P1: ICD 9780521867559pre CUNY1092/Sagoff 978 521 86755 October 16, 2007 The Economy of the Earth, Second Edition Mark Sagoff draws on the last twenty years of debate over the foundations of environmentalism in this comprehensive revision of The Economy of the Earth Posing questions pertinent to consumption, cost-benefit analysis, the normative implications of neo-Darwinism, the role of natural history, and the centrality of the concept of place in environmental ethics, he analyzes social policy in relation to the environment, pollution, the workplace, and public safety and health Sagoff distinguishes ethical from economic questions and explains which kinds of concepts, arguments, and processes are appropriate to each He offers a critique of “preference” and “willingness to pay” as measures of value in environmental economics and defends political, cultural, aesthetic, and ethical reasons to protect the natural environment Mark Sagoff directs and is a Senior Research Scholar at the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, College Park The author of Price, Principle and the Environment (2004), he has published widely in journals of law, philosophy, and the environment Dr Sagoff was named a Pew Scholar in Conservation and the Environment in 1991 and was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 1998 He is also a Fellow of the Hastings Center and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science i 15:49 P1: ICD 9780521867559pre CUNY1092/Sagoff 978 521 86755 ii October 16, 2007 15:49 P1: ICD 9780521867559pre CUNY1092/Sagoff 978 521 86755 October 16, 2007 The Economy of the Earth Philosophy, Law, and the Environment Second Edition MARK SAGOFF Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy University of Maryland iii 15:49 CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521867559 © Mark Sagoff 1988, 2008 This publication is in copyright Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press First published in print format 2008 ISBN-13 978-0-511-37856-0 eBook (NetLibrary) ISBN-13 978-0-521-86755-9 hardback ISBN-13 978-0-521-68713-3 paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate P1: ICD 9780521867559pre CUNY1092/Sagoff 978 521 86755 For my father who gave me my first copy of Thoreau’s Walden v October 16, 2007 15:49 P1: ICD 9780521867559pre CUNY1092/Sagoff 978 521 86755 vi October 16, 2007 15:49 P1: ICD 9780521867559pre CUNY1092/Sagoff 978 521 86755 October 16, 2007 Contents Acknowledgments page ix Introduction At the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima or Why Political Questions Are Not All Economic 24 The Allocation and Distribution of Resources 46 Values and Preferences 67 Can We Put a Price on Nature’s Services? 87 Do We Consume Too Much? 110 Is an Environmental Ethic Compatible with Biological Science? 137 Settling America or the Concept of Place in Environmental Ethics 157 Natural and National History 175 10 Environmentalism: Death and Resurrection 194 Notes 209 Index 259 vii 15:49 P1: ICD 9780521867559pre CUNY1092/Sagoff 978 521 86755 viii October 16, 2007 15:49 P1: ICD 9780521867559pre CUNY1092/Sagoff 978 521 86755 October 16, 2007 Acknowledgments The second edition of this book represents a total overhaul and complete revision of the first Only Chapters 2, 3, and bear any resemblance to text found in the earlier edition; the other chapters were written in recent years Although this is essentially a new book, many of the acknowledgments remain the same I wrote the second edition as I did the first while at the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, College Park There is little in this essay that did not arise out of discussion with my colleagues at the Institute and the School, or from some thought suggested by their work, or in response to their sympathetic criticism, or to the ideas they offered me No research center other than the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, as far as I know, provides a similar opportunity for philosophers to pursue politically informed conceptual analysis on a sustained basis Each page of this book acknowledges implicitly, as I explicitly here, the help I received from my colleagues at the Institute over the years – editors Claudia Mills, Arthur Evenchik, and Verna Gehring and researchers (past and present) David Crocker, Robert Fullinwider, William Galston, Peter Levine, Xiaorong Li, Judith Lichtenberg, David Luban, Douglas MacLean, Henry Shue, Robert Wachbroit, and David Wasserman I am particularly grateful to two colleagues at the School of Public Policy, with offices neighboring mine on the same floor, Robert H Nelson and Herman E Daly, for their patience, kindness, and direction Bob Nelson labored over an earlier draft to alert me to many errors I would have otherwise committed, and he suggested many arguments I could not have otherwise made I should also like to thank the Institute administrator, Carroll Linkins, and our graduate assistant, Jillien Dube, who dealt cheerfully and patiently with the secretarial problems I