Perverse Trade-offs

摘要

In their 2001 book Perverse Subsidies, Norman Myers and Jennifer Kent laid out in exacting detail how governments around the world support economic and environ- mental policies that have the exact opposite effect from their stated objectives of improving the economy and the environment.1 For example, subsidies for corn-based ethanol fuels in the United States have impacted food prices around the world. Moreover, the energy balance from using ethanol based on corn "is actually so close that several factors can easily change whether ethanol ends up a net energy winner or loser."2 Life-cycle analyses for corn-based ethanol depend on a number of underlying assumptions—and the initial assumptions that brought subsidies and positive media coverage were far from realistic.