On Thu, 19 Oct 2000, Anonymous wrote:
So who gets the bid on the environment ? There are some commons that can not be eliminated so easily.
Generally, this would be water and air. If someone pollutes the air over their land, that's ok. As soon as the pollution crosses into your land, you sue for damages.
By the same basic tenet you can sue for theft - it was your pollution, not the neighbour's. As you can see there is no causation because one cannot control the air.
People are concerned about the long term value of their property, so they will have a disincentive to pollute.
Really? People have every incentive to pollute as long as they can either keep it a secret or make sure they are not around the shit hits the fan. Radioactive waste is a prime example of the latter approach. Sampo Syreeni <decoy@iki.fi>, aka decoy, student/math/Helsinki university