Climate and Collective Action
Yesterday’s complaints aside, by far the biggest problem with David Brooks’ proposal to “just raise the price on carbon and let everybody else figure out how to innovate our way toward a solution” is that our energy use is inextricably bound up with collective decision-making about infrastructure.
That’s people taking the bus in Stockholm. Their decision to take the bus, like my own, was of course influences in part by individual calculation about the costs and benefits of different courses of action. But it was also heavily influenced by someone’s decision about where to put the bus stops, where to make the routes go, how frequently to run the buses, and other aspects of Stockholm’s bus-related infrastructure. Stockholm bus ridership is also influenced by the relative paucity of parking spaces in the city, which in turn relates to public policy decisions about minimum parking regulations, maximum allowable density and so forth. Similarly, in Washington DC at one point they wanted to build more urban freeways cutting through the city. But people protested and instead they wound up building the Metro. Lots of people take the Metro, but that’s only because they built it. And lots of people drive on the urban freeways they did build, but nobody drives on freeways that weren’t built anymore than anyone rides subways that don’t exist.
Similarly, whether or not putting a solar panel on your roof makes economic sense depends in part on whether you can sell energy to the grid during surplus periods. But that’s a political/regulatory issue. And whether or not it makes sense to build a huge wind warm in Kansas depends on whether you have a grid robust enough to transmit that energy to population centers, which again is a political/regulatory issue.
We also have regulatory issues limiting our ability to innovate. If we raise the price of carbon emissions, one thing that will happen is that we’ll see innovations around finding more efficient ways to heat buildings. One thing we already know is that multi-family structures are more efficient to heat than are detached houses (it’s a surface area to volume thing) but in many places it’s illegal to build a multi-family structure. So if what you want to do is leave this up to the market, you need to take active legislative steps, not just impose a price and say we’ll let the chips fall where they may.
60 Responses to “Climate and Collective Action”
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October 8th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
You spelled “farm” wrong.
October 8th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
So if what you want to do is leave this up to the market, you need to take active legislative steps, not just impose a price and say we’ll let the chips fall where they may.
But the high costs are what is needed to drive legislative change. I’m sure if the cost of electricty was 2x as high Cape Wind would face 1/2 the NIMBY resistance it currently does.
October 8th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Similarly, whether or not putting a solar panel on your roof makes economic sense depends in part on whether you can sell energy to the grid during surplus periods …
This is true for the individual homeowner but from the point of view of society as a whole it makes no economic sense in either case. Roof top solar panels are a pointless symbolic gesture.
October 8th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
You definitely gave that young lady the willies.
October 8th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
You know what I just found out:
Barack Obama got AIDS from a monkey. The monkey was Michelle Obama’s brother.
October 8th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Christian, I fucked your mom. Both your parents seemed to enjoy it.
October 8th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Please delete comment 5. If tongue-in-cheek, it fails miserably; regardless, it’s racist as hell.
October 8th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Matt, Don’t you realize that the lowest grade a young guy like you is permitted to give someone of Brooks’ stature is an A-.
October 8th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Excuse me, but a Wilshire Boulevard bus in Los Angeles is a lot more crowded than that. Just about any Los Angeles bus on a main thoroughfare during peak hours would be.
October 8th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
not exactly a cross section of Stockholm in that photo
you should do a post on the
October 8th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
So? For all we know this is the emptiest bus route in the country at the lowest traveled time of day.
October 8th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
I live in a multi-family home, where one man’s ceiling is another man’s floor. My ceiling has even rained… Maybe most multi-family homes are old, since I never noticed much noise living in a dorm or apartment. Nonetheless, I would not use regulation to encourage my living arrangement for others.
October 8th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
My perspective may be skewed, as I live in a mid-sized Midwestern city that has some public transportation but not a lot.
It seems to me that buses are generally shunned because “white people don’t take the bus.” That’s less true of the light-rail system. And, admittedly, buses are generally crappy – they’re infrequent, the routes are confusing, the bus stops are barely marked. But I also think it’s obvious that there are racial and class prejudices against taking a bus even if it’s convenient.
Will simply improving the reliability, frequency, and convenience of buses sent ridership up, or will racism and classism still keep people away from them?
October 8th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
agree with JMO-I think a lot of the regulatory changes you cite are necessary-but they’d be driven politically by the higher carbon price. I think it would force a lot of necessary local deregulation for housing, cause grids to be more eager to buy spare electricity during peak hours, cause local authorities to shift funding to bus transportation etc. better to have them do all that stuff after it’s made economically feasible by the carbon price.
on the other hand, what the democrats in congress are proposing seem more like handouts to various favored industries rather than the regulations you cite above.
