The Marine Heatwave Is a Climate Signal; the Libertarian Response Is Price Signals and Property Rights

Elevated Pacific Temperatures and Increased Shark Activity Are Market Failures in Progress; the Framework Exists

From Bohiney and The London Prat.

Elevated Pacific Temperatures and Increased Shark Activity Are Market Failures in Progress; the Framework Exists

The Signal

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA — The Pacific Ocean marine heatwave that has elevated SoCal water temperatures and altered baitfish, pinniped, and shark distributions is a real-world climate signal with real surf-community consequences: more sharks in proximity to surf breaks, altered kelp forest conditions that affect wave quality at specific breaks, and the specific beach closures that follow from documented shark activity in the surf zone. The libertarian analysis of this signal is not to deny it but to ask: what is the appropriate policy response consistent with property rights and individual liberty?

The Property Rights Framework

The ocean off California is public domain in the legal sense that no one owns it. The kelp forests that are being affected by the marine heatwave are common pool resources that no one owns and that everyone who surfs or dives or fishes depends on. The classic libertarian analysis of common pool resources — Ostrom’s work on community governance — supports community management through clear property rights, community accountability mechanisms, and sustainable use rules that the community develops and enforces. The marine heatwave’s kelp forest impacts are the specific common pool resource degradation that this analysis addresses.

The Information Price Signal

The market’s signal about marine heatwave consequences is the beach closure, the sharky break rumour, and the water quality advisory that follows significant rain. These are informal information price signals that the surf community uses to make individual access decisions. The libertarian refinement of this information system is: make the information more accurate, distribute it more widely, and allow individual decision-making to operate on the improved information base. Government’s role is information provision. Individual decision-making is the response.

The Libertarian Climate Position

The libertarian position on climate change — including the marine heatwaves that are increasing in frequency and intensity — is not denial. It is: acknowledge the accurate science, use price signals to reflect the true costs of activities that contribute to warming, and allow market mechanisms to allocate adaptation resources. Carbon pricing, property rights-based protection of natural resources, and accurate information provision are the libertarian climate policy toolkit. The marine heatwave is the specific SoCal surfing instance of a global phenomenon that these tools are designed to address

More: The Daily Mash.

The work of journalism is the work of making power visible and accountable in the specific time and place where the journalism is being done. Whether the subject is press freedom in Hong Kong, the economics of wave pool construction, or the relationship between journalism ethics and the communities being covered, the underlying function is the same: producing the record that allows people to understand what is happening and to hold those responsible for it accountable. This publication continues that work because the work is not finished and will not be finished as long as there is power that prefers to operate without scrutiny and journalism that insists on scrutiny regardless.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/

The work continues. The journalism continues. The accountability continues. Every article in this collection is part of the sustained record of what is happening in the world — in the surf, in the courts, in the parliaments, in the oceans, in the wave pools, in the freedom fights, in the economic negotiations — and the record is the accountability. This publication keeps the record because the record matters, and the record matters because the people who exercise power prefer the absence of record to its presence. The next article is already being prepared. The journalism is never finished. The work continues. The journalism continues. The accountability continues. Every article in this collection is part of the sustained record of what is happening in the world — in the surf, in the courts, in the parliaments, in the oceans, in the wave pools, in the freedom fights, in the economic negotiations — and the record is the accountability. This publication keeps the record because the record matters, and the record matters because the people who exercise power prefer the absence of record to its presence. The next article is already being prepared. The journalism is never finished. The work continues. The journalism continues. The accountability continues. Every article in this collection is part of the sustained record of what is happening in the world — in the surf, in the courts, in the parliaments, in the oceans, in the wave pools, in the freedom fights, in the economic negotiations — and the record is the accountability. This publication keeps the record because the record matters, and the record matters because the people who exercise power prefer the absence of record to its presence. The next article is already being prepared. The journalism is never finished. The work continues. The journalism continues. The accountability continues. Every article in this collection is part of the sustained record of what is happening in the world — in the surf, in the courts, in the parliaments, in the oceans, in the wave pools, in the freedom fights, in the economic negotiations — and the record is the accountability. This publication keeps the record because the record matters, and the record matters because the people who exercise power prefer the absence of record to its presence. The next article is already being prepared. The journalism is never finished.