created in writing and revising this manuscript ix 15:49 P1: KNP 9780521867559end CUNY1092/Sagoff 978 521 86755 October 16, 2007 Notes to Pages 179–184 16 Miller, Nature’s Nation, p 17 Robert Frost captures this history magnificently in his poem, “The Gift Outright.” His sparse verse describing how Americans took root – how they became the land’s as they took possession of it – is so accurate no better expression of the point can possibly be imagined 18 Miller, Nature’s Nation, p 19 David Gelernter, “Americanism – and Its Enemies,” Commentary 119, no (January 2005): 41 ff (8 pages) 20 David Gelernter, “A Religious Idea Called ‘America’: How Puritanism Created It, What It Means, Why It Matters,” American Enterprise Institute web page (posted Tuesday, February 14, 2006); http://www.aei.org/ publications/pubID.23883,filter.all/pub detail.asp 21 R B W Lewis, The American Adam: Innocence, Tragedy, and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955) 22 For discussion see William Gass Book Review, New York Times, May 3, 1973, p (reviewing Gertrude Stein’s Geographer I) 23 Joel Myerson, “Introduction,” in Transcendentalism: A Reader, ed Joel Myerson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), p xxvi 24 Simon A Levin, “The Role of Theoretical Ecology in the Description and Understanding of Populations in Heterogeneous Environments,” American Zoologist 21 (1981): 865–875 Quotation at p 866 25 Leonardo da Vinci, Frammenti Letterari e Gilosofici, ed Edmondo Solmi (Firenze: Giunti-Barbera, 1899), pp 94–95 26 K S Shrader-Frechette and E D McCoy, “Applied Ecology and the Logic of Case Studies,” Philosophy of Science 61 (1994): 228–249 27 Stephen Bocking, Nature’s Experts (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2004), p 18 28 I describe and discuss this conflict between two methods in ecology in Mark Sagoff, “The Plaza and the Pendulum: Two Concepts of Ecological Science,” Biology and Philosophy 18 (2003): 529–552 29 Jonathan Edwards, The Works of President Edwards (New York: Leavitt, Trow, 1879), pp 217–218 30 The hylomophic or Spinozistic tendency of Transcendentalism comes from Edwards – and should not be confused with pantheism or mysticism The contrast in ecological science today opposes those (in the tradition of Cotton Mather) who believe that eternal truths are to be found in the mathematical ordinances that govern systems and those (in the spirit of Robert Blake) who hold that “Art and Science cannot exist but in minutely organized Particulars” William Blake, Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion, edited with an introduction and notes by Morton D Paley (Princeton, NJ: William Blake Trust/Princeton University Press, 1991), chap 3, Plate 55 31 Henry David Thoreau, The Maine Woods, in H D Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Walden, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod (New York: Library of America, 1985 [first published posthumously in 1864), p 646 32 I paraphrase a line from Wallace Stevens, “Sunday Morning.” 252 16:12 P1: KNP 9780521867559end CUNY1092/Sagoff 978 521 86755 October 16, 2007 Notes to Pages 184–192 33 Significantly, this is the motto of his essay “History.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, “History,” in Essays & Essays, 1st ser., vol (Columbus, OH: C E Merrill, 1969), p 34 See Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968), p 68 (“metaphorical possession is not literal possession; but possession is actual whether literal or metaphorical”) 35 Simon Schama makes this point as follows: “Landscapes are culture before they are nature; constructs of the imagination projected onto wood and water and rock But it should also be acknowledged that once a certain idea of landscape, a myth, a vision, establishes itself in an actual place, it has a peculiar way of muddling categories, of making metaphors more real than their referents; of becoming, in fact, part of the scenery.” Schama, Landscape and Memory (New York: Knopf, 1995), p 61 36 Henry David Thoreau, Walden (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971), chap 7, “The Bean Field.” 37 Philip Cafaro, Thoreau’s Living Ethics: Walden and the Pursuit of Virtue (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2004) 38 My colleague Robert H Nelson, who also makes this point and uses this phrase, as of this writing is completing a book largely on this theme 39 Hector St Jean de Cr`evecoeur (Michel-Guillaume-Jean de Cr`evecoeur), Letters from an American Farmer (1904; New York: Dutton, 1962), p 54 40 Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1955), pp 164–165 Published for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, VA 41 Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), p 73 42 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 1946), p 74 43 Miller, Errand, p 211 44 Thoreau, Walden, p 116 45 Mark Twain, “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses,” in How to Tell a Story and Other Essays (New York: Harper Bros., 1904), p 78 46 George Bernard Shaw, “The