The problem with trying to clean things up

[Loren Pechtel]

http://phys.org/news/2016-05-mexico-city-businesses-smog-mn.html

How long do you think they'll continue to try to do something given the pressure this no doubt represents?

 

[prideandfall]

http://phys.org/news/2016-05-mexico-city-businesses-smog-mn.html

How long do you think they'll continue to try to do something given the pressure this no doubt represents?

about the same length of time it takes for people on this forum to stop posting new threads with a link and zero explanation of what's in it or what the intention of the thread is supposed to be.

 

[Bronzeage]

http://phys.org/news/2016-05-mexico-city-businesses-smog-mn.html

How long do you think they'll continue to try to do something given the pressure this no doubt represents?

It's an interesting illustration of property rights. Air pollution is caused by private and public enterprise using the atmosphere as a dumping ground for waste products. For most of history, this has been seen as a fair trade-off. We like fire and we like the things fire makes possible. We'll put up with the smoke.

The problem with this public dumping ground model is at some point it impinges on private property and reduces it's value. A person's body is certainly private property and a person's health is the greatest factor in the value of a person's body. We don't buy and sell bodies, but we do spend a lot of money on maintenance. Air pollution increases maintenance costs and reduces overall value of the asset.

The $300 million dollars (the amount given in the article) has not actually been lost by the businesses of Mexico. It's a cost that has been transferred from the people who breathe the air, to the people who pollute the air. In reality, the polluters have been stealing from people for a very long time and now they can't do it anymore.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

http://phys.org/news/2016-05-mexico-city-businesses-smog-mn.html

How long do you think they'll continue to try to do something given the pressure this no doubt represents?

It's an interesting illustration of property rights. Air pollution is caused by private and public enterprise using the atmosphere as a dumping ground for waste products. For most of history, this has been seen as a fair trade-off. We like fire and we like the things fire makes possible. We'll put up with the smoke.

The problem with this public dumping ground model is at some point it impinges on private property and reduces it's value. A person's body is certainly private property and a person's health is the greatest factor in the value of a person's body. We don't buy and sell bodies, but we do spend a lot of money on maintenance. Air pollution increases maintenance costs and reduces overall value of the asset.

The $300 million dollars (the amount given in the article) has not actually been lost by the businesses of Mexico. It's a cost that has been transferred from the people who breathe the air, to the people who pollute the air. In reality, the polluters have been stealing from people for a very long time and now they can't do it anymore.

You're assuming the cost of breathing the pollution is $300 million but there's no reason to think they match.

 

[Arctish]

Limiting the number of cars without increasing public transportation options isn't a solution but I can certainly see the sense in trying to promote car pooling.

 

[bilby]

This thread should have been entitled "The problem with jumping to simplistic conclusions when presented with complex situations".

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

http://phys.org/news/2016-05-mexico-city-businesses-smog-mn.html

How long do you think they'll continue to try to do something given the pressure this no doubt represents?

about the same length of time it takes for people on this forum to stop posting new threads with a link and zero explanation of what's in it or what the intention of the thread is supposed to be.

For sure. But it is a short read.

People will always bitch when they're forced to change. Nothing really new in this article.

 

[Deepak]

You tried your best and failed miserably. The lesson is: never try

 

[Bronzeage]

It's an interesting illustration of property rights. Air pollution is caused by private and public enterprise using the atmosphere as a dumping ground for waste products. For most of history, this has been seen as a fair trade-off. We like fire and we like the things fire makes possible. We'll put up with the smoke.

The problem with this public dumping ground model is at some point it impinges on private property and reduces it's value. A person's body is certainly private property and a person's health is the greatest factor in the value of a person's body. We don't buy and sell bodies, but we do spend a lot of money on maintenance. Air pollution increases maintenance costs and reduces overall value of the asset.

The $300 million dollars (the amount given in the article) has not actually been lost by the businesses of Mexico. It's a cost that has been transferred from the people who breathe the air, to the people who pollute the air. In reality, the polluters have been stealing from people for a very long time and now they can't do it anymore.

You're assuming the cost of breathing the pollution is $300 million but there's no reason to think they match.

Why not? The population of Mexico City is 21.2 million people.

Do you think it's more or less? Suppose someone offered you money in exchange for allowing them to surround you with toxic gases, 24 hours a day. What would be a reasonable price for such a thing?

It would be foolish of you to settle for the cost of your increased healthcare costs and shortened life span. You need to charge enough to create a surplus.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You're assuming the cost of breathing the pollution is $300 million but there's no reason to think they match.

Why not? The population of Mexico City is 21.2 million people.

Do you think it's more or less? Suppose someone offered you money in exchange for allowing them to surround you with toxic gases, 24 hours a day. What would be a reasonable price for such a thing?

It would be foolish of you to settle for the cost of your increased healthcare costs and shortened life span. You need to charge enough to create a surplus.

It probably is more but I doubt we know. What I'm saying is that you have no basis for figuring the costs match.

 

[Bronzeage]

Why not? The population of Mexico City is 21.2 million people.

Do you think it's more or less? Suppose someone offered you money in exchange for allowing them to surround you with toxic gases, 24 hours a day. What would be a reasonable price for such a thing?

