Re: [Pen-l] Environmental Kuznets curves in NY Times

[Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

Eugene Coyle wrote:
> In the New York Times yesterday and again today a columnist and blogger,  John Tierney has advanced the argument that "richer is better" for the environment.  His argument is that richer countries have the resources to devote to cleaning up their environmental damage and to obviate more damage.<

raghu writes:
> More precisely, the richer countries have the resources to clean up
their damage and obviate the consequences to THEIR CITIZENS mostly by
dumping their pollution onto the poorer countries and continue
polluting on a grander scale than before.<

Supposedly part of the "environmental Kuznets curve" is that as people
get richer, they find that they appreciate the environment more. I
guess market-supplied goods as a group represent an inferior good.
Alternatively, without improvements in the natural environment, there
are diminishing marginal returns to market-supplied goods. But a lot
of it involves dumping the pollution on other countries (the ones that
are more desperate), as raghu suggests.

Gene:
> ...  I don't know Tierney's political history -- and only read stuff where the > headline catches my eye.  But these blogs seem to me to have a clear  political purpose at this moment.<

His science columns in the NYT (and the one op-ed column in section 1)
are consistently right wing. He does not seem especially smart, since
there are always letters the next week that make decisive points
against his thesis.

Example: he argued that the health department of the city of NY was
experimenting on its residents -- without their consent --by
restricting the salt intake of food, despite the fact that allegedly
there's no research showing any connection between excess salt
consumption and ill-health. Letters said among other things that (1)
you can always add salt to your food if you want; and (2) the food
companies have been experimenting on us by adding salt to food.

On the positive side, Tierney seems to be a friend of Christopher
Buckley, who (though conservative) writes some very funny books. Also,
his spelling is good.
-- 
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
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