Only So Much To Go Around: A Green Economics Paradox
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 09.17.06
New Scientist Print Edition of 16 September 2006 reports on an academic study of how green purchasing behavior (our lifestyles) affect the environment. A substantive conclusion of the work is that because we Tree Huggers spend more on green products we have less to give to the Beltway lobby industry: a.k.a. the NGO's or 'green charities.' Quoting from the New Scientist abstract, admittedly a distant source, to which we are constrained because the original publication is by subscription only, we have this. Now an economic model devised by [Matthew] Kotchen suggests that, having bought premium green goods, consumers may be less willing to donate directly to environmental causes, possibly lowering the overall contribution they would otherwise have made (Journal of Political Economy, vol 114, p 816). "The result doesn't actually suggest that green products are bad, but we need to be more cautious," he says" So, the premium I paid for my hybrid might better have gone to a tax deductible donation? We wonder, too, if the model takes into account the reduced emissions from my hybrid? For less technical reasons, we think, the author's suggestion is off the mark. Strategies shift, and tactics change to adapt to new realities. With a few notable exceptions, for example, NGO's have a minimal overall bang for their green buck when it comes to resource consumption originating in distant lands. China and India specifically. An NGO 'tithe' from a mass of green consumers would have no effect whatsoever on CAFE standards. Lobbying can't produce beautiful designs that drive change outside the "green consumer" niche. And, cooperation and partnership are the ways forward. So, how about another modeling run on what happens when beautiful green designs go mainstream?
Sounds like a chicken/egg problem having to do with economic versus political determinism.
Buying green products increases the size of the market, and mass production of greener products can drive down the price, which makes them more appealing to people who would not buy them at the higher "early adoption" price.
I'd like to know if the model accounted for the tendency for green premium products to donate a % of proceeds to a political or charitable cause.
Furthermore, there are other benefits to purchasing green products where packaging is minimal, reycleable or biodegradeable or made with fewer C02 inputs.
Lies, damned lies, and economic models... Some economic models--I'm not saying this one, but--some economic models seem to be no more fancy statistical manipulations which happen to support the author's intuition... Has this "model" been put to the test?
My own economic model shows that two years ago I made the decision to buy exactly 2 items of organic food per shopping trip. Now, without having made any further determinations or becoming any less poor/cheap, I find I buy probably 30-40% organic.
This is mostly because there's a lot more choice now, and it's cheaper than ever. But at least some of it is this: I acquired a taste (no pun intended) for buying organic food and I just naturally, unintentionally began to donate more and more of my income to this particular NGO. And rather than exhaust my appetite (again...) for dogoodery, familiarity has just increased my exposure to, and interest in, other green causes.
I wonder if this economic model takes this dynamic aspect of human nature into account, or it just settles with some deadeye notion like that we walk around with one single total for ecogiving etched permanently into our brains...
Then there are people like me who are not generally likely to donate money to any cause in lieu of simply acting for that cause. Why will I support lobbyists who are still part of the political problem, even while lobbying for higher fuel efficiency, when I can simply cut my own use of fuel and spread the word as much as possible by myself? Action still speaks louder than words.