The seventh myth from Michael Lemonick we have been discussing here in the BuilderScrap office is all about who offers the quickest root to “sustainability“, the government or activists.

Myth 7: Consumer choices and grassroots activism, not government intervention, offer the fastest, most efficient routes to sustainability.

Popular grassroots actions are helpful and ultimately necessary. But progress on some reforms, such as curbing CO2 emissions, can only happen quickly if central authorities commit to making it happen. That is why tax credits, mandatory fuel-efficiency standards and the like are pretty much inevitable. That conclusion drives free-market evangelists crazy, but they operate on the assumption that wasteful use of resources and the destruction of the environment is without cost, which is demonstrably untrue.

To cite just one example, economic devastation is very likely under even the mildest plausible climate change scenarios, in the form of disruptions to agriculture from shifts in rainfall patterns and growing zones; densely populated coastal areas will be rendered unlivable as sea level rises, and so on. Yet the price currently being charged to people who add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere is zero. Putting a per-ton tax on carbon emissions would be wildly unpopular, but it would for the first time account for the real costs of unsustainable energy use.

Free-market purists also argue that with respect to the depletion of natural resources, rising prices will automatically push people into more efficient behavior. True enough—but the transition can be painful and disruptive. The primary reason U.S. automakers are in such trouble is that they have been depending for years on high-profit, gas-guzzling SUVs. When the price of oil shot up last year, the market for big cars plummeted (gas prices have only come down since then in the face of a worldwide recession, which hasn’t helped the auto industry). So car buyers may have changed their behavior, but only at the cost of potential disaster for some of America’s biggest companies and their employees.

Still, rising energy prices have had the effect of again galvanizing research into wind, solar and other alternatives—and if you leave economic disruption aside, we can at least count on car companies to make more efficient vehicles and on utilities to find more sustainable sources of energy.

What do you think?  Let us know at BuilderScrap