Perhaps adopting a “5 (or 6) Capitals” approach to assessment maybe more effective in assessing value and trade-offs. Namely, Natural Capital; Social Capital; Human Capital; Built Capital; and Financial Capital, plus I would add Intellectual Capital.
Any project or investment should demonstrate that it is contributing to the growth/progress of one or more capitals; and identifying how it seeks to mitigate harms/protect other capitals. This provides an opportunity to re-frame thinking and taking a more holistic way. If done properly it could enable quick decision-making.
Simple in theory, inevitably harder in practice, but something needs to be done to change personal and collective bias, including an aversion to action.
Another way of operationalising attention to the long term: Dieter Helm’s recommended principle of “leave the next generation with a stock of assets no worse than the one the current generation inherited”.
More practical than asking people to look n generations ahead because you’re only asking them to care about their kids, and that should be less of a stretch. :-).
I'll take that as a start. Right now the tendency is to ignore the future. Get people thinking about it and taking responsibility for it.
There is too much talk about rights, not enough about responsibilities.
We'd have to be careful to make sure we are talking about what kind of world we would like for our children, and not simply did they get into a prestige college, or did their hockey team beat the other hockey team.
I'd give bonus points for ways to get people to think about others families' kids, not simply their own. Framing it as concern for the whole "next generation" sounds helpful.
It is like teaching baby steps of how to be a citizen, not just a self-satisfied consumer.
This is like the concept of "opportunity costs," where you lose by inaction. Great point.
If only the "money" people could conceive of investments in people or habitats as long-term investments that would pay off if you do them, but cost you if you don't do them...
It is easier to count the expenditures, but no one will experience the consequences until later. Kind of "pay now, buy later." A harder sell.
Maybe we need to build in a bias in favor of the future, which will get neglected otherwise?
Well, I think the other thing going on with Labour speechwriters is the desire to paint the Greens as NIMBYs, and environmental NIMBYism as a bar to growth, a line that's ever-popular with Labour-defenders on Bluesky. Keeps some potential defectors on-side.
If you ever run short of predators in the UK we have plenty of them running around loose in the US we could lend you.
At the same time, we have a shortage of people willing to entertain complex or subtle ideas that don't fit onto a smart-phone screen (grownups), and would like to borrow some of yours, if you can spare them.
Everybody has fallen for the KLARNA pitch: buy now, consequences later. This is how you make sales, or get elected. Idealists propose; cynics dispose.
Where I live, homeowners have shifted from using "wetlands" to "taxes" or "traffic" as reasons why more housing cannot be built near them. It's a wonder nobody has found a way to use "Epstein" as a tactic yet.
Fun predator fact: on my first trip to Florida I was warned to stay out of the "tall grass." Also, water. Because: rattlesnakes, and alligators. There are certain places it is best not to go.
However, if you see a croc on the golf course ahead of you, that's not an emergency, that's just "Florida."
Another aspect of “tradeoff” discourse that can be infuriating: even if one accepts that in certain circumstances there might be a ridge in the optimisation surface such that there is a tradeoff between two of the parameters, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the current system state lies precisely on that ridge.
And also “regulation” is not a knob you can dial up or down. Or rather, you can make regulation more or less complex, costly and slow, but it is also possible for regulation to be better or worse for a given level of administrative burden. Sometimes shockingly so
Generic "deregulation" was a silly idea. Interestingly, though, there's not an analogous term for the belief that more regulations are always and everywhere better. Why? Well, it's not really a well-defined idea in the sense that deregulation was, it's just the assumption that if "deregulation" is bad the opposite must be good, and therefore every regulatory sperm is sacred. Put it that way and it's obviously stupid, which is why "regulationism" isn't a word.
The actual missing element here is an entity close enough in geographical terms to be able to meaningfully analyse the situation and make proposals for development that strike a good balance between different goods and risks. The problem is these entities (some kind of democratically elected council with their own experts on staff and exposure to the tradeoffs via economic growth) don’t exist and local councils aren’t robustly independent and aren’t conscious of the economic tradeoffs.
And re the bats thing: that’s a case where an obviously and rightfully chortlesome outcome came about because of various different entities mindlessly followed rules without the means or wherewithal to ask “is what we’re doing actually quite stupid?”
Perhaps adopting a “5 (or 6) Capitals” approach to assessment maybe more effective in assessing value and trade-offs. Namely, Natural Capital; Social Capital; Human Capital; Built Capital; and Financial Capital, plus I would add Intellectual Capital.