Perfect Wagnerite,” in Selected Prose of Bernard Shaw (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1952), pp 218–233 47 James Fenimore Cooper, The Leatherstocking Saga (New York: Pantheon, 1954), p 681 48 Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1967), p 44 49 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journal, quoted in R W B Lewis, The American Adam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955), p vi 50 Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The New Adam and Eve,” in Mosses from an Old Manse (1900; Freeport NY: Books for Libraries, 1970), p 20 51 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, p 19 52 Miller, Errand, p 207 53 F Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (New York: Scribner, 1953), p 182ff 54 William Faulkner, Big Woods (New York: Random House, 1955), unpaginated, 6th page from end of text 253 16:12 P1: KNP 9780521867559end CUNY1092/Sagoff 978 521 86755 October 16, 2007 Notes to Pages 192–196 55 Quoted in Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, p 90 56 Faulkner, Big Woods, unpaginated, 3rd page from end of text 57 Herbert Croly, The Promise of American Life, ed Arthur Schlesinger Jr (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965), pp 6–7 58 For discussion of the economic promise of American life, see Robert Nelson, Reaching for Heaven from Earth (Totowa, NJ: Littlefield Adams, 1993) But for another view, see Christopher Lasch, True and Only True Heaven: Progress and Its Critics (New York: Norton, 1991) 59 J Ortega Y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses (1932; New York: Norton, 1957), p 89 60 Faulkner, Big Woods, unpaginated, last page chapter 10: environmentalism: death and resurrection “The End of the World: A Brief History,” The Economist (December 18, 2004); http://www.economist.com/diversions/displayStory.cfm?story id=3490697 Donald R McGregor, “Public Response to Y2K: Social Amplification and Risk Adaptation or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Y2K,” in The Social Amplification of Risk, ed Nick Pidgeon, Roger E Kasperson, and Paul Slovic (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p 256 Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus argue that the environmental community no longer engages values Americans share and respect The leadership defines its political strategy “around using science to define [a] problem as ‘environmental’ and crafting technical policy proposals as solutions.” Environmentalism is seen as a special interest, according to Schellenberger and Nordhaus, because it puts “the technical policy cart before the vision-and-values horse.” Shellenberger and Nordhaus, “The Death of Environmentalism”; http://www.thebreakthrough.org/images/Death of Environmentalism.pdf William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902; New York: Random House, 1994), see pp 61 and 552 W H Wagner, “Problems with Biotic Invasives,” in Biological Pollution, ed Bill McKnight (Indianapolis: Indiana Academy of Science, 1993), pp 1–8; quotation at p R V O’Neill, “Is It Time to Bury the Ecosystem Concept? (with Full Military Honors, of Course!),” Ecology 82 (2001): 3275–3284; quotation at p 3279 For attribution, see http://www.sierraclub.org/john muir exhibit/ frameindex.html See also http://www.sierraclub.org/john muir exhibit/ writings/misquotes.html Muir wrote of natural history, “We may read the letter-pages of friends when written over and over, we are intimately acquainted with their hand-writing, and under the same conditions we may read Nature’s writings on the stone pages of the mountains.” The Yosemite (New York: Century, 1912) See Robert Nelson, Reaching for Heaven on Earth (Totowa, NJ: Littlefield Adams, 1993) In debates over intrinsic and instrumental value, one can hear 254 16:12 P1: KNP 9780521867559end CUNY1092/Sagoff 978 521 86755 October 16, 2007 Notes to Pages 197–199 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 echoes of controversies within Protestantism between Evangelicals and others who preach individual conversion and Progressives associated with the Social Gospel movement who taught social uplift This chapter argues that environmentalism is dead because it has become associated with the Progressive aspects of Christianity It must then base ecological protection on economic values as the discipline of ecological economics tries to This appears to be a failing strategy in spite of high hopes that economic arguments can be found for keeping nature natural (e.g., the present emphasis on “pricing” ecosystems services) Quoted in Michael P Cohen, The Pathless Way (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984), p 163 At the Bancroft Library and widely reproduced Since this is a photograph, somebody must have been there with him (The photographer is unknown.) Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, 2d ed (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1973); quotations from Muir found at pp 125– 126 National Parks Conservation Center Fact Sheet; http://www.npca.org/ about npca/park system/default.asp For a partial list, see Fred Van Dyke, “Between Heaven and Earth – Evangelical Engagement in Conservation,” Conservation Biology 19, no (2005): 1693–1696 “Questions for Richard Cizik: Earthy Evangelist,” interview by Deborah Solomon, New York Times Magazine, April 3, 2005; http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ users/kschwart/earthy%20evangelist.pdf For a good historical account of this effort, see Bruce Barcott, “For God So Loved the World,” Outside Magazine (March 2001); http://outside away.com/outside/magazine/200103/200103christian3.html A current policy statement of the National Association of Evangelicals insists on what it calls the “principle of sustainability,” which, it says, implies that “our uses of the Earth must be designed to conserve and renew the Earth rather than to deplete or destroy it.” In the fall of 2004, the NAE issued its policy document entitled “For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility” (http://www.nae.net) It includes many statements supporting environmental protection, for example, “We urge Christians to shape their personal lives in creation-friendly ways: practicing effective recycling, conserving resources, and experiencing the joy of contact with nature We urge government to encourage fuel efficiency, reduce pollution, encourage sustainable use of natural resources, and provide for the proper care of wildlife and their natural habitats.” 18 William Paley, Natural Theology, 9th ed (London: Printed for R Faulder, 1805), vol 1, p 55 19 Donald Worster, “The Ecology of Order and Chaos,” Environmental History Review (Spring/Summer 1990): 1–13; quotation at p 10 Many ecologists now take this view L Hansson summarizes, “There is a wide consensus even among ecologists that ecology as a science has not lived up to the expectations and that it is not able to either provide coercive basic theories nor good solutions to pressing environmental problems.” L Hansson, “Why 255 16:12 P1: KNP 9780521867559end CUNY1092/Sagoff 978 521 86755 October 16, 2007 Notes to Pages 199–202 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Ecology Fails at Application: Should We Consider Variability More than Regularity?” Oikos 100, no (2003), 624–627 For an example of this reasoning, see S A Levin, Fragile Dominion: Complexity and the Commons (Reading, MA: Perseus Books, 1999) Ecologists writing in the first half of the twentieth century, such as Frederic Clements, A G Tansley, Aldo Leopold, Paul Sears, and E P Odum, followed Forbes in making the ecosystem or the natural community the organizing concept of their science See, for example, Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There (New York: Oxford University Press: 1949), pp 216–218 According to environmental historian Donald Worster, these ecologists packed the ecosystem concept with “so much stress on natural order that it came close to dehistoricizing nature altogether.” Donald Worster, “Nature and the Disorder of History,” in Reinventing Nature, ed Michael Soul and Gary Lease ( Washington, DC: Island Press, 1995), p 70 For Odum, “ecology was the study of the ‘structure and function of nature,’ a definition that almost left out of the picture Darwinian evolution and all its turmoils” (ibid.) Stephen A Forbes, “The Lake as a Microcosm,” 1887; reprinted in Bulletin of the Illinois State Natural History Survey 15 (1925): 537–550 Donald Worster, Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas, 2d ed (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp 211–215 Frederic Clements, Plant Succession: An Analysis of the Development of Vegetation (1916), as quoted in Worster, Nature’s Economy, pp 211–215 See H P Blavatsky, “Is Creation Possible for Man?”; http://www blavatsky.org/hpb/arts/IsCreationPossibleforMan.htm For a more contemporary statement of Theosophist and related spiritual beliefs about the ascendant organization of the natural world, see Robert Ulanowicz, Ecology, the Ascendent Perspective (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997) Institute for Creation Research, Scientific Creationism, 2d ed., ed Henry M Morris, (El Cajon, CA: Master Books, October 1974), p 12 For a deeply mathematical exposition of the principles of Great Chain of Being ecology, see S A Levin, “The Problem of Pattern and Scale in Ecology,” Ecology 73, no (1992): 1943–1967 See Lovejoy, Great Chain of Being (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1956) at p 60 Ibid.; quoting Pope at p 60 E P Odum, “The Emergence of Ecology as a New Integrative Discipline,” Science 195 (1977): 1289–1293 For more than thirty years ecologists have been announcing this “emergence” in an optative mood It has not happened E P Odum, “The Strategy of Ecosystem Development,” Science 164 (1969): 262–270 Daniel Botkin, “Adjusting Law to Nature’s Discordant Harmonies,” Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum 25 (1996): 26 A Dan Tarlock, “Beyond the Balance of Nature: Environmental Law Faces the