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• Government regulation is inefficient and inexorably misallocates
resources compared to privatization or the activities of the private
sector. Any internalization of the externalities should occur simply
as a result of negotiation between the affected private parties. There
may be no such thing as a “public interest.”
These, and many similar statements, are examples of mindsets to which
the discipline of economics would lend support—or rather with which
practitioners and vested interests could use economics to avoid change. It
is becoming increasingly clear, as a result of a preponderance of scientific
evidence, that allowing modern industrial society to proceed unabated in
its current directions may be little short of disastrous. What can be said of a
discipline that inexorably courts disaster?
Some fundamentally important points can be made from the joint vantage
point of economics and the discipline of ecology. An enlightened econom-
ics—which informs the public as well as the private business sector of its
options for rectifying the problem—must take into account all the informa-
tion that ecology can offer. First, and a fundamentally important point for
this entire topic, is that the full extent of environmental consequences is
almost impossible to know. For example, our hypothetical paper company
may be measurably polluting the water downstream, but what of the trace
chemicals that accumulate downstream and into the ocean over time? What
if the cumulative effects of all such paper mills (and similar manufacturing
activities) are inexorably rendering the oceans unfit for animal life?
In fact, I (CM) asked both the company's chemist and the Department of
Environmental Quality's chemist what would happen if the chemicals intro-
duced into the river and the ocean were to recombine with chemicals already
in the aquatic system. Both said they had no idea but pointed out that most of
a given chemical compound is inert. In reality, however, nothing can be inert
in an interactive system—such as the entirety of our universe.
Therefore, simple logic, as well as sound economic theory, would dictate
that the processes should be stopped immediately. The costs of being unable
to feed the planet would be virtually infinite and, by all odds, far higher than
the benefits of using paper—no matter how much we enjoyed it. Our psycho-
logical marriage to economics in its current form would not only disallow
that but also would favor doing the opposite.
Facing Uncertainty
The most important question facing any contemporary society wanting to
embark on a path of greater social-environmental sustainability may well
be as follows: How do we act in the face of uncertainty? The discipline of
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