October 8th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
One thing we already know is that multi-family structures are more efficient to heat than are detached houses (it’s a surface area to volume thing)
Did this really need to be spelled out?
October 8th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
David Hume has the right approach, because Brooks’ point about the lobbyists loving Jeremy Bentham is also right.
The problem is that there are exactly two prominent Republicans in America who are willing to admit that the country faces problems not amenable to amelioration by the private sector: David Brooks and Bruce Bartlett.
As a result it’s not possible to get a “Humean” solution, because as Brooks says, it requires that one “tilt the playing field to promote social goods”. That certainly worked with the computer and internet revolution because there were no significant incumbents in the information systems market except typewriter manufacturers and punch card talliers. The government funded and in some cases performed the basic research necessary to learn how to create a Turing machine and let the private sector run with it. The smartest tallying company for a while became the leader of the new information industry but was unable completely to lock it up.
The problem the country faces reforming finance and insurance is that the corporate Benthamites have complete control of all three branches of government. There are stupendously strong entrenchd incumbents in both industries (well, yes, it’s really one industry with two branches). Their advocates in the Republican party (and sadly, the Democratic as well) are strong enough to ensure that the table doesn’t get tilted toward social goods.
They claim to defend “free markets” when in fact they are a claque of oligarchic rent-seeking vampires.
October 8th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
I live in a multi-family home, where one man’s ceiling is another man’s floor. My ceiling has even rained… Maybe most multi-family homes are old, since I never noticed much noise living in a dorm or apartment. Nonetheless, I would not use regulation to encourage my living arrangement for others.
Why not?
October 8th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
If that’s your typical demographic on a Stockholm bus, I’d ride every day, just for the view alone.
October 8th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
I believe in that particular instance, Matt was suggesting regulatory neutrality, rather than encouraging one arrangement over the other.
And yes, ceiling rain sucks.
October 8th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
I’d gladly ride the bus if the passengers looked like the ones in MY’s pic. But I’m stuck with MARTA, the most ghetto public transit system in the states. For those of you who live in D.C., NYC, SF, and Chicago (systems I’ve also used) consider yourselves lucky. It be a zoo down here in the ATL! And the routes suck!
MARTA – Moving Afros Rapidly Through Atlanta (aka Metro Atl Rail/Transit Authority)
*I’m not a racist, just someone who doesn’t like spilled 40s, ghetto arguments and fights, having to smell rank ass bums, and panhandling during my commute.
October 8th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
I would not use regulation to encourage my living arrangement for others.
No one is saying the multi-family homes would be cheaper to buy just more efficient. For example – watching Real Estate Intervention they had a couple who lived in a 5000sq/ft single family home with cheap cabinets, linoleum floors and wall to wall carpet – house cost 500k. Now, imagine a 2200sq/ft condo for the same price – concrete and steel construction, hardwood, slate tile, all top notch finishes.
It would be just as nice – just smaller and more efficient.
People seem to think that multifamily means moving back to some post college shithole – and that doesn’t have to be that way at all.
October 8th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Barack Obama got AIDS from a monkey. The monkey was Michelle Obama’s brother.
Oregon State head basketball coach Craig Robinson?
October 8th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
This is precisely why Cheney was so wrong to call conservation “a personal virtue”. There’s a tremendous limit on what can be done through individual action.
October 8th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Post #20 is probably a parody, but in case it isn’t: I lived in downtown ATL for 7 years, and the subways are probably 60% white, I never saw any beer or “ghetto arguments”, and if there was a homeless person they generally sat in the corner covered by a coat. Can’t say they smelled. Most panhandlers I saw were white disabled people, usually only one every few trains.
The busses, on the other hand, are almost all black, but they’re lower-class working people who can’t afford a car in one of the most car-centric big cities in the country. Can’t say I ever had any bad experience on a bus. Just people trying to scratch out a living.
October 8th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Speaking of racist comments, we could do without 20 as well.
October 8th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
large scale public transportation will not catch on in the united states writ large until inner cities get their crime problem under control.
i would take a tram to work everyday if i worked in copenhagen, just as i did when i worked in prague, because saefty was exactly 0 concern.
October 8th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
large scale public transportation will not catch on in the united states writ large until inner cities get their crime problem under control.
NYC is safer than London, Frankfurt, Rome or Milan.
October 8th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
No, no, I understand. I’m not anti-Republican, I just don’t like inbred hillbillies with three teeth who think Jesus rode around on a dinosaur.
But I’m not anti-Republican.