New Ecology,” Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum (Fall, 1996): 198 256 16:12 P1: KNP 9780521867559end CUNY1092/Sagoff 978 521 86755 October 16, 2007 Notes to Pages 202–206 35 R Gallagher and B Carpenter, “Human-Dominated Ecosystems,” Science 277 (1997): 485–486 36 D Western, “Human-modified Ecosystems and Future Evolution,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98, no 10 (May 8, 2001): 5458–5465 37 “Our ability to protect biological resources depends on our ability to identify and predict the effects of human actions on biological systems, especially our ability to distinguish between natural and human-induced variability in biological condition.” J R Karr and E W Chu, Restoring Life in Running Waters: Better Biological Monitoring (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1999); http://www.epa.gov/bioindicators/html/premise8.html 38 P M Vitousek, J D Aber, R W Howarth, G E Likens, P A Matson, D W Schindler, W H Schlesinger, and D G Tilman, “Human Alteration of the Global Nitrogen Cycle: Sources and Consequences,” Ecological Applications (1997): 737–750; quotation at p 494 39 C J Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), p 243 40 W H Drury, Chance and Change: Ecology for Conservationists (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), p 23 I believe this is one of the best books written in ecology 41 A M Ghilarov, “The Changing Place of Theory in 20th Century Ecology: From Universal Laws to Array of Methodologies,” Oikos 92, no (2001): 357–362 42 D Simberloff and T Dayan, “Ruling out a Community Assembly Rule: The Method of Favored State,” in E Walker and P A Eddy, eds., The Search for Assembly Rules in Ecological Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); quotation at p 62 43 F S Gilbert and J Owen, “Size, Shape, Competition, and Community Structure in Hoverflies,” Journal of Animal Ecology 59 (1990): 21–39; quotation at p 33 44 J Weiner, “On the Practice of Ecology,” Journal of Ecology 83 (1995): 153– 158; L W Aarssen, “On the Progress of Ecology,” Oikos 80 (1997): 158– 177 45 That science is the way to political power seems to be the assumption of many environmentalists Michael Crichton cautions against this path to power “But in the end, science offers us the only way out of politics And if we allow science to become politicized, then we are lost.” Creighton, “Environmentalism as Religion,” Lecture to the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, September 15, 2003; http://www.crichton-official.com/ speeches/speeches quote05.html 46 See Mark Dowie, Losing Ground: American Environmentalism at the End of the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995), especially p 267 47 Robert Gottlieb, Forcing the Spring (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1993), p 154 48 Blaine Harden, “Hatchery Salmon Plan Announced; Fish to Be Used in Stream Rebuilding,” Washington Post, May 29, 2004, p A03 This policy follows a 2001 U.S District Court decision delisiting Oregon coast coho salmon because genetically similar hatchery-bred fish had joined and swelled the 257 16:12 P1: KNP 9780521867559end CUNY1092/Sagoff 978 521 86755 October 16, 2007 Notes to Pages 206–207 49 50 51 52 wild population Alsea Valley Alliance v Evans, 161 F Supp.2d 1154 (D Or 2001) Holly Doremus discusses this among other examples of “wicked” questions in Holly Doremus, “The Purposes, Effects, and Future of the Endangered Species Act’s Best Available Science Mandate,” Environmental Law 34 (Spring, 2004): 397–450 I have provided examples, arguments, and invective in various articles, including M Sagoff, “The Plaza and the Pendulum: Two Concepts of Ecological Science,” Biology and Philosophy 18 (2003): 529–552; and “Do Non-NonNative Species Threaten the Natural Environment?” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 18 (2005): 215–236 Kevin Krajick “Winning the War against Island Invaders,” Science 310, no 5753 (December 2, 2005): 1410–1413 Santa Barbara businessman Richard Feldman, as quoted in ibid 258 16:12 P1: ICD 9780521867559ind CUNY1092/Sagoff 978 521 86755 October 16, 2007 Index Adams, Henry, 25, 45, 215, 216, 254 Adler, Matthew, 72, 80, 221, 223, 224 Aesop, 90 Age of Substitutability, 116 Ahab, 160 alienation from nature, 66 allocation vs distribution, 52–55; see also equity vs efficiency American dream, 177 American exceptionalism, 179 Andrews, Richard N L., 26 animal rights, 121 anthropocentrism, 74 antinomianism, 45, 149 apocalyptic narrative, 114, 115, 119, 121, 173 aquaculture, 100, 101, 102 Arbella, 176 Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 5, 64 Armegeddon, 110 Audubon Society, 197, 204 Austrian school of economics, 93 Bailey, Liberty Hyde, 158 balance of nature, 205 Baxter, William, 30, 213 beekeepers, 104 benchmarks, 11 Big Woods, 137, 191, 192, 253, 254 biodiversity, 18, 23, 99, 105–106, 139, 140, 141, 205, 206, 231 biofuels, 120–121, 125 biotechnology, 130 agricultural, 129 birding, 150 Bixby, Horace, 165 Blavatsky, Madame, 200 blueberries, 104 