PROTECTING THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT - AN IMMODEST PROPOSAL

As the other essays in this symposium note, the threats to the global environment are an aggravated instance of the Prisoner's Dilemma game. On the assumption that one nation's environmental behavior does not affect the behaviors of other nations, each nation serves its interests best by continuing to abuse the environment, no matter what other nations do. As a result, the benign global environment is doomed unless the nations of the world, or most of them, learn how to restrain each other's environmentally destructive activities. The experience of the thinning of the ozone layer and the signing of the Montreal Protocol in response shows that the countries can cooperate when the conditions are right, and indicates the conditions that are required. This paper will argue that economic development does not require that food be as cheap, or agricultural practices be as labor saving, as is often assumed.