opinions-political-environment

btw i'm generally very in favor of "pro-environmental" policies, but I thought this speech was good:

http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote05.html

in general the thing about environmental stuff is that, if you want to maximize your expected return, the potential loss from screwing up the environment is sooo huge that even if you are very uncertain if it will happen, it is rational to go to enormous expense to avoid that loss.

(some would say, but that loss is in the distant future, so you have to discount it according to the interest rate, which is a valid point; essentially, that's saying, by that time, economic growth will have made what seems like an enormous catastrophe now, a minor, perhaps even fixable, blip)