October 8th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
JMO – by what metric is NYC safer than any of the European cities you just mentioned? Fewer murders, cases of theft, and assault? I find this hard to believe – but NYC isn’t really the best example of a transit system that doesn’t work anyway – I’ve always thought of NYC as a pretty safe city (most parts anyway), at least since Giulianni cleaned it up and turned it into an urban Disney Land for older folks and white hipsters. And it’s transit system has good routes IMO, and usually seems safe and hassle free to me (as are the L, BART, and D.C. Metro).
October 8th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
seriously, look at that picture and you know why they have fewer problems with many social issues.
October 8th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Hey Joe, why does that offend you? Do you know anyone, black or white, who actually enjoys any of those things I just mentioned? I feel sorry for the black folks – they’re usually the ones who pay a much higher price than any of us do. I might live intown, but in a nice neighborhood, with a kid in a private school. Three weeks ago a black college student at Clark (Jasmine Lynne – KC MO) was killed while walking around the downtown campus. Some thug killed her – a black guy – and now the campus community (comprised of Clark and Morehouse) might close themselves off from the surrounding ghetto. Students at G-Tech are also frequently hassled by the locals.
I know you have good intentions, and your heart is in the right place, but how does whitewashing black, urban crime help anyone? It’s probably the central challenge to urban renewal in this country.
October 8th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
I didn’t know Georgia allowed gay adoption. I am sure you and John Rocker will be happy together raising you little Prussian Blue.
October 8th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
chipper has somewhat of a point, but we could do without the quasi-racist undertone.
I used to live in Atlanta and rode MARTA quite a bit. It’s not as bad has he says if you can stick to the trains, but it’s not great either. I spent a good bit of time at MLK station during non-peak hours when the trains run very infrequently (basically all day Sat and Sun and all non-rush hour times during the week) and it is pretty creepy there. I never had a problem exactly, but I never felt safe either and I would not recommend that any unaccompanied minors or women of any age take MARTA–at least on on the east-west route.
I once encountered a young European tourist at MLK station. He wanted to visit the MLK memorial which, in theory, is not far from the station. I tried to dissuade him from making the walk though. The neighborhood is terrible and has been thoroughly neglected by the city and state for decades. To top it off, it’s not even walkable. The guy blew off my concerns (as if I was being a typical racist American white guy) but I felt sorry for him and ashamed of my city.
On the other hand, during peak hours, the trains are filled with commuters and the north-south route (there are, pathetically, only 2 train routes) is generally pretty safe and carries a reasonable mix of the city’s population.
The bus I often took from 5 points station to my house continued on to a prison on the south side of town. Suffice it to say that it was not a pleasant ride.
But spilled 40s? I never once saw anyone drinking anything (alcoholic or not) on a MARTA train or bus. Food and beverages are prohibited and that ban seems to be enforced.
October 8th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Yes, fewer of all those things, per capita.
I believe your statement of ignorance. You are a prejudiced person, and the fact that your beliefs about large cities elevate outdated, prejudiced stereotypes over evidence is quite predictable. For example:
New York City is majority-minority, and Guiliani’s administration merely continued a decline in crime that began before he took office – but to a prejudiced city-hater like yourself, the myth of St. Rudy chasing away the scary dark people must seem like the gospel truth.
Because I am not a bigoted p.o.s., like yourself, and I find statements equating black people with the things you mentioned offensive. Duh.
Do you know anyone who likes ignorant, toothless hillbillies?
I feel sorry for any “black folks” who come into contact with you, but I’m quite sure you’ve arranged your life to keep such events at an absolute minimum.
October 8th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Do you think there is even the slightest chance that ass-head has ever ridden on a bus with black people in his life?
October 8th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
[...] Climate and Collective Action (Think Progress) [emphasis added]: [B]y far the biggest problem with David Brooks’ proposal to “just raise the price on carbon and let everybody else figure out how to innovate our way toward a solution” is that our energy use is inextricably bound up with collective decision-making about infrastructure. … We also have regulatory issues limiting our ability to innovate. If we raise the price of carbon emissions, one thing that will happen is that we’ll see innovations around finding more efficient ways to heat buildings. One thing we already know is that multi-family structures are more efficient to heat than are detached houses (it’s a surface area to volume thing) but in many places it’s illegal to build a multi-family structure. So if what you want to do is leave this up to the market, you need to take active legislative steps, not just impose a price and say we’ll let the chips fall where they may. [...]
