Thinktank studies 3rd approach to climate change

Climate Change Wars | Liberty Unbound - Robert H. Miller:

October 10, 2017 - "In the climate change controversies, the Left ... overwhelms with data, models, and prognostications warning of environmental disaster because atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased....  The Right is skeptical of the data and how they’re gathered, ... and ... accuses the Left of ignoring ... causes having nothing to do with human activity. But most of all, the dispute is about increasing government power....  The battle lines have been drawn along ideological lines, with science — both good and bad — playing second fiddle: most people just don’t have the knowledge or critical skills to evaluate the methodology and all the factors, conclusions, and opinions.

"Fortunately, there is a third approach, one that relies on the Hayekian insight that markets are much better at analyzing all available data than any one individual, institution, or government (and I would include computers in that list) could possibly be. This is the approach taken by PERC, the Property and Environment Research Center, a libertarian thinktank dedicated to improving environmental quality through property rights and markets.

"It makes little difference whether the United States remained in or left the 2015 Paris Climate Accords: the agreed upon CO2 reduction levels were minimal, unreachable, and unenforceable. And ... solving the perceived problem of climate change on a global scale would be economically devastating, politically unattainable, and practically impossible. So PERC’s latest report focuses on adaptation, a concept heretofore deemed either taboo or irrelevant....But adaptation is the name of the game, and market forces are already at work — and have been for a long time, even though they’re seldom heralded by the media. As the latest PERC Reports (Vol. 36, Issue 1, Summer 2017) puts it:

Market prices send signals about local conditions that no central planner or scientific expert could possibly know. Property rights give resource owners the incentives necessary to adjust to changing conditions. If sea levels rise or crop yields decline, property owners have good reason to act — whether to invest in protections or innovations....

"PERC ... is to environmental policy what the Cato Institute is to political and economic policy. All of PERC’s scholars are well-placed experts with impressive credentials.Two of its resident scholars are Liberty editor Randal O’Toole and water policy expert Terry L. Anderson, director of PERC and also a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. Anderson is the author of a groundbreaking book, Water Crisis: Ending the Policy Drought (1983).... "

"Other PERC reports focus on how privately organized, ground-up, rights-based fishing groups have evolved in Fiji, Vanuatu, the Cook Islands, Northern Australia, Belize, and other places, protecting near-shore fish and near-shore fishermen’s livelihoods. There are PERC articles assessing the runaway costs of the federal government’s wild horse program, and showing how human-wildlife conflicts were mitigated when elk were reintroduced into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. One fascinating piece ... is a contrast between the policies advocated by such environmental organizations as the Wilderness Society and the Audubon Society and the way in which they manage their own properties.

"PERC’s analyses focus on politically achievable and practical ends. The organization’s style is thinktank noncontroversial. The appeal to libertarians is clear."

Read more: http://www.libertyunbound.com/node/1767
'via Blog this'

Property and Environment Research Center

https://www.perc.org/

The fraud of 'dolphin safe' tuna labelling

'Dolphin Safe' Labels On Canned Tuna Are A Fraud - Forbes - K. William Watson, Cato Institute:

April 29, 2015 - "After multiple condemnations from the World Trade Organization, it’s time for consumers to realize that U.S. 'dolphin safe' labels are a fraud cooked up by special interests. A WTO panel announced for the third time in three years that U.S. laws defining dolphin-safe are protectionist. This should be a wake-up call for eco-conscious consumers who want to make sure their grocery purchases aren’t harming the ocean. By providing cover for a handful of major brands the law actually makes it harder to purchase responsibly caught tuna....

"Most Americans think that the existence of a dolphin-safe label means that no dolphins were harmed when the tuna were caught. In truth, the label only means that one particular fishing method was not used in one particular part of the ocean.... Known as 'setting on dolphins,' the practice of circling dolphin pods with nets as a way to catch tuna was widely criticized for harming dolphin populations up through the 1980s. But that was before the creation of the International Dolphin Conservation Program, which places observers on tuna vessels to verify that no dolphins are harmed during the catch. Since then, dolphin mortality from this practice has virtually disappeared.

"In order to qualify as dolphin-safe, tuna may not be caught using this method regardless of whether dolphins are actually harmed.... One important aspect of the dolphin-safe labeling rules is that companies that do not meet the specific requirements are prohibited not only from using the label but from stating anything about how their practices impact dolphins. That means that Mexican tuna brands have no way to explain their fishing methods to consumers....

"Unlike Mexican fisheries, the major U.S. producers catch tuna using fish aggregation devices (FADs), a practice that activists have condemned as 'floating death traps' because of its high incidence of bycatch.... It is no accident then that the major U.S. tuna producers who support and benefit from the dolphin-safe label are counted by activists as among the worst offenders on sustainable fishing practices....

"And what does Greenpeace have to say about the dolphin safe label? 'Dolphin safe does not mean ocean safe. It means that one fishing method that targets tuna that swim with dolphins is not used to catch the tuna. What about the rays and turtles?'....

"The best way to empower consumers to make a difference in tuna practices is to keep government out of the labeling business. Open competition will foster more sharing of more accurate and relevant information. Groups like Greenpeace serve a vital function in the market by providing like-minded consumers with well-packaged information. The existence of federal rules, however, gives power to lobbyists that they would not have in a free market."

Read more: http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2015/04/29/dolphin-safe-labels-on-canned-tuna-are-a-fraud/
'via Blog this'