Across the Great Divide

Nothing's Certain but Climate Change, Irrationality and Taxes.

To a psychologist, climate change looks as if it was designed to be ignored.

– "It's natural to behave irrationally," Washington Post

Natural to behave irrationally? Not from the free-market economist's point of view. Climate change is just one more policy problem designed for the market to suss out as it efficiently collects information about the decisions of rational humans acting in their own best interest. 

However, the WaPo article describes how behavioral psychology provides insight into reasons why humans may not pay attention to — and take action on — climate change. The barriers include:

• psychological distance — sense that this is a problem for somebody else or some other time
• complexity — the mechanics aren't easy to understand, and skeptics question the evidence
• system justification — we favor and defend the status quo 
• finite pool of worry — we can only handle so many problems at once

Given the barriers, how to address climate change before it's too late?

Appeals to save energy based on helping the environment, being socially responsible or saving money appear to be less effective than saying the majority of your neighbors are doing it, according to the article.

This reminded me of similar finding (which I couldn't locate) related to tax compliance. Filers were most likely to declare all their income and not claim false deductions if they heard most people did not cheat on their returns. The "almost everyone's honest" approach worked better than telling filers about penalties,  their duty as citizens or the good uses to which taxes are put.

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Looking for the tax study citation, I did come across this nugget about the "net misreporting rate" (of  underreported income and inflated deductions):

[T]axpayers whose true income was between $500,000 and $1 million a year understated their adjusted gross incomes by 21% overall in 2001, compared to an 8% underreporting rate for those earning $50,000 to $100,000 and even lower rates for those earning less.  [...]

In all, because of their higher noncompliance rates, those with true incomes of $200,000 or more received 25% of all income, but accounted for 40% of net underreported income and 42% of underreported tax in 2001, the new analysis finds.

In other words, all our assumptions about the wealthy paying a smaller proportion of their incomes in taxes may be conservative if they are misstating their income and deductions.

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Here's another study (abstract only) that appears to suggest people who are trained in economics may view tax compliance differently than those who are trained to view the world behaviorally.

Italian psychology and economics students took part in a tax compliance study that showed participants declared more income as purported detection rates rose and when tax was framed as a gain. Psychologists  declared less on their returns when they were instructed to maximize (keep more) income, while economists declared the least regardless of how they were instructed.

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If you're interested in this topic of how framing and default values influence choices, you might look at the TRAITS model put forward by Jay Hamilton and Scott de Marchi, or "libertarian paternalism"  and "choice architecture" as explored in the book Nudge and other writing by Cass Sunstein:

What libertarian paternalists add is that the opposition between "individual choice" and "government" is confusing and unhelpful when government is inevitably establishing default rules that govern outcomes if choices haven't been specifically made -- and that influence people's choices in any case. A key point, then, is that private and public institutions can't possibly avoid a form of paternalism, so long as they establish default rules and starting points. (For some reason, economists in particular seem not to understand this point.) The question is how to make those starting points as good as possible, while also preserving free choice.

What Would the Free Market Do?

I suppose the free market has a good solution for this problem, if we'd only let it work.

The state of Idaho has an estimated 846 gray wolves — compared to Minnesota's 2900.

Now, if you're thinking, "good, the wolf population in the west is starting to recover," you're not thinking like a westerner who loves the Constitution. The proper response is, "where's my gun?"

High Country News reports that Idaho has sold 24,925 wolf tags to residents and another 640 to non-residents. The quota is 220, so the hunt is suspended once a quarter of the population is killed. (Montana has fewer wolves (497) but the ratio of in-state hunters per animal is roughly the same.)

Clearly, there are going to be a lot of disappointed consumers this holiday season.

Ain't it high time, we started following the Constitution and limited the federal government's powers to what the Founding Predator Harvesters intended?

Oil Companies Follow Through on Their Promise.

Via Grist with a h/t to Rep. Jeremy Kalin.

Weekend Cherrypicking.

Friendly Atheist calls out a scripture-festooned gay-basher for blatant cherrypicking of scripture. [h/t Hal Davis]

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The Aspen Times writes about sudden aspen decline — the trees, not the town — and is careful not to push the climate change angle too hard. Same with the New York Times. (It wrote basically the same story three years ago.) The LA Times emphasizes the connection with this lede:

From the hillsides of extinct volcanoes in Arizona to the jagged peaks of Idaho, aspen trees are falling by the tens of thousands, the latest example of how climate change is dramatically altering the American West.

Starting seven years ago, foresters noticed massive aspen die-offs caused by parasitical insects, one of them so rare it is hardly even written about in scientific literature. But with warming temperatures and the effects of a brutal drought still lingering, the parasites are flourishing at the expense of the tree, beloved for its slender branches and heart-shaped leaves that turn a brilliant yellow in autumn.

And commenters, of course, put it all in perspective:

It's a damn tree. Only liberals would get their panties in a twist over a tree.

Giant Boombox Sues Train Over Noise.

On the St. Paul Issues Forum, Sheldon Gitis calls the new UofM stadium "the world's largest loudspeaker."

799 loudspeakers broadcast sound into the TCF Bank bowl. The bowl becomes a gigantic loudspeaker as it reflects the sound. Loudspeaker is surrounded by roads, parking lots, and a largely vacant quarter-mile-wide railroad trench. There’s little nearby vegetation or tall buildings to absorb and reflect the giant speaker bowl sound.

So, it travels for miles into the St. Anthony Park neighborhood in St. Paul.

The State’s premiere research institution has just spent $300 million on the world’s largest loudspeaker.

The state's premiere research institution has also just filed a lawsuit over the potential that vibrations from Central Corridor light-rail trains could disrupt its research.

