when professors say "We won't publish this", that the goals that might be achieved are not really that important, or that the proposal has fatal flaws? If you see flaws, please tell me. If the goals are important, in your mind, please speak up. Thank you.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
To build a sustainable and just civilization...
The Golden Rule applies
It is not possible, I believe, to create a sustainable civilization wherein the citizens neglect basic philosophical principles. The most fundamental moral principle, the Golden Rule, common to all religious traditions, requires that we limit our actions so that we do not produce effects on others that we would not want for ourselves.
We violate this principle when we vote for and give allegiance to governments and politicians that undertake to regulate private behavior.
The proper function of government is to regulate public behavior. Any action that is private, that is not open to public view and that does not impose effects on any individual against their will is not a legitimate target for government regulation.
Attempts to regulate private behavior not only infringe on basic civil and human rights, they also inevitably draw resources and attention away from the legitimate function of government. We are less able to regulate public behavior effectively and appropriately when we are so distracted.
We need to consider the Golden Rule when we go into the voting booth and when we communicate our interests and concerns with our elected representatives.
A political path that respects this most fundamental moral principle might seek a marriage of libertarian and green political traditions. Not "Republican or Democrat", but "Libertarian AND Green", if we wish to embody in our political life and institutions the central tenant of our oldest philosophical traditions.
A Capitalism-Communism Synthesis: democratic ownership and free market management of natural resources
Cronkite for President - Can we find someone, (someone over 35 years old), who we could most all agree on for our next President?
John Champagne
The Gaia Brain paradigm
Walter Cronkite for President
Gaia Brain and the History of Life
David Bohm said that everything in the universe is connected. He described an implicate order and an explicate order. An experiment illustrates the distinction: Place a clear plastic cylinder inside a slightly larger clear plastic cylinder, then fill the space between them with glycerin. Inject a line of ink into that glycerin, then slowly turn the inner cylinder so that the ink is smeared. Three turns will cause the ink to completely disappear. But the ink is not mixed up randomly in the glycerin. There is still an implicate order. There is still order in the relationship of the molecules to one another in space, but the order is not visible. Turn the cylinder back three turns, the line of ink re-appears. The order is made explicate again.
When we buy a product that has resource user-fees incorporated in the price, implicite in the price of the product is the expressed wishes of all the world's people about what limits should be placed on the use of natural resources. Explicit in the price is the economic value of all the natural resources and the human effort that went into the production of that product.
When we survey people to see what their views are on appropriate levels of resource use, implicate in their responses will be relative prices for various goods and services in the market. If most people are saying explicitly that carbon dioxide emissions ought to decrease, implicit in these expressions will be higher prices for fuel, and a decreased prevalance of high-powered cars, single-occupant cars, and long commutes, to name a few.
The information explicate in the price of a particular product or service is the economic value of the resources that went into its production. Implicate in the price of that same product or service is the expressed wishes of all the world's people about acceptable levels of resource use for all the raw materials that went into its production.
more on David Bohm
Post to the 'Global Brain' list:
I think this group could discuss how we might actually bring about a world that has most people expressing their opinion about what are appropriate levels of use of pubilc resources, based on what they see in their envvironment and what they hear from other neurons like themselves, (or sort-of like themselves, but with different experiences and character types). These expressions of opinion about what are appropriate limits on human transformation of the earth would directly affect the actions that humans perform that impact the earth and affect the human community, just as signals from neurons in biological brains affect the behavior of other neurons and conditions in the larger organism.
If we believe in democratic principles and equal ownership of natural resources, then we will agree that the people ought to be making or endorsing decisions about what are appropriate limits on the use of the Commons, i.e., putting of pollution, and taking or deminishing resources. And the people ought to each receive a monetary payment equal to their share of the value of natural resources taken by corporate interests for the purpose of economic gain.
In an economic system, information is carried by money. To convey information and proper incentives to economic actors regarding human demands on the environment, you must assess an economic measure to a quantity, (ie, the amount of resource that goes into making an economic good), and include that in the price paid in the market. A free market auction of natural resource user-permits would cause those resouurces that the people wish to conserve to cost more, to cost what society represents as the actual cost, the opportunity cost of using a limited resource for one particular use as opposed to another.
Who else on this list shares the view that we ought to be about discussing potential political-economic-social systems that reflect the interconnectedness of environment--information flow--neuron--action--freedom--constraint? How might a fully functioning healthy global brain manifest itself in political and economic terms? Would such a system allow levels of pollution and rates of resource extraction to exceed what most neurons consider acceptable? I think not. Do we currently have such a system, one not in accord with what the people would choose? I think so. We have elements of, hints of a global brain, but we have yet to acheive full functionality of all its essential parts. We seem to be acting more like cancer cells of earth than brain cells, at least in some respects.
