Posted by Todd Zywicki: ENVIRONMENTALIST BOBOS: It has long been my belief that environmentalism in practice is really more than a religious lifestyle, rather than a science-based effort to protect the environment. My article [1]"Baptists? The Political Economy of Environmental Interest Groups" makes this argument. Two articles from yesterday's headlines shed some light on the subject of whether environmentalists are really "civic republicans" or rather just acting out of economic self-interest, broadly defined. The first is an article from the Washington Post, which notes that the Toyota Prius car is dramatically outselling the Honda Civic Hybrid car. The main reason? From the [2]article: "The Prius and Civic have similar new technologies, so it's not just fuel efficiency that's causing drivers to flock to Toyota's hybrid. 'The Prius is a fashion statement,' said Art Spinella, a consultant with CNW Marketing Research who surveys car-buying trends. 'It looks different. Other people know the driver is driving a hybrid vehicle. It clearly makes a bigger statement about the person than does the Civic, which basically looks like a Civic.'" Turns out that Prius buyers buy their cars for the same reason that generations of Americans have bought Camaros, Corvettes, or Cadillacs--they like the image that it projects to the world. That's classic car-buying behavior, said Michael Marsden, dean of academic affairs at St. Norbert College in Wisconsin and an expert on popular culture. "Automobile culture has always been about status. The whole industry is based on symbols," he said. "With the Prius, you're bringing attention to yourself . . . saying, 'I bought something upscale, something people will talk about.' It is a conversation piece, an attention-getter." A second article (that I saw referenced in the Good (i.e., Washington) Times notes a [3]study of the leadership of environmental interest groups and their salaries. Amazingly, according to the report, the head of NRDC earns $368,000 per year and the head of EDF earns $327,000. Nonetheless, I have been criticized for my thesis that economic self-interest explains some part of the actions of environmental interest groups. Keep that in mind the next time NRDC passes the offering plate, er, I mean, requests a donation to save some endangered species.
References 1. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=334341 2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24832-2004Aug22.html 3. http://www.publicinterestwatch.org/8_19_study.pdf _______________________________________________ Volokh mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://highsorcery.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
