People argued that an effort to promote behavior which does not maximize utility given the budget constraint cannot be effective because there will not be enough buy-in.
The idea here is that we may be able to create a short-term disturbance, but over time the system will move back to its old equilibrium. My answer here is that short term disturbances can have permanent effects when they move the system into the attraction basin of a different equilibrium. This is exactly what we are trying to do. This objection to the no-flying pledge also overlooks that people have a will, they are not just passive utility maximizers. I know so much about our local electric utility, so many things they did in order to put a brake on renewable energy under various pretexts, that I am motivated to put LED lightbulbs into my home just in order to minimize my electric bill, because I don't want this organization to be able to do more harm. Despite the fact that the savings in elecricity are less than the price of these bulbs (this was a few years back when LED's still costed $70 and more a piece). I thought I had this extra money because I don't own a car and therefore save lots of money each month on maintenance and insurance etc. This is the rebound effect going in our favor, not against us. Here is another related example: My salary at the U is so low that I feel obligated to make my classes radical otherwise my low salary would be not worth it to me. I am trying to squeeze as much utility I can get from my low salary. I don't think I am the only one who is this irrational and tries to fight back against the harm inflicted on everyone by the greed of a well-connected elite. This is not altruism, this is simply outrage, and this is not the exclusive domain of some activists, lots of people are doing it already. I am also spending a lot of time and money in court to combat some corrupt land-use practices here in Salt Lake City (developers building in the flood plane of the Jordan River and closing a big strip of open space going through our city). I am not the only one. It is amazing how many other citizens are doing these kinds of things already now. Some of them are paying thousands of dollars to save the Jordan river. I expect their number to swell. Hans G Ehrbar _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
