And it is pretty obviously the right way to think about the problem, if you spend two seconds considering it:
The environment is a public good. Which means that it is owned by all of us. Which means that when it is harmed, we have all lost something of value. Therefore, the people doing the harm owe us money in the same way that Subway owes you money if they accidentally put arsenic in their meatballs. Why do places like Subway so rarely have arsenic in their meatballs? Because it imposes an enormous cost on them, so they optimize their business to avoid that cost. If environmental pollution entailed similar costs, businesses would optimize those costs away (to the extent possible).
This is ultimately a far more effective solution than any regulation ever could be. It's just a matter of choosing the right price. Because then what you have is the ability for private individuals to make a living for themselves rooting out cheaters and suing them in court. The system becomes self-policing because everyone's monetary incentives are aligned with the environment, and it is all mediated by one very simple, elegant idea: property rights.
The environment is our collective property and right now private individuals and entities are destroying it for free. That is simple theft, and fixing the enforcement of those rights is the solution.
This is why I oppose free trade to some extent. Chine isn't only competing on the price of their labor; they're also competing on the price of their environment - pollution is simply cheaper there than in the US or EU. However, the difference is, their environment is our environment!
Personally, I would install transparent tariffs for the whole world - they would be based on the estimated cost of externalities depending on the laws in the country of origin, and go down as soon as said countries adopt (and credibly enforce) better environment protection laws.
Your solution will never actually work. Fact is, that so far in human history, if you want to get from poverty to being rich, you need to have significant pollution. But your solution it not really needed in the long run.
Luckily, the amount of pollution generally goes down as countries grow richer. China is doing it cleaner then Britain or the US did it back in the day.
We need Free Trade so that we can grow, growth will lead (on avg) to a cleaner environment. The next society can then maybe do it completely with clean energy.
> The environment is a public good. Which means that it is owned by all of us.
That not strictly speaking true. We all have a stake in it but we don't own it. Also 'the environment' is not a singular thing, lots of people own lots of different parts.
> Therefore, the people doing the harm owe us money in the same way that Subway owes you money if they accidentally put arsenic in their meatballs.
That might be true, but if their tiny bit of a harmful substance in every single sub, they do not have to pay reparations to each person. The amount of damage done, is so small that it does not it would not be enforced. The same problem exists with environmental economics.
> It's just a matter of choosing the right price.
Prices are never a choice. The need to emerge from human interaction and property rights.
I do however agree with me. The problem is how to slice up the environment in different property rights that can be enforced. This problem can often be solved on a local level, such as forest pollution. It is however far harder to do for things that are far larger, like oceans or the stratosphere.
However, such approaches if possible are to be preferred. Sadly the typical environmentalist (and Nonprofits) are anti-market and that is holding everybody back.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_economics
And it is pretty obviously the right way to think about the problem, if you spend two seconds considering it:
The environment is a public good. Which means that it is owned by all of us. Which means that when it is harmed, we have all lost something of value. Therefore, the people doing the harm owe us money in the same way that Subway owes you money if they accidentally put arsenic in their meatballs. Why do places like Subway so rarely have arsenic in their meatballs? Because it imposes an enormous cost on them, so they optimize their business to avoid that cost. If environmental pollution entailed similar costs, businesses would optimize those costs away (to the extent possible).
This is ultimately a far more effective solution than any regulation ever could be. It's just a matter of choosing the right price. Because then what you have is the ability for private individuals to make a living for themselves rooting out cheaters and suing them in court. The system becomes self-policing because everyone's monetary incentives are aligned with the environment, and it is all mediated by one very simple, elegant idea: property rights.
The environment is our collective property and right now private individuals and entities are destroying it for free. That is simple theft, and fixing the enforcement of those rights is the solution.