Parking: Where Some Quarters are Better Than Others.

I'd planned to cycle around to all the metro Park(ing) Day locations on Friday, but lunch and a few distractions intervened. Paul Schmelzer hit the same block I visited and shot the same locations, so I'll let him tell it.

His post attracted a revealing comment:

I suppose then the harried good people trying to find a parking space are allowed to go park on the green at Lake Harriet?

What a dose of pointless idiocy and youthful self-righteousness this is. And if looking at a bunch of self-absorbed, underemployed hipsters is to be seen as injecting wonder into the urban landscape, well, I think I’d be better off in Mumbai.

(Mumbai has about 500,000 cars, with common parking for about 8,000. The city has almost twice the average vehicular density.)

Where Mr. Anonymous detects self-righteousness and self-absorption, I found a friendly invitation to sit and talk with strangers — not what would anyone expect to encounter at a street parking space, in a ramp, or glaring through the tinted power window of an Escalade.

The "wonder" being injected was not that urban spaces could use more greenery and hipsters — or even to show how easily a small piece of asphalt could be transformed to a community space. It was to make us question why we tolerate the barren monoclines created because of our autodependence. 

Mr. Anonymous saw those paved spaces as the exclusive domain of harried good people in cars, which of course is the prevailing view of these public spaces. Pedestrians and cyclists should stay off the streets and keep their quarters in their pockets.

Had he looked, Mr. Anonymous would have found more parking in the Monte Carlo lot right next to the temporary parks, and he would have seen more self-righteousness and self-absorption in his mirror.

Park(ing) Day Locations.

Here's the best map I can find of where parking spaces in Minneapolis will turn into temporary parks tomorrow, Sept. 18th — from roughly 11am to 3pm. 

It's mostly concentrated around the Warehouse District, with two spots on the fringes of the University and one near the Minneapolis College of Art & Design campus. Talk about park(ing) to the choir!

Although there's one park near City Hall and one near the library (and a large vacant lot), there's nothing to challenge the parking beast in its lair in the downtown core. Nothing in suburbia; at Southdale or Arbor Lakes you wouldn't even have to plug the meter. I should talk. I still have 15 hours to get my park ready.

I love that the other Minnesota location is in Winona, and sponsored by the City Park and Rec Department.

If you can't prowl the city during the day, there's a post-PARK(ing) Day Celebration from 5-8 PM at the West Bank Social Center, 501 Cedar Avenue South where there will be drink, snacks, and a slide show of images from the day's festivities.

Grab Some Asphalt on Park(ing) Day This Friday.

Park(ing) Day is this Friday, September 18th. I'd hoped to set up a wading pool in a parking space this year, but coming back Minneapolis the day before will make it tough.

Haven't yet found a map of the locations registered so far, but here's the local Facebook page for the event.

The End of Easy Oil.

Anyone who thinks U.S. energy requirements are going to be satisfied at the nexus of the oil sands, oil shale and the free market ought to read this National Geographic piece on The Canadian Oil Boom.

"Oil sands represent a decision point for North America and the world," says Simon Dyer of the Pembina Institute, a moderate and widely respected Canadian environmental group. "Are we going to get serious about alternative energy, or are we going to go down the unconventional-oil track? The fact that we're willing to move four tons of earth for a single barrel really shows that the world is running out of easy oil."

With the boom, Vegas-like housing developments and mobile home parks fan out from Ft. MacMurray, Alberta, where the average single-family house costs about $540,000 and roads are choked with traffic. Fake falcons sit atop monitoring devices to keep birds from killing themselves in the sludge of unreclaimed holding ponds.

"It's my belief that when government attempts to manipulate the free market, bad things happen," Premier Stelmach told a gathering of oil industry executives that year. "The free-market system will solve this."

But the free market does not consider the effects of the mines on the river or the forest, or on the people who live there, unless it is forced to. Nor, left to itself, will it consider the effects of the oil sands on climate. Jim Boucher has collaborated with the oil sands industry in order to build a new economy for his people, to replace the one they lost, to provide a new future for kids who no longer hunt ptarmigan in the moonlight. But he is aware of the trade-offs. "It's a struggle to balance the needs of today and tomorrow when you look at the environment we're going to live in," he says. In northern Alberta the question of how to strike that balance has been left to the free market, and its answer has been to forget about tomorrow. Tomorrow is not its job. 

If Cash for Clunkers Were Really About Retiring Clunkers, It Would Offer More Options.

Can we all agree that Cash for Clunkers wasn't really designed to get older, polluting vehicles off the road? That it is just a government-sponsored dealer-incentive program to get more expensive, unsold cars off dealer lots?

Maybe the short-term economy will breathe easier, but the long-term environment will hardly notice.

If America were really heading toward clean-air socialism, its program would offer the lowest incentives for buying a new car and provide greater rewards in the form of transit passes, car sharing incentives and bicycle purchases.

In fact, that's what our Canadian friends have done with Retire Your Ride. 

Owners who retire an operational 1995 or older model vehicle can receive $300 in cash or a discount of $350 to $490 of the price of a commuter bicycle, as well as up to 15 percent off parts and services.

In some provinces or regions, the incentives may be even richer. Prince Edward Island offers a $500 discount on the purchase of a 2004 or new car. Victoria, B.C., offers $1,250 toward participation in a car share co-op or $1,250 toward the purchase of a bicycle or electric bike.

Oh, yeah. Besides the lower incentives for new car purchases, here's how to tell Retire Your Ride is really about enviro-socialism:  It's administered by primarily non-profit partners and funded by the Canadian government — to the tune of $92 million over four years. 

(h/t Hal Davis)