Bocking, Stephen, 183 Boomer vs Atlantic Cement Company, 7, Botkin, Daniel, 202, 230, 256 Boyle, Robert, 141, 145, 147, 176, 245 Bradford, William, 175, 176, 244 Brower, Michael, 125 Brown, Lester, 114 Buchanan, James, 40, 215 buffalo commons, 94 Bumppo, Natty, 160, 188 Bush, President G W., Cabbage Patch Dolls, 139 Cafaro, Philip, 185 Calvin, John, 147, 153, 195, 207 cap-and-trade markets, 12, 17, 90 carbon markets, 90 “hot air,” 90 carrying capacity, 110, 113, 173, 196 Carson, Johnny, 113 Carson, Rachel, 8, 113 Catskill watershed, 98 suburban legend, 97–98 charismatic megafauna, 205 259 15:18 P1: ICD 9780521867559ind CUNY1092/Sagoff 978 521 86755 October 16, 2007 Index Chast, Roz, 110 Chicago, Illinois, 170–172, 216, 219, 224, 242, 249, 252, 253 China, 18, 123, 127, 164 choice, 84 confused with welfare, 73 and welfare, 70–72 Christianity, 146 caring for creation, 110, 132 Churchill, Winston, 65 Cizik, Richard, 111, 197, 198, 233, 255 Clean Air Act, 9, 10, 90 Clean Water Act, 35 climate change, 16–18 Club of Rome, 113, 114, 233 Coase, Ronald, 35, 69, 214, 220 Cochrane, Willard, 94 collective choice, 79 collectivism, 80, 82 Colm, Gerhard, 48, 49 comestibles vs combustibles, 95 command and control regulation, 37 commitment values and welfare function, 72 common law, 6, 9, 17, 35, 36, 37, 38 competitiveness, consequentialism, 75 conservativism, 208 consumer surplus, 15, 34, 53, 68, 81, 84, 85, 93 consumer vs citizen values, 27, 62 consumption, 75, 114 and scarcity, 111–112 Cooper, James Fenimore, 188, 253 cost-benefit analysis, 32–35, 72, 206 cost-effectiveness, 85 cost-oblivious regulation, 10 Creation, 1, 3, 22, 110, 132, 141, 144, 145, 146, 158, 185, 195, 196, 198, 200, 208, 242, 256 Creation Research Institute, 200 Cr`evecoeur, Michel de, 186 Crichton, Michael, 114 Croly, Herbert, 193, 254 Cronon, William, 170–172, 173, 249, 250 Cropper, Maureen, 10, 211 Curtis, Charles, 124 Daly, Herman, ix, 138, 139, 142, 150, 152, 225, 227, 233, 244, 245 Darling, Jay, 197 Darwin, Charles, 21, 141, 142, 143, 144, 198, 199, 200 de minimis risk, 11 deliberation, political, 27, 29, 35, 37, 38 vs valuation, expert, 38 Descartes, Ren´e, 207 deus absconditus, 145, 154 deus ex machina, 145, 154 dignity vs price, 62–63 Dilg, Will A., 197 diminishing returns, 85 Douglas, Mary, 76 Drifters, 87, 105, 108 Drucker, Peter, 118, 236 Drury, William, 203 dung beetles, 104 Dworkin, Ronald, 2, 54, 209, 218 Earth Day, 4, 8, 204 ecological kickback, 207 ecology absence of emergent properties, 203 as closet creationism, 195, 203 as natural theology, 202 as theology, 207 theoretical vs empirical, 182–183 economic benefit, 74 cannot be measured, 70–71 defined as WTP, 70 economic development, 107, 131, 194 economic growth, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, 92, 118, 121, 123, 125, 131, 132, 134, 173, 234, 236, 238 vs environmental protection, 4–6 global, 115–116 Economic Man, 81–82, 85 economic performance, economic science, useful function of, 66 260 15:18 P1: ICD 9780521867559ind CUNY1092/Sagoff 978 521 86755 October 16, 2007 Index economic value defined as WTP, 73 as meaningless idea, 92 and scarcity, 96 economists vs ecologists on valuation, 13–16 ecosystem services, 13, 15, 23, 66, 89, 90, 91, 92, 101, 107, 108, 205, 206, 229, 231 global scale, 90 ecosystems as lacking organizing principles, 199 not units of selection, 198 as possessing an unseen order, 199 Edwards, Jonathan, 22, 144, 145, 147, 148, 149, 151, 154, 155, 156, 182, 183, 184, 186, 190, 191, 195, 196, 245, 246, 252 affections of the heart, 147–149 Speculative vs Sensible, 148 efficiency, economic, 30, 36–37 Ehrenfeld, David, 105, 135, 231, 244 Ehrlich, Paul, 92, 113, 114, 115, 126, 201, 226, 232, 233, 235, 236, 240, 250 Ehrlich, Paul and Anne, 113 emergy, 92 Emerson, R W., 22, 78, 111, 149, 162, 163, 165, 167, 182, 184, 186, 187, 189, 197, 246, 248, 253 endangered species, 21, 31, 36, 52, 54, 85, 135, 209 Endangered Species Act, 35, 48, 61, 141, 154, 198, 206, 258 energy efficiency, 124 geothermal, 124 supply, 121–125 Environmental Defense Fund, 204 environmental economics normative vs positive, 86 environmental movement, 14, 17, 22, 132, 194, 195, 207–208, 254 environmentalism, 18, 23, 111, 207 apocalyptic narrative, 113, 119, 134, 194 Calvinism without God, 186 equity vs efficiency, 53–54 ethanol production, 95 Evangelical Environmental Network, 141, 198 Everlasting Ordinances, 144, 145, 146, 154 evolution, 137, 143, 145, 199 unable to explain ecosystems, 199 existence value, 23, 205 explanation vs communication, 154 externalities, 35–38 famine, 21, 112 as local problem, 123 farming, slash-and-burn, 131 farmland, price of, 93–96 Faulkner, William, 22, 190, 191, 192, 193, 250, 253, 254 Faustian bargain, 15 Finn, Huckleberry, 160 fish price of, 99–101 transgenic, 100 Fitzgerald, F Scott, 1, 22, 190, 192, 209, 253 food biotechnology, 119–120 comestibles vs combustibles, 120–121 supply, 118–121 Forbes, Stephen, 129, 198, 200, 201, 204, 241, 256 forests and forestry, 101–102 old growth, Franklin, Benjamin, 145, 191 Franzen, Jonathan, 