Positive rights, negative rights and the UN

William Easterly writes in his blog:

So here’s the scorecard on UN human rights. On something like “the right to water,” where it is impossible to identify who is violating such “rights,” the UN talks big. On human rights violations like killings and torture, where the UN knows precisely who is the violator, the UN sometimes shows up on the violator's side.

Migration, poverty and wealth

The Annan report on climate change says:

Poverty and environmental degradation have caused migration from rural to urban areas.

The opposite is true. Migration is caused by wealth - the new wealth of cities.

Global warming, mass migration, and xenophobia

Kofi Annan writes:

Copenhagen needs to be the most ambitious international agreement ever negotiated. The alternative is mass starvation, mass migration and mass sickness.

Unlike starvation and sickness, migration away from abjectly poor areas where people cannot cope with climate and other hardships is something any rational person should welcome. What makes migration look bad is xenophobia. But Annan seems to take xenophobia for granted. For Annan, xenophobia is not worth discussing; only CO2 is.

Economic value and biological conservation

Mark Sagoff writes in Bioscience (The Economic Value of Ecosystem Services):

The concept of economic value presents a dilemma. If conservationists refer to total value, they must concentrate on just those [ecosystem] service providing units that are in jeopardy. It serves no purpose to “valuate” services that are not threatened. If conservationists refer to marginal value, however, they tie themselves to the familiar conceptual framework of market failure, externalities, common pool resources, discounting, transaction costs, and so on. Conservationists then go down a long and weary road, at the end of which they will find mainstream environmental economists waiting for them.

How to fight envy

Michael Sargent reviews the book The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better in Nature. Sargent and the authors of the book agree that more unequal societies fare worse because of envy, which they call "neuroendocrinological stress."

Governments can get there by using redistributive taxation and an extensive welfare state, as in Sweden, or by restraining income disparities and minimizing public spending, as in Japan. The book ends optimistically: whatever route is chosen, the authors argue, the current economic slump may be a providential opportunity to start righting the balance.

But why stop at equalizing income? Shouldn't we also "right the balance" of physical beauty, sports ability and dancing skills?

Robert Costanza and the broken window fallacy

Robert Costanza writes in Nature:

There is evidence in developed countries that economic growth beyond a certain point does not improve well-being, owing to the hidden, external costs of that growth, including climate impacts. For example, an oil spill increases gross domestic product (GDP) as someone must pay to clean it up, yet it detracts from well-being. Increased crime, sickness, war, pollution, fires, storms and pestilence are all positive for GDP because they increase economic activity.

Crime, sickness, war, pollution, fires, storms and pestilence all decrease economic activity.

Costanza also wrongly equates economic growth with GDP growth.

Inequality, poverty and water

In response to an article by Wendy Barnaby (Do nations go to war over water?) that dispels the notion that population growth and climate change will lead to "water wars," Thomas H. Meek and Laura A. Meek write (Increasing inequality is already making shortages worse):

Barnaby's implication that poorer nations will become wealthier in the coming decades is at odds with the global reality of an increasing gap between rich and poor and with the repeated failure of such development plans. [I edited the literature references out.]

I am much wealthier now than twenty years ago. The same is true for several hundred million Chinese and Indians. There is an increasing gap between Bill Gates and I and my Chinese and Indian fellows. The fact that I and the others are wealthier is not at odds with the "global reality of an increasing gap between" Bill Gates, or the average Norwegian or the average Irish, and us.

Access to water is already a serious issue for people in many parts of the world and, given recent United Nations estimates, the situation is not likely to improve.

Access to water is still a serious issue but, according to recent United Nations estimates, the situation is improving and likely to keep improving in the future.