NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/ca/environm/1203

Text File | 1993-01-22 | 2.0 KB | 42 lines

Newsgroups: ca.environment
Path: sparky!uunet!paladin.american.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!sun-barr!ames!kronos.arc.nasa.gov!butch!leads15!tilley
From: [e-mail] (Tom Tilley)
Subject: Re: Markets Only...What a Concept!
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Organization: LOCKHEED, Sunnyvale, CA
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Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 17:34:38 GMT
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Dan Brockman) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>>I can find no meaningful sense in which any individual "owns" a portion of
>>the atmosphere as property.
>>
>
>Hypothetically, one might establish a property right in the receipt of
>a given quantity of air of some threshold quality by bringing suit
>against one who threatens your ability to receive air of that quantity
>and quality.  If some person pays you $X to acquire your right,
>then, voila property.

There are six million of us in the San Francisco Bay area.  If I sell
my right to clean SF Bay area air, the buyer still has to get 5,999,998
other people to sell in order to exercise his "property" right (which
means that the property does not really exist, else I'd be able to transfer
it without reference to other transactions).

Of course, when the winds carry the buyer's pollution over the Diablo Range,
he has to deal with the lawsuits from the millions living in the Central
Valley, and his payment to me would not be a defense.

This doesn't even cover transport of Cl(-) to the stratosphere (everyone's
right to an intact ozone layer).

Tom.
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| Tom Tilley                                       |
| Internet : [e-mail]   |