Skepticism about divestment and McKibben

[Jim Lane]

8. I don't use the term "divestment" to refer to individual consumer decisions.

In this economy, for an individual to "stop using fossil fuels for anything, and stop buying products made or shipped using them" is essentially impossible. We can, however, make some decisions at the margin that have an effect. People who buy hybrid cars or who don't run the air conditioning at their preferred comfort level are doing that, paying more money or getting less cooling so as to reduce their carbon footprint.

In general, though, I think those individual decisions -- by a minority of people -- won't amount to much. The government must act. For example, to reduce gasoline consumption significantly requires such measures as an increase in the gasoline tax or the CAFE standard.

I agree with you that the corporations don't set out to do evil. The classical free-market view is largely correct: With some exceptions, those companies maximize profits under the market conditions in which they find themselves. It generally takes government action to have a significant impact on those market conditions and thereby affect their conduct.