It would be foolish of you to settle for the cost of your increased healthcare costs and shortened life span. You need to charge enough to create a surplus.

It probably is more but I doubt we know. What I'm saying is that you have no basis for figuring the costs match.

Would it make a lot of difference if they did? Does private enterprise have a right to damage people's health, in pursuit of their business?

 

[Deepak]

Would it make a lot of difference if they did? Does private enterprise have a right to damage people's health, in pursuit of their business?

If they can't quantify it exactly - then apparently that's exactly what's being advocated here.

 

[Jarhyn]

I'd say it probably costs more than $100/person/year in opportunity costs, between the cost of increased doctor's visits, missed days at work, and most pressingly, lost years of productivity at middle/end of life. Across a population of 21m people, that adds up pretty fast. I know for a fact that if I get a cough on a smoggy day, the cough ends up taking me out of work the next day, and that I contribute at least 280 dollars per day of work to my company, just judging from my wages alone, not to mention whatever margin I produce in addition to the value of my gross wages.

Not only do I assume that the costs match. I fully expect the opportunity costs of allowing the pollution to damage the health of the population to soundly dwarf the 300m dollar direct opportunity costs of restricting businesses.

Further, this could all be solved by spending, oh, say 300m taxed from the businesses doing the polluting while NOT doing remediation, on building better mass transit solutions to alleviate traffic, and modernizing the mass transit they have.

So yeah, it's worth the cost of cleaning up. It's ridiculous to think that it isn't.

Instead, it is a FAR better plan to trust the obvious while verifying rather than halting the process of cleaning up for the sake of verifying. At worst we waste a few million dollars worth in opportunity costs. Time we have and will generally have more of. But we can't just simply unpoison the earth. When given the option to do things that cost more combined human effort or to do things whose cost is permanent or enduring environmental damage, I err on the side of letting more people do work.

 

[fromderinside]

Why not? The population of Mexico City is 21.2 million people.

Do you think it's more or less? Suppose someone offered you money in exchange for allowing them to surround you with toxic gases, 24 hours a day. What would be a reasonable price for such a thing?

It would be foolish of you to settle for the cost of your increased healthcare costs and shortened life span. You need to charge enough to create a surplus.

It probably is more but I doubt we know. What I'm saying is that you have no basis for figuring the costs match.

Why not compare MC with NYC where they have a very detailed methodology. Estimating Morbidity and Mortality Attributable to Air Pollution in New York City https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-10/documents/hia_for_benmap_webinar_8.7.13.pdf

Its pretty easy to make adjustments income, health care, diet, and factors like containment of pollution using data from CDC and LA for instance.

 

[ronburgundy]

Mexico city has a vast and affordable public transportation system. It is highly utilized (8th most used in the world).

Their are simply too many people in Mexico City. The only environmental solution is one that reduces the population density in the area.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It probably is more but I doubt we know. What I'm saying is that you have no basis for figuring the costs match.

Would it make a lot of difference if they did? Does private enterprise have a right to damage people's health, in pursuit of their business?

In the real world we have to strike a balance. It's impossible to avoid all harm.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Would it make a lot of difference if they did? Does private enterprise have a right to damage people's health, in pursuit of their business?

If they can't quantify it exactly - then apparently that's exactly what's being advocated here.

I'm not advocating, I'm suggesting what will happen.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Mexico city has a vast and affordable public transportation system. It is highly utilized (8th most used in the world).

Their are simply too many people in Mexico City. The only environmental solution is one that reduces the population density in the area.

I've heard there are a lot of problems with it, though.

 

[bilby]

Mexico city has a vast and affordable public transportation system. It is highly utilized (8th most used in the world).

Their are simply too many people in Mexico City. The only environmental solution is one that reduces the population density in the area.

That cannot be correct, as there are larger and more densely populated cities than Mexico City that do not have this problem. Clearly population size and population density are not in themselves sufficient cause to create this issue; and equally clearly there exist solutions that do not include or require population or population density reductions.

Of course, Mexico City may not be practically or financially able to implement those solutions; but then, nor can she implement population reductions in a practical or affordable way.

 

[ronburgundy]

Mexico city has a vast and affordable public transportation system. It is highly utilized (8th most used in the world).

Their are simply too many people in Mexico City. The only environmental solution is one that reduces the population density in the area.

That cannot be correct, as there are larger and more densely populated cities than Mexico City that do not have this problem. Clearly population size and population density are not in themselves sufficient cause to create this issue; and equally clearly there exist solutions that do not include or require population or population density reductions.

Of course, Mexico City may not be practically or financially able to implement those solutions; but then, nor can she implement population reductions in a practical or affordable way.

Actually, there are not any cities that are both more densely populated AND larger than Mexico city. It it the 27th most densely populated in the world, and is larger than all other 26 cities that are more densely populated than it. In fact, it is 4 times larger than most of those other cities, and about twice as large as the rest, with the more densely populated city that close in size begin San Paolo which is among the most polluted cities in the world, whose air kills more people per year than car accidents.
In fact, most of the cities with more population density than Mexico City, also have worse air pollution.

In addition, Mexico City gets more tourism than most cities with higher populations than it. A compounding factor is geography. Mexico city is at the bottom of the natural bowl that holds in the pollution.