SHOULD WE CONSERVE RESOURCES FOR OTHERS' SAKES? WHAT KINDS OF RESOURCES NEED CONSERVATION? I finally got to ask Marla Maples a question. It was at a frenetic press conference where the 26-year old actress, having pocketed a cool $600,000 for endorsing No Excuses jeans, was pirouetting for the horde of photographers in a skintight pair. Was she, I inquired, simply exploiting her notoriety as the Alleged Other Woman? Au contraire, she said, this was part of her new campaign to save the environment. When pressed for specifics, Maples said breathlessly, "I love the ocean". (Howard Kurtz in The Washington Post Magazine, Aug 19, 1990, p. 37). Should we try to conserve our resources? It depends. Should we try to avoid all waste? Certainly not. Are the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and other conservationist groups barking up the wrong tree? Yes and no. This is a topic so apparently "simple" and "common-sensical" that adults delight in instructing children in it: "Environmental singer Billy B. sings about recycling on the stage at Wolf Trap."<1> Children are told to "Cover both sides of every sheet of paper you use...." (Yes, Einstein did that, but it is disastrous advice for any office-worker at today's paper prices.) They are instructed to "encourage your family to take part in your community's recycling program," implying that the author of the article is prepared to have children induce guilt in parents she does not know, with needs she cannot discern, for the sake of her own values.<2> That is the sort of social relationships that recycling programs engender. More about this in the next chapter. The kids get the message - too well. A Wooster, Ohio seventh- grader writes to the newspaper: "On Earth Day we think people should restrain from using aerosol cans [which presumably pollute the atmosphere] and disposable diapers, and they should recycle everything they can." <3> We can clarify conservation issues by distinguishing among the following: (1) Unique resources, which are one of a kind or close to it, and which we value for aesthetic purposes; examples include the Mona Lisa, an Arthur Rubenstein concert or a Michael Jordan basketball game, and some species of animals. (2) One-of- a-kind resources that we value as historical artifacts; examples include the original U.S. Declaration of Independence and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Abraham Lincoln's first log cabin (if it exists), and perhaps the Mona Lisa. (3) Resources that can be reproduced or recycled or substituted for, and that we value for their material uses; examples include wood pulp, trees, copper, oil, and food. Categories 1 and 2 are truly "non-renewable" resources, but contrary to common belief, category 3 resources (including oil) are all renewable. This chapter deals mainly with resources in category 3, those we value primarily for their uses. These are the resources whose quantities we can positively influence. That is, these are the resources for which we can calculate whether it is cheaper to conserve them for future use, or use them now and obtain the services that they provide us in some other way in the future. The benefits we get from the resources in the other categories - the Mona Lisa or Lincoln's log cabin - cannot be adequately replaced, and hence the economist cannot determine whether conservation is economically worthwhile. The value of a Mona Lisa or a disappearing breed of snail must be what we as a society collectively decide is the appropriate value, a decision upon which market prices may or may not shed some light. Conservation of resources and pollution often are opposite sides of the same coin. For example, waste newspapers are a pollution, but recycling them reduces the number of trees that are planted and grown. The costs and scarcities of resources in category 3 - mainly energy and extractive materials - are likely to decline continuously in the future, according to the analyses in chapters 1-3. But this chapter asks a different question: whether as individuals and as a society we should try to use less of these materials than we are willing to pay for. That is, should we make social efforts to refrain from using these natural resources, and hence treat them differently from the consumption of pencils, haircuts, and Hula-Hoops for reasons other than their costs? The broad answer is that, apart from considerations of national security and international bargaining power, there is no economic rationale for special efforts to avoid using the resources. Conservationists perform a valuable service when they alert us to dangers threatening humanity's unique treasures, and when they remind us of the values of these treasures to ourselves and to coming generations. But when they move from this role, and suggest that government should intervene to conserve pulp trees or deer beyond what individuals are willing to pay to set aside the trees or the deer's habitat, they are either expressing their own personal aesthetic tastes and religious values, or else they are talking misguided nonsense. (When the Conservation Trust in Great Britain puts "Re-Use Paper, Save Trees" on an envelope, it is simply talking trash; the paper comes from trees that are planted in order to make envelopes.) And when some famous conservationist tells us that there should be fewer people so that it is easier for him or her to find a deserted stretch of beach or mountain range or forest, she or he is simply saying "gimme" - that is, "I enjoy it, and I don't want to share it." (In chapter 29, we shall see how population growth paradoxically leads to more wilderness, however, rather than less.) Thinking straight about conservation issues is particularly difficult because we must do what we human beings desperately resist doing: Face up to the fact that we cannot have it both ways. We cannot both eat the pie and continue to look at it with pleasure. Grappling with such tradeoffs is the essence of microeconomic theory. For example, it is obvious that having the wilderness be pristine and not hearing other human voices when one is there means denying the same experience to others. Many who in principle would like others to be able to have that experience, as well as themselves, do not face up to that inevitability.[1] Anthropologists lament the arrival of civilization to the Yonomami Indians of Brazil. But the anthropologists also seek the health and cultural benefits of civilization on behalf of that group. Whichever way it goes they will feel regrets, and both cannot be the case. Or, Jews in Israel yearn for the ingathering of Jews from the Diaspora into Israel, where most immigrants live a healthier life than before. But when the Jews of Yemen leave their ancient home, Israeli Jews lament the passing of the 2500 year old Yemenite community, despite the present miserable state of that community. It is natural to want things both ways. When an economist uses quintessential economic thinking to point out that we must accept the necessity for a tradeoff and that we cannot usually have our cake and eat it too, the argument is met with denial of any such necessity - say, denial that reserving a forest for spotted owls means fewer jobs and lost income - or with charges that harvesting wood is an "obscenity". This makes it very difficult to think straight about conservation issues. One possible reason why some people refuse to accept the economist's stricture that trade-offs are necessary is that the economist's motivations somehow are not considered noble. And indeed, the economist does try to focus on matters other than motivations. As Murray Weidenbaum wisely notes, economists "care more about results than intentions." <4> If we can succeed in focusing others' attention on results rather than intentions, too, we will achieve results that people will like better than they will otherwise obtain. It is useful perspective to go back and re-read the classics of the conservation movement in the United States in the early years of the 20th century - for example, the great 1910 book by Charles van Hise. There one finds all the themes being sounded today, and expressed very well. There is one great difference between that literature and the present writings, however. In van Hise's day people believed as follows: "What is the purpose of conservation? It is for man." <5> As chapter 00 discusses, humankind's welfare is no longer the only - or even the main - goal for many conservationists. **FOOTNOTES** [1]: Garrett Hardin is outstanding among the doomsters in accepting the need for such trade-offs. page 1 /article4 extropya/December 29, 1994 ENDNOTES The Washington Post, July 10, 1991, B1. O'Neill, 1991. Eric Kaufman, The Daily Record, April 21, 1990. Garrett Hardin is outstanding among the doomsters in accepting the need for such trade-offs. 1991, reprint with no page number. **ENDNOTES** <1>: The Washington Post, July 10, 1991, B1. <2>: O'Neill, 1991. <3>: Eric Kaufman, The Daily Record, April 21, 1990. <4>: 1991, reprint with no page number. <5>: 1910, p. 363. page 2 /article4 extropya/December 29, 1994