Posted by John Champagne
It is not possible, I believe, to create a sustainable civilization wherein the citizens neglect basic philosophical principles. The most fundamental moral principle, the Golden Rule, common to all religious traditions, requires that we limit our actions so that we do not produce effects on others that we would not want for ourselves.
We violate this principle when we vote for and give allegiance to governments and politicians that undertake to regulate private behavior.
The proper function of government is to regulate public behavior. Any action that is private, that is not open to public view and that does not impose effects on any individual against their will is not a legitimate target for government regulation.
Attempts to regulate private behavior not only infringe on basic civil and human rights, they also inevitably draw resources and attention away from the legitimate function of government. We are less able to regulate public behavior effectively and appropriately when we are so distracted.
We need to consider the Golden Rule when we go into the voting booth and when we communicate our interests and concerns with our elected representatives.
A political path that respects this most fundamental moral principle might seek a marriage of libertarian and green political traditions. Not "Republican or Democrat", but "Libertarian AND Green", if we wish to embody in our political life and institutions the central tenant of our oldest philosophical traditions.
A Capitalism-Communism Synthesis: democratic ownership and free market management of natural resources
Cronkite for President - Can we find someone, (someone over 35 years old), who we could most all agree on for our next President?
John Champagne
The Gaia Brain paradigm
Walter Cronkite for President
Gaia Brain and the History of Life
David Bohm said that everything in the universe is connected. He described an implicate order and an explicate order. An experiment illustrates the distinction: Place a clear plastic cylinder inside a slightly larger clear plastic cylinder, then fill the space between them with glycerin. Inject a line of ink into that glycerin, then slowly turn the inner cylinder so that the ink is smeared. Three turns will cause the ink to completely disappear. But the ink is not mixed up randomly in the glycerin. There is still an implicate order. There is still order in the relationship of the molecules to one another in space, but the order is not visible. Turn the cylinder back three turns, the line of ink re-appears. The order is made explicate again.
When we buy a product that has resource user-fees incorporated in the price, implicite in the price of the product is the expressed wishes of all the world's people about what limits should be placed on the use of natural resources. Explicit in the price is the economic value of all the natural resources and the human effort that went into the production of that product.
When we survey people to see what their views are on appropriate levels of resource use, implicate in their responses will be relative prices for various goods and services in the market. If most people are saying explicitly that carbon dioxide emissions ought to decrease, implicit in these expressions will be higher prices for fuel, and a decreased prevalance of high-powered cars, single-occupant cars, and long commutes, to name a few.
The information explicate in the price of a particular product or service is the economic value of the resources that went into its production. Implicate in the price of that same product or service is the expressed wishes of all the world's people about acceptable levels of resource use for all the raw materials that went into its production.
more on David Bohm
Post to the 'Global Brain' list:
I think this group could discuss how we might actually bring about a world that has most people expressing their opinion about what are appropriate levels of use of pubilc resources, based on what they see in their envvironment and what they hear from other neurons like themselves, (or sort-of like themselves, but with different experiences and character types). These expressions of opinion about what are appropriate limits on human transformation of the earth would directly affect the actions that humans perform that impact the earth and affect the human community, just as signals from neurons in biological brains affect the behavior of other neurons and conditions in the larger organism.
If we believe in democratic principles and equal ownership of natural resources, then we will agree that the people ought to be making or endorsing decisions about what are appropriate limits on the use of the Commons, i.e., putting of pollution, and taking or deminishing resources. And the people ought to each receive a monetary payment equal to their share of the value of natural resources taken by corporate interests for the purpose of economic gain.
In an economic system, information is carried by money. To convey information and proper incentives to economic actors regarding human demands on the environment, you must assess an economic measure to a quantity, (ie, the amount of resource that goes into making an economic good), and include that in the price paid in the market. A free market auction of natural resource user-permits would cause those resouurces that the people wish to conserve to cost more, to cost what society represents as the actual cost, the opportunity cost of using a limited resource for one particular use as opposed to another.
Who else on this list shares the view that we ought to be about discussing potential political-economic-social systems that reflect the interconnectedness of environment--information flow--neuron--action--freedom--constraint? How might a fully functioning healthy global brain manifest itself in political and economic terms? Would such a system allow levels of pollution and rates of resource extraction to exceed what most neurons consider acceptable? I think not. Do we currently have such a system, one not in accord with what the people would choose? I think so. We have elements of, hints of a global brain, but we have yet to acheive full functionality of all its essential parts. We seem to be acting more like cancer cells of earth than brain cells, at least in some respects.
Posted by John Champagne
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