Pollution and Depletion

I was in Chinatown for the Chinese New Year celebrations scheduled today. Some traditions may go back hundreds or even thousands of years, but plastic pollution doesn't. Vendors sold these factory-produced tubes that launched plastic confetti into the air. That is, that polluted. The confetti lingered in the air for a few seconds. The plastic will pollute the environment for millennia. Parents buy these polluting tubes for kids, who learn to pay to pollute and associate it with fun or some cultural traditions that plastic pollution has nothing to do with. We have become a society where we celebrate in garbage. It's tempting to think, "Oh but it's fun! Josh, don't be such a spoil sport." People were having no more fun with these polluting…

I learned the concept of deadweight loss in economics class in business school. From Wikipedia: In economics, deadweight loss is the loss of societal economic welfare due to production/consumption of a good at a quantity where marginal benefit (to society) does not equal marginal cost (to society). Here is a picture of the outside of a bar like probably hundreds of bars and restaurants in New York City and likely thousands across the country. Note what look like glowing red lights. They aren't lights. They're heat lamps. Now note the empty tables beneath them. These lamps are heating the outdoors where nobody is. They are simply burning fossil fuels, polluting and depleting, for no benefit to anyone. As far as I can tell, nobody seems…