October 8th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
The institutions with the power to tax ghg emissions are not the same as those with the power to alter the kinds of local regulations that Matthew is talking about. An ideal tax will price emissions at exactly their internal + external cost, and this will enable local jurisdictions to make local regulatory decisions considering the full cost of those choices rather than just the internal cost. I see no reason why the federal government needs to be directly concerned with such regulation once the tax is instituted; incentive effects work on collective action just as they work on individual action.
October 8th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Do you think there is even the slightest chance that ass-head has ever ridden on a bus with black people in his life?
His posts sound believable to me.
October 8th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Students at G-Tech are also frequently hassled by the locals.
I spent six years living on campus at GT up until a few years ago, so I feel I have considerable expertise in saying that you’re wildly overhyping the situation and you sound like someone who lives an hour of downtown that would be terrified to walk two minutes from the Dome.
Yeah, Tech campus is in the middle of downtown, and if you walk off campus (say, to the Varsity) you’ll run into a couple homeless people who will ask you for money. Most people about a month into living there learn how to brush them off and they become part of the scenery.
Some people, I guess, are like frightened turtles that get apartments in Buckhead and spend 30 minutes each way driving to campus, which they would never ever step off of for fear a colored person might be nearby.
October 8th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
I spent a good bit of time at MLK station during non-peak hours when the trains run very infrequently (basically all day Sat and Sun and all non-rush hour times during the week) and it is pretty creepy there. I never had a problem exactly, but I never felt safe either and I would not recommend that any unaccompanied minors or women of any age take MARTA–at least on on the east-west route.
Yeah, that’s pretty accurate. The east-west line serves largely poorer areas of town and as such the train experience can be noticably worse than the north-south line, which serves mostly commuters and people going to the airport.
Of course, it’s people like Chipper here that keep making sure Cobb and Gwinnett never approve any MARTA expansion that actually follows the commutes out to where most people actually live. Because, you know, those people might come crawling into their McMansion communities, as though there were any way to walk anywhere from the train station in them.
October 8th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
I’m all for extending MARTA into the northern burbs – I can’t see a downside. And I concede that there’s probably something to be said for the North/South vs. East/West lines and stops (which I’m more familiar with).
For the recent GT grad, have you been reading the news since you graduated? We’re on the verge of electing the first white mayor since Jackson was elected (probably before you were born, but you’re welcome for the history lesson) in no small part because of the crime problem down here. Things have changed. Maybe it’s the economy, maybe it’s gentrification and a lower tolerance for crime. But whatever it is people are pissed and have had enough. Even the Clark-Morehouse crowd is pushing for a jacked up police presence and demanding that something be done in the wake of the Jasmine Lynn murder. And now Chicago has a high profile case where a black student was killed. It prompted a visit by the AG and Sec of Ed.
For Adam – maybe you’re not that familiar with the suburban landscape here, but the burbs aren’t all roses and sunny skies either. Clayton Co doesn’t even have an accredited school system anymore and Rockdale is on a rapid decline as well. Cobb and Gwinett isn’t really McMansion land either – more like a bunch of Mexis and poor whites living in lower end subdivisions and apartment complexes. Lots of foreclosure sales in all of the four counties listed above, and the suburbs are a lot more diverse than they used to be. I think the opposition to Marta in Cobb and Gwinett was more 1994 than 2009.
Anyway, the point is that all of these posts about the lessons learned in Scandinavia aren’t really transferable – our population, especially our urban landscape, is radically different. We have an urban black poverty/violence problem. Until it’s solved, our cities will be less livable than the ones on the other side of the pond.
October 8th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
I no longer live in ATL, so it’s not my fight, but my attitude was always, screw the idiots in Cobb and Gwinett. What Atlanta needs is better transportation around the city for people who live in the city. On that score MARTA largely fails. There was talk a few years back of a new light rail system. I don’t know what the status of that is anymore.
Also, Adam, technically Ga Tech is in midtown. And the campus/crime/homeless experience you describe is not unlike what I experience in Tallahassee at FSU.
October 8th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
We have an urban black poverty/violence problem. Until it’s solved, our cities will be less livable than the ones on the other side of the pond.
This is a good point, but I’m not sure which is the cart and which is the horse.
October 8th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
How many photos do you suppose are in Matt’s “Cute Scandinavian Girls Using Alternative Transportation” Flickr folder now? 100? 200? Hopefully he’ll be able to dole them out slowly on the blog over the course of a year or so.
