Sunday, June 09, 2002

I didn't realize that my site would provoke such a lengthy and harsh (over?)reaction. (I mean, graphs? Even she seemed to be a little embarrassed.) Having just skimmed over this before heading to bed, I'm not about to post a lengthy response... except to highlight one thing:

For standard of living, I've used per-capita GDP. Yes, I know it doesn't capture all the intangibles of clean air and such, but our air is cleaner than it was in 1950, we live longer, etc. It is, as far as I am concerned, an adequate proxy.


I'm not quite sure about that; the typical objections to GDP as a complete measurement spring to mind here, especially when it comes to an issue like the environment that is usually used specifically to criticize GDP as an effective indicator of both the costs and benefits of economic activity. The whole "destroying buildings and rebuilding them again as a benefit to GDP despite being almost an almost completely useless waste of labour and capital" bit.

More tomorrow... or perhaps Monday. It is indeed a well-though-out and argued piece about the economic price of environmentalism, and I'll give her credit for that.

(If her attacks on Paul Krugman were so objective and well-reasoned, instead of glib and insulting, I might actually be swayed by them.)

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