Dr. David Suzuki is perhaps the most well known Canadian in the world, primarily recognized for his environmental activism. He has been a staunch supporter and advocate of issues like climate change, sustainable fishing, clean air, and environmental health. A major period of Suzuki’s life has been dedicated to this work, and he has been admired by his followers for the genuineness and passion that reflects in his views. Furthermore, the public perception on climate and nature these days is often formed in close connection with Suzuki’s take on such matters, which is fine. However, this does pose a problem when people take up his views on subjects that are outside his realm of expertise. One of these subject matters is economics (environment economics to be exact), where Suzuki’s views are based on wrong assumptions and may lead his followers to form a false opinion on the topic.
I was astonished to hear Suzuki’s views on economics in a youtube video, in which he said “conventional economics is a form of brain damage”, further stating that economists’ idea of equating nature as externalities is nothing but absurd. Now as a budding economist, seeing this video did annoy me and since I do not make outrageous comments on the genetics of fruit flies, Suzuki’s stream of research, it was surprising to see David Suzuki making claims about something he has little knowledge of – at least this is what it seems from his understanding of the term externalities.
A bit more research on the topic revealed that I am not the only who was incensed by this, and a few economists have indeed made a valiant attempt to put the record straight. One of them is a B.C. economist Chris Auld, currently an associate professor at UVic, who gives a concise account in his blog on what an externality is and where exactly Suzuki goes wrong with his interpretation of the concept.
Another very strong and well-directed reply comes from Mike Moffatt, faculty at the Richard Ivey School of Business, and in his article he openly calls for an apology from Suzuki. He clears up the air on David Suzuki’s claims on resource depletion, and this is also something that I (and most students talking introductory environmental economics) know that economists do not advocate depletion of resources. Secondly, in the video Suzuki seems to be suggesting that externalities is added to economic models as something unimportant and that it plays little part in dictating theories and economic policies, but the reality is far from it. And, Mike’s response in this regard is worth a read:
“The use of externalities goes well beyond introductory textbooks, as they permeate nearly every field of economic research. Prof. Coase won a Nobel Prize in part for his Coase Theorem on externalities and Prof. Ostrom won the 2009 prize for her work on how common property resources can be managed at the local level. In every year of the past five, Nobel prizes have been given to economists who feature externalities prominently in their research: Leonid Hurwicz (2007), Paul Krugman (2008), Ostrom (2009), Peter Diamond (2010) and Thomas Sargent (2011).”Thus, as responsible citizens we ought to take some time out and research before forming an opinion on important matters, instead of blindly conforming to the views of our favorite personalities.
References:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NiauhOCfsk
http://chrisauld.com/2011/08/22/regarding-david-suzukis-inability-to-understand-externality/
Iris Han
January 29, 2013 — 12:17 am
It is important to keep clear mind rather than following others’s words,if we want to be experts. Good point!
peterliu318
January 30, 2013 — 12:38 am
Hey, good blog! Fishery economics is a very interesting topic and you can also check an article about it since I’ve just tweeted it~