Any project or investment should demonstrate that it is contributing to the growth/progress of one or more capitals; and identifying how it seeks to mitigate harms/protect other capitals. This provides an opportunity to re-frame thinking and taking a more holistic way. If done properly it could enable quick decision-making.
Simple in theory, inevitably harder in practice, but something needs to be done to change personal and collective bias, including an aversion to action.
Just remembered the idea of thinking ahead for 7 generations as an obligation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_generation_sustainability
https://www.klkurtz.com/post/seven-generations
Another way of operationalising attention to the long term: Dieter Helm’s recommended principle of “leave the next generation with a stock of assets no worse than the one the current generation inherited”.
More practical than asking people to look n generations ahead because you’re only asking them to care about their kids, and that should be less of a stretch. :-).
https://spe.org.uk/reading-room/book-reviews/legacy/
I'll take that as a start. Right now the tendency is to ignore the future. Get people thinking about it and taking responsibility for it.
There is too much talk about rights, not enough about responsibilities.
We'd have to be careful to make sure we are talking about what kind of world we would like for our children, and not simply did they get into a prestige college, or did their hockey team beat the other hockey team.
I'd give bonus points for ways to get people to think about others families' kids, not simply their own. Framing it as concern for the whole "next generation" sounds helpful.
It is like teaching baby steps of how to be a citizen, not just a self-satisfied consumer.
This is like the concept of "opportunity costs," where you lose by inaction. Great point.
If only the "money" people could conceive of investments in people or habitats as long-term investments that would pay off if you do them, but cost you if you don't do them...
It is easier to count the expenditures, but no one will experience the consequences until later. Kind of "pay now, buy later." A harder sell.
Maybe we need to build in a bias in favor of the future, which will get neglected otherwise?
Well, I think the other thing going on with Labour speechwriters is the desire to paint the Greens as NIMBYs, and environmental NIMBYism as a bar to growth, a line that's ever-popular with Labour-defenders on Bluesky. Keeps some potential defectors on-side.
If you ever run short of predators in the UK we have plenty of them running around loose in the US we could lend you.
At the same time, we have a shortage of people willing to entertain complex or subtle ideas that don't fit onto a smart-phone screen (grownups), and would like to borrow some of yours, if you can spare them.
Everybody has fallen for the KLARNA pitch: buy now, consequences later. This is how you make sales, or get elected. Idealists propose; cynics dispose.
Where I live, homeowners have shifted from using "wetlands" to "taxes" or "traffic" as reasons why more housing cannot be built near them. It's a wonder nobody has found a way to use "Epstein" as a tactic yet.
Fun predator fact: on my first trip to Florida I was warned to stay out of the "tall grass." Also, water. Because: rattlesnakes, and alligators. There are certain places it is best not to go.
However, if you see a croc on the golf course ahead of you, that's not an emergency, that's just "Florida."
Another aspect of “tradeoff” discourse that can be infuriating: even if one accepts that in certain circumstances there might be a ridge in the optimisation surface such that there is a tradeoff between two of the parameters, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the current system state lies precisely on that ridge.
And also “regulation” is not a knob you can dial up or down. Or rather, you can make regulation more or less complex, costly and slow, but it is also possible for regulation to be better or worse for a given level of administrative burden. Sometimes shockingly so
Generic "deregulation" was a silly idea. Interestingly, though, there's not an analogous term for the belief that more regulations are always and everywhere better. Why? Well, it's not really a well-defined idea in the sense that deregulation was, it's just the assumption that if "deregulation" is bad the opposite must be good, and therefore every regulatory sperm is sacred. Put it that way and it's obviously stupid, which is why "regulationism" isn't a word.
Well I'm glad you rose to the bait! This was a particularly good iteration.
If not in tradeoffs, how would you think? Tradeoffs are just an acknowledgement that doing something means you can’t do something else
Right, I think you could make an even better case that the problem is a refusal to accept that tradeoffs exist.
The actual missing element here is an entity close enough in geographical terms to be able to meaningfully analyse the situation and make proposals for development that strike a good balance between different goods and risks. The problem is these entities (some kind of democratically elected council with their own experts on staff and exposure to the tradeoffs via economic growth) don’t exist and local councils aren’t robustly independent and aren’t conscious of the economic tradeoffs.
And re the bats thing: that’s a case where an obviously and rightfully chortlesome outcome came about because of various different entities mindlessly followed rules without the means or wherewithal to ask “is what we’re doing actually quite stupid?”
A really excellent piece Dan, enjoyed it and going back to read the linked "nutrient neutral zone" article.