Policy makers prefer to feel good than to make a positive difference

This article hits on two issues which undermine good governance. The first issue is the inclination to make decisions on normative rather than empirical evidence, i.e. to focus on how it makes the policy originator feel rather than a rigorous problem definition and solution identification approach based on the balance of evidence. With the empirical approach, the value gained, however measured, must exceed with strong confidence the value lost. The evidence has to be compelling or otherwise it is the simple act of arbitrary authoritarianism.

The second issue is the reality that on some of our most pressing issues, empirical data is absent, partial, or inconsistent; our understanding of causation is rudimentary; and the effect sizes can be very small.

I think this failure to embrace empiricism, rationalism, and objective evidence is one aspect of the rapidly declining trust and authority in many institutions across the OECD. The phrase "Get woke, go broke" is often hurled around and certainly there is sufficient evidence to support it at least as a reasonable hypothesis. I think the patness of the phrase causes us to overlook a critical link. Get woke is not really the issue. Plenty of institutions are faith-based (their core values are chosen, not provable) and they function well anyway. The real issue is that being "Woke" entails a capacity to purposely abandon empiricism, rationalism, and objective evidence. It is not the condition of being woke that is the direct problem. The direct problem is an incapacity or unwillingness to engage in the measured world.

From Plastic Bags Help the Environment by John Tierney. Tierney is making the argument that rational environmentalists have been making for decades - don't go for the inconsequential big gestures. Go for actions which will make a real difference.

Recycling has long been a vanity project for the reasons Tierney lays out. It is fine to recycle when there is demand for the product. But for most places, most the time, recycling is an uneconomic and destructive practice. Solar and wind farms are similar. Great technology under some very particular circumstances. But without tax subsidies (which are always an example of misallocated capital), the program would be a small fraction of what it is. Pre-school education, same. The list goes on and on. Things were wish were effective but are not and yet which we continue to do because they make us feel good rather than because they make a positive difference.

From the article, some nuggets which have long been known and yet long ignored.

Popular misconceptions have sustained the plastic panic. Environmentalists frequently claim that 80% of plastic in the oceans comes from land-based sources, but a team of scientists from four continents reported in 2018 that more than half the plastic in the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” came from fishing boats—mostly discarded nets and other gear. Another study, published last year by Canadian and South African researchers, found that more than 80% of the plastic bottles that had washed up on the shore of Inaccessible Island, an uninhabited extinct volcano in the South Atlantic, originated in China. They must have been tossed off boats from Asia, the greatest source of what researchers call “mismanaged waste.”

Of the plastic carried into oceans by rivers, a 2017 study in Nature Communications estimated, 86% comes from Asia and virtually all the rest from Africa and South America. Some plastic in America is littered on beaches and streets, and winds up in sewer drains. But researchers have found that laws restricting plastic bags and food containers don’t reduce litter. The resources wasted on these anti-plastic campaigns would be better spent on more programs to discourage all kinds of littering.

Another myth—that recycling plastic prevents it from polluting the oceans—stems from the enduring delusion that plastic waste can be profitably turned into other products. But sorting plastic is so labor-intensive, and the resulting materials of so little value, that most municipalities pay extra to get rid of their plastic waste, mostly by shipping it to Asian countries with low labor costs. The chief destination for many years was China, which two years ago banned most imports. It now goes to countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. Some of the plastic from your recycling bin probably ends up in the ocean because it goes to a country with a high rate of “mismanaged waste.”

Yet single-use plastic bags aren’t the worst environmental choice at the supermarket—they’re the best. High-density polyethylene bags are a marvel of economic, engineering and environmental efficiency. They’re cheap, convenient, waterproof, strong enough to hold groceries but thin and light enough to make and transport using scant energy, water or other resources. Though they’re called single-use, most people reuse them, typically as trash-can liners. When governments ban them, consumers buy thicker substitutes with a bigger carbon footprint.

The evidence for a policy should be clear, compelling, and the benefits demonstrably outweigh the costs. Time and again, though, we abandon rational decision-making for the mere pretense to appear to be doing something, even if that action actually makes the situation worse.