150, 246 free will, 138, 142, 153, 155 Frey, Bruno, 75, 83, 222, 224 Friedman, Thomas L., 123, 239, 242 Friedmann, Harriet, 130 Frost, Robert, 181 future generations, rights of, 55–59 261 15:18 P1: ICD 9780521867559ind CUNY1092/Sagoff 978 521 86755 October 16, 2007 Index Gatsby, Jay, 160, 192 gd jbs w hi pa, 3, 4, 16, 26, 28, 34, 84 Gelernter, David, 179 George, Henry, 95 Georgescu-Roegen, Nicholas, 92, 225 Glacken, William, 203 God as artist, 198 as watchmaker, 199 Goodstein, Eban, 34, 74, 75, 210, 214, 221, 238, 243 Gore Al, 136 Gottlieb, Robert, 204, 257 Gould, Stephen J., 140, 141, 142, 148, 245 Graham, Carol, 83, 224, 242 Great Chain of Being, 141, 201, 256 greenhouse gases, 31, 88, 90, 122, 163 Gussow, Alan, 160, 163, 248, 249 happiness, 59, 75–77, 83–84, 85, 179, 180, 222 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 189 Hegel, G W F., 18 Hetch Hetchy Valley, Hickok, Wild Bill, 160 hidden design, 201; see also ecology Higginson, John, 177 Hirsch, Fred, 76 Hobbes, Thomas, 141, 142, 145 Holdren, John P., 122, 233, 239 Homestead Act, 93 Hume, David, 1, 140, 209 Huxley, Thomas, 143 ice cream cone, world’s largest, 139 inflation, 3, 10, 15, 28, 30, 83, 84, 178 injunctive relief, 6, insects, economic services, 103–105 Intelligent Design, 14, 141, 145, 197, 204 International Paper Co., 102 intrinsic vs instrumental value, 136 invasive species, 23, 181, 205 Invisible Hand, 20, 80–81, 82, 83, 85, 93 ivory-billed woodpecker, 137, 138, 139, 141, 142, 143, 150, 152, 153, 155, 205, 208 Jaccard, Mark, 124 James, William, 194 Jefferson, President Thomas, 180, 186, 187, 253 Johnson, Gale, 118 Kafka, Franz, 43 Kaldor-Hicks efficiency, 53, 79–80, 82, 84, 86 Kant, Immanuel, 40–41, 74, 148, 156 Kantian vs Utilitarian theory, 28–29 vs welfarism, 41–43 Kennedy, Donald, 137, 153 Kennedy, Duncan, 69 Keynes, Joan Maynard, 134, 243 King Philip’s War, 177 knee of the curve, 12 Kneese, Alan, 33, 64, 214 Knight, Frank, 76 Krutilla, John, 102, 229 Kuznets Curve, 5, 210 labor theory of value, 88, 93, 105 Lane, Robert, 75 Lauderdale Paradox, 96–97 Layard, Richard, 75 Leopold, Aldo, 181, 201, 256 Lewiston, New York, 24, 25, 43, 45 liability (tort), 12 liberalism, 162, 208 liberty, 67, 82, 85, 87, 89, 109 Liebetreu, David, 102 Linde, Claas van der, 4, 210 Locke, John, 88, 92, 109, 142 labor theory of value, 91 and the price of land, 93–95 Lone Ranger, 160 longevity vs fertility, 127; see also Malthus vs Methuselah Losey, John, 103 262 15:18 P1: ICD 9780521867559ind CUNY1092/Sagoff 978 521 86755 October 16, 2007 Index Lovins, Amory, 117, 124, 235, 239 Lucretius, 141, 145 lumpy goods, 20, 87 lurking inconsistency, 22, 138–140, 143 Musgrave, R A., 48, 83, 84, 210, 216, 224 music industry, 97 Myers, Norman, 131 Myrdal, Gunnar, 80, 216, 223 Machan, Tibor, 6, 211 magisteria, two, 140–141, 142, 153 malnutrition, 120 Malthus vs Methuselah, 21, 127 Malthusian rhetoric, 110, 113, 115, 121, 125, 126 killed millions of people, 126 Manifest Destiny, 180 Mann, Charles, 174, 250 manna, 96, 98 March, James G., 29 Marglin, Stephen, 49, 216 market failure, 10, 33, 34, 35, 36, 82 Marsh, George Perkins, 158 Marshall, Alfred, 69, 220 Marshall, Robert, 197 Marx, Karl, 81, 88, 91, 92, 95, 105, 176, 225 Marx, Leo, 187 mass torts, Mather, Cotton, 144, 145, 146, 183, 245, 252 McCaslin, Ike, 191 McCloskey, Diedre, 77 McKibben, Bill, 18, 101, 127, 157, 212, 226, 229, 247 Melville, Herman, 164, 167, 184, 186, 190, 197 Mill, John Stuart, 58, 136, 152, 218, 223, 233, 244, 247 Miller, Perry, 147, 176, 178, 179, 190, 245, 246, 248, 251, 252, 253 Mineral King Valley, 36, 46, 47, 48, 49, 52, 59, 60, 64, 65, 216 Mishan, E J., 35, 214 Mississippi River, 165 Muir, John, 2, 5, 111, 134, 151, 185, 195, 197, 204, 209, 233, 254, 255 Murdoch, Iris, 148, 246 Nash, Roderick, 176, 189, 251, 253, 254, 255 National Academy of Sciences, 140 National Resource Defense Council, 204 National Wildlife Federation, 204, 205 natural theology, 143–146, 154 nature, 172 as Creation, 158 vs environment, 159 vs place, 162–163 Nature Conservancy, 102, 107 Nelson, Robert, ix, 5, 134, 209, 210, 243, 244, 246, 247, 253, 254 neoclassical theory, 82 neo-Darwinism, 21, 138–140, 153, 155 New Orleans, 107 Newton, Sir Isaac, 141, 144, 145, 147, 155, 176 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 143, 155, 246 non-use values, 37, 62 Nordhaus, Ted, 16, 17, 22, 123, 239, 254 North exploits South?, 128–132 Oates, Wallace, 10, 211 Odum, E P., 201, 256 Office of Technology Assessment, 114 Okun, Arthur, 30, 213 open access equilibrium, 100 Original Sin, 196 Orr, David, 110 overconsumption, 111–113 Paine, Thomas, 87 Paley, William, 144, 198, 200, 252, 255 Parfit, Derek, 56, 57, 218 paternalism, 58, 59 Paul VI, Pope, 133 263 15:18 P1: ICD 9780521867559ind CUNY1092/Sagoff 978 521 86755 October 16, 2007 Index Petersham, Massachusetts, 167, 168, 169, 170 petrocracy, 123 Pilgrims, 206 Pinchot, Gifford, 2, 5, 151, 209 place concept of, 159 vs environment, 163–165 vs placelessness, 160–162 pleasure, 153 Pogo, 60 Polanyi, Karl, 161, 162, 248 pollination, 