Crowd Out and Climate Change

I'm from New Orleans, Louisiana. Aside from its unique food, festivities, and history, it should be noted that it has the distinction as one of the 7 major US cities that could be underwater in 80 years. Its position right off the Gulf Coast has shaped the rich culture and seafood industry of this port city, but it has made it increasingly susceptible to sea level rise. Surely this would lead to strong interest and activism against this issue from the residents of Southeast Louisiana, right? On the contrary, this 67-year-old man from Houma who lives on an "extremely vulnerable" part of the coast refuses to believe that climate change has anything to do with the changes in the place he's always called home. That's why the map of Louisiana actually looks like this.

Beliefs of skeptics aside, there is a dangerous trend in both New Orleans and the country as a whole through which action against climate change is underproduced. In order to mitigate the effects of climate change, sweeping reform is needed in the form of new policies to reconsider energy consumption, carbon emissions, and more. But at the same time, the small actions we take as individuals have an effect on us, making us feel that we are making a difference in our own small way. I remember feeling that I was saving the world when in fifth grade I planted marsh grasses on a barrier island for a service project, and most people are able to comfort themselves just by knowing that they "did their part" through their small energy-saving actions such as turning off the lights or recycling their trash.

This a classic example of economic "crowd out" in which household actions crowd out the actions of the government. While both pathways to fighting climate change are valid, they are each necessary in their own right, and one is not sufficient without the other. In section 2.1, Mueller discusses the differing opinions of Taylor and Frey on the level of intervention of the state in the production of a community want (in this case, the community want is action against climate change). While Taylor advocates for more government intervention for the ease of the citizens, Frey argues that state-initiated policies destroy the "intrinsic motivation of individuals to behave morally and as good citizens" and essentially crowd out any private actions.

In this case, the tables are turned. Government policies are not crowding out the private interests of citizens. On the contrary, household actions are crowding out policies of the government. As the coastline of Louisiana wastes away, citizens all over this country seek to take individual action to break their own bad habits. The common fads of recycling and composting have given us a false hope that if we just do our small part, the climate can be salvaged, when we should be focusing on showing our support for big picture policies to cut our emissions and change our energy usage as a nation. Just like other instances of economic crowd out, the end result is a weaker-than-intended battle against the given problem, in this case climate change. Combined with a clock that never stops running and a current administration that makes the government intervention even more difficult, it's time to reconsider our approach and attack this problem in a new way.