October 8th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
I’d say take care of the violence first. Most of the folks who live in shitholes aren’t criminals and it should be an easy fix. I’m not sure it’s all about lack of opportunities either – the fucker who killed Jasmine Lynne was an ITT Tech student – they arrested him in class. He had a prior for unlawful gun possession. Most of the thugs who execute acts of urban crime trend young anyway – too young to have been burned on the “opportunity dashed” front. Coddling them isn’t the answer though. They’re dumb as rocks, mean as shit, and generally impulsive. They act like wild animals because they think they won’t get caught and aren’t capable of processing the consequences for their actions. Look at the fuckers who killed that bartender at the Standard – still not caught; so I can sympathize with the thugs gaming the system and trying to get away with as much as possible. I’d like to see the city put a camera on every corner, every street, in front of every potential crime target (anyplace that makes money in a shithole), and in every high-crime MARTA stop. Increase the chances of actually catching ‘em, and let them know that they’re being watched and will be caught if they decide to do something stupid. It’d be cheaper than hiring more cops and might cut down on the bad relations between the community and police if you only send the cops in to pick up the garbage (and there’s video evidence that they’re garbage). No one would’ve caught the Chicago killers from last week had some students not filmed the mess with their cells.
October 8th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
#41: Good points. I haven’t paid a whole lot of attention, no, as I didn’t stay there after college. Things can change in a few years.
As for the NIMBYs, yeah, I know Cobb and Gwinnett have a lot of ethnic parts (I’ve lived in both, great Mexican/Asian markets), which really I guess has just pushed the white flight even further northwest and northeast. No idea why you’d want a 75-minute commute, but they seem to do it.
technically Ga Tech is in midtown.
Yeah, I guess so. I always thought of midtown as east of Piedmont – the area that actually has houses.
October 8th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
I am amused by the guy with the nordic ennui in the back.
October 8th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
One thing we already know is that multi-family structures are more efficient to heat than are detached houses (it’s a surface area to volume thing)
No, we don’t know that. A detached house with good insulation may use no more energy to heat per unit of interior space than a multi-family structure. In any case, energy consumption and efficiency are complicated. For a variety of reasons relating to both construction and use, a multi-family structure may use more energy than a set of detached houses providing the same amount of living space.
but in many places it’s illegal to build a multi-family structure. So if what you want to do is leave this up to the market, you need to take active legislative steps, not just impose a price and say we’ll let the chips fall where they may.
I don’t want to leave it entirely up to the market. Zoning laws, including laws limiting housing density, may be justified to address externalities.
October 8th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
I wonder how much of the purpose behind laws limiting housing density is mainly to keep the poors away from the comfortable middle class.
October 9th, 2009 at 12:54 am
I want to ride the bus in Stockholm.
October 9th, 2009 at 1:13 am
You’d just love to have a big new low-income public housing project built next to your home, right?
October 9th, 2009 at 1:17 am
Thanks for proving my point.
And, since I live downtown, there are plenty of high apartment buildings next to my home. Can’t really get much denser than this.
October 9th, 2009 at 1:55 am
I said “big new low-income public housing project,” not “high apartment buildings.” But I think your evasion answers my question.
October 9th, 2009 at 2:09 am
Actually, when I responded to Mixner he was talking about zoning laws and density regulations. I believe zoning laws don’t apply to government projects, which would be what a public housing project is. So it was your initial question that was a bit of a non-sequitur.
The question you should have asked is “so would you love to have a big new cheap high-density living built right next to my home?” And the answer is: no I wouldn’t care. They can even go ahead and build a public housing project next to me, if they want. People have to live somewhere. You just want to make sure that it isn’t near you. And that’s sad.
October 9th, 2009 at 2:25 am
The association in many people’s minds of high density = poverty = crime is just not true everywhere. There are many parts of the world that has high population density but not so much poverty and crime. Of course there are bad pockets of every city, and I would prefer not to live in those pockets if I could help it, but high population density is not necessarily a factor that leads to high crime and undesirable areas.
October 9th, 2009 at 8:35 am
A price on carbon should lead to better regulation and government policies in other areas. Once we have committed to reducing CO2 emissions regulatory changes have a dollar value attached to them which makes them easier to do politically. This is especially true at the local level.
October 9th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
Mixner @ 48=== Yes WE do know that. It is physics and settled.
October 10th, 2009 at 12:10 am
Aqua Regia,
Since your statement was about “keeping the poor away,” Carter’s question makes a lot more sense than yours.
If you really would not object to a massive influx of poor people into your neighborhood, assuming it’s not already poor and rundown, you are very unusual. I suspect that, like most people, you would in fact object to such a change quite strongly.
October 10th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Hello. Great job.Keep up with the good news
October 12th, 2009 at 8:11 am
[...] without changing the system in which people live on its own is going to be a suboptimal strategy. Matt Yglesias was making this point recently while writing about Stockholm buses: A decision to take the bus is heavily influenced by [...]