103–105 pollution, 5, 6–10, 11–12, 89 Pope, Alexander, 201 population, 21 doubling time, 116, 126 too many people, 113, 125–128 Porter, Michael, 4, 210, 239 Posner, Eric, 72, 80 Posner, Richard, 75 power, personal vs political, 43–45 precautionary principle, 196, 199 preference consumer vs citizen, 47–52 contingency of, 82 function, 81 future, 55 not normative, 85 status, 76 subjective, 38–39 unlaundered, 76 as unobservable, 68–69 and Utilitarianism, 74–77 and welfare, 73 preference reversal, 78 price of antibiotics, 97 competitive market, 20, 34, 74, 88 not equal to marginal benefit, 74, 97 of music, 97 signals, 34, 81, 93 priceless goods, 77 prosperity, 83–84, 88, 93, 131, 177 Protagoras, 202 public goods, 14, 68, 69, 89 Puritanism, 115, 144, 146, 147, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 182, 184, 190, 195, 196, 245, 246, 251 pyrethrum, 130 Randall, Alan, 40, 215, 221, 223 rationality, 43, 63–64, 73, 77 Raup, Hugh M.,167, 168, 169, 170, 249 Ray, John, 144, 198 regulatory markets, 20 Reilly, 128 Religious experience, conditions of; see ecology Repetto, Robert, 4, 210 replication as vindication, 69 resource rent, 99 resources, non-renewable, 116–118 Rieff, Philip, 44, 215 risk, 43 Rogers, Carl, 39, 40, 42, 77, 211, 214, 215 Rogers, Will, 96 Romm, Joseph, 124 Rosenzweig, Michael, 140, 153, 245 Rothschild, Lord, 11 Ruff, Larry, 6, 211 Russell, Bertrand, x, 74, 212, 221 Ruttan, Vernon, 119 salmon hatchery, 206 wild vs farmed, 135 Sanderson, John, 167 Santa Cruz Island, 207 satisfaction, 75 scarcity, 1, 76, 88, 93, 94, 96, 97, 104, 106, 107, 112, 113, 116, 121, 123, 134, 158, 169, 173, 213 Schama, Simon, 157, 247, 253 Schor, Juliet B., 133 scientism, 23 Sedjo, Roger, 102, 230 self-organized systems, as Intelligent Design, 204 self-organizing complexity, as Gnostic belief, 201 self-organizing systems, 200–201, 202 264 15:18 P1: ICD 9780521867559ind CUNY1092/Sagoff 978 521 86755 October 16, 2007 Index Sen, Amartya, 2, 71, 73, 79, 126, 209, 215, 217, 219, 220, 223, 236, 240 Shellenberger, Michael, 16, 17, 22, 123, 239, 254 Shiller, R J., 83, 224 Sierra Club, 46, 48, 197, 204, 205, 209, 250 Sierra Club v Morton, 46 Simberloff, Daniel, 203 Simon, Julian, 115 Simon, William, 44 Simpson, George Gaylord, 143, 154, 245 Sinclair, Upton, 172 Smith, Adam, 20, 71, 80, 81, 82, 93, 96, 103, 134, 242, 243 Snake River sockeye, 135 social choice theory, 73 social psychology, 78 socialism, 45 Solow, Robert, 117, 235 Speth, Gus, 114 Spinoza, Baruch, 184 St Francis of Assisis, 102 statutes, environmental, 9, 16, 27, 54 Stegner, Wallace, 160, 247, 248 Stein, Gertrude, 160 Stokey, Edith, 70, 72, 220 Stutzer, Alois, 75, 83, 222, 224 subsidies agricultural, 128 to farmers, 94 sugar quotas, 129 superorganism, ecosystem as, 201 sustainability, 14, 22, 23, 134, 159, 162, 165, 168, 169, 174, 198, 205, 210, 255 Tarlock, Daniel, 202, 256 Theosophy, 200 Thompson, Barton, x, 89, 90, 99, 225, 228, 231 Thoreau, Henry David, v, 22, 111, 133, 134, 158, 160, 162, 163, 167, 181, 182, 183, 185, 186, 188, 192, 197, 243, 244, 248, 249, 252, 253 Thuenen, Johann von, 95, 98, 226 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 161, 187, 190, 248, 253 Toxic Release Inventory, 11 transaction costs, 19, 82 trees, transgenic, 102 triple-bypass, 120 Tullock, Gordon, 50, 216 Turner, Frederick Jackson, 160, 187 Twain, Mark, 165, 166, 184, 188, 249, 253 unemployment, 3, 83 unseen order, 202 U.S Forest Service, 46, 47, 101 Utilitarianism, 74, 76 valuation, 17, 18, 20, 28, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, 50, 68, 70, 72, 75, 80, 86, 93, 213 value aesthetic, 153, 155 economic, 93 of nature, intrinsic vs instrumental, 77 neutrality, 2–4, 16 vs purpose, 150–152, 153 value in exchange, 96, 97, 108 vanilla, 130 Vaughan, Mace, 103 Wachtel, Paul, 133 water supply, 99 welfare economics, 25, 29, 34, 45, 50, 75, 80, 81, 86, 91, 136, 216 value neutrality, 39, 43 Western, David, 202 whales, 117, 135, 164 White, Lynn, 146 Whitman, Walt, 22, 78, 111, 181, 182, 184, 185, 186, 197, 233 Wigglesworth, Michael, 175 wilderness, 181 as otherness, 175 wilderness narrative, 173–174 Wilderness Society, 204 willingness to accept (WTA), 28 265 15:18 P1: ICD 9780521867559ind CUNY1092/Sagoff 978 521 86755 October 16, 2007 Index willingness to pay (WTP), 13, 14, 15, 19–20, 30–32, 40, 50, 60–62, 67, 73, 77 does not buy happiness, 75 for gravitation, 103 maximum, 35, 73, 81 no known or testable relation to benefit, 70–72 no observed relation to utility, 75 not measurable, 69 not normative, 65, 68, 92 and rent seeking, 70 as tautological, 74 unrelated empirically to value, 70–72 unrelated to welfare, 71 and Utilitarianism, 74–77 Wilson, E O., 136, 138 Winthrop, Governor John, 22, 175, 176, 177, 179, 181, 187, 191, 193 witchcraft, 144 Wolfe, Tom, 167 Wordsworth, William, 149 workplace safety, 60 World Resources Institute, 114, 118, 128, 131, 210, 230, 233, 235, 240 Worster, Donald, 199, 200, 209, 255, 256 WTP Man, 77–79, 86 Yergin, Daniel, 122, 235, 238 Yosemite Valley, Zeckhauser, Richard, 70, 72, 220 266 15:18