Bioethics, Marxism and markets in kidneys

I believe that bioethics is dominated by an intellectual marriage of Marxism and Christianism (see here, here and here). But now Bryan Caplan reveals the following surprising fact:

I've even talked to Marxist economists who favor a free market in human kidneys!

The true cost of saving polar bears

In Nature Andrew E. Derocher comments on a paper by Amstrup et al. (also in Nature) that concludes that sufficient mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions would leave enough sea-ice habitat for polar bears. He writes:

This paper provides reason to hope that the previous predictions of declines in polar bear populations can be avoided if concerted efforts are made to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The threat posed by climate change to biological diversity has been clear for years, however, and calls for carbon sequestration and reduction of emissions to conserve species have largely gone unheeded.

There is cause for optimism, but that requires optimism about our ability to change.

Although Derocher does not mention that  "carbon sequestration and reduction of emissions" could have some costs for people, he is clearly sympathetic to human suffering:

Amstrup et al. also note that the best possible outcomes for polar bears include controlling hunting and other factors in an effort to make populations with the expected lower numbers sustainable. But a ban on hunting would be a serious cultural loss for the Arctic's aboriginal people.

Economic growth and heresy

Peter Victor writes in Nature (Questioning economic growth):

The idea that governments of developed countries should no longer pursue economic growth as a primary policy objective is widely regarded as heresy. Yet a growing number of scholars, policy-makers and citizens are coming round to the idea that the planet cannot sustain continued global economic growth.

But economic growth is not a primary policy objective of the governments of developed countries, this is not widely regarded as heresy, and the number of citizens who say that the environment should be given priority is not growing.

How to make people happy via Ecological Economics

Monica Guillen-Royo arranged group discussions with a heterogeneous sample of people from a city in Spain and has just published a paper saying that these workshops illustrate how "a given society can unravel its own pathway towards sustainability and wellbeing" (Realising the ‘wellbeing dividend’: An exploratory study using the Human Scale Development approach, in the journal Ecological Economics).

[P]articipants felt they were ‘locked-in' to unsustainable consumption patterns and consumerism. As a 48 year-old retailer said:

Carme (48): We are in the consumer society and we have been told that spending is good and since it is good we have to spend. Many times you find yourself in the shop and you do not know why.

[...] The longing for simplicity and subsistence is reflected in the following conversation between young participants.

Laura (20): a subsistence society would allow us to understand better. Nowadays, many of the things we do are not related to subsistence, we do them because we go with the flow.

Marcel (22): In a subsistence society you kill the hen because you are hungry...

Laura (20): Exactly. It is for sure that people in the African tribes have fewer worries than us.

[...] The present study has revealed that through in-depth discussions about human need satisfiers, ordinary people associate wellbeing with simplicity and ecological balance. As participants in this exploratory work clearly remarked, lower consumption, non-materialist values and basic income schemes would constitute the core features of their desired society together with time sovereignty and relocalisation.

But, according to Guillen-Royo, people - and "particularly the rich" - instead choose complexity, ecological imbalance, high consumption, materialist values, extra income and globalization, apparently because they are told to do so. Guillen-Royo does not clearly identify who tells people - particularly the rich - how to behave, but she hints at employers, marketers, corporate and media decision-makers, and economic and political authorities.

So, according to Guillen-Royo, people think that a more modest lifestyle would improve their well-being, keep telling each other - particularly the rich - not to pursue such lifestyle, and keep doing what other people tell them to do instead of what they think they should do.

I have an alternative interpretation. Saying certain things is great and cheap entertainment - just another harmless act of consumption. Good places to engage in cheap talk are bars, religious gatherings and sustainability workshops.