On today’s list, two curiously contradicting texts. I quote them here blatantly out of context to make a point. Causabon’s book writes:

Sometimes it is inconvenient, and occasionally it sucks. Sometimes it means being hot or cold, or not eating what you want to eat, it means turning down things you’d like to do, or not going places you’d like to go. It means missing family instead of travelling a lot, doing more things by hand even when you don’t want to, getting on that bike or out to take the bus on the cold, wet day. That is, sometimes it means real and meaningful sacrifice.

Whereas Terrapass Blog responds to another text mentioning sacrifice:

The bigger problem is that the term “sacrifice” misrepresents the process. Decarbonizing involves millions of consumers and businesses making billions of small consumption decisions in response to price signals, just as they do every day.

Sacrifice implies giving up a bunch of stuff that you enjoy now and probably like a lot. Imagine lining up your 10 favorite toys and then picking three that you have to throw away. Isn’t that sad? In the real world, though, we make such choices all the time. Only we don’t call them sacrifices. Last night, for example, I opted to consume pizza rather than sushi, in part because pizza was cheaper. Yes, I nobly sacrificed my desire for yuppie food treats on the altar of caloric efficiency. Don’t call me a hero. I’m just a regular guy in extraordinary circumstances.

For the economical subject, there is no sacrifice. Even when Sharon from Causabon’s Book squats in her garden and wears two sweaters inside, she is in fact doing the best for her welfare. Her actions might not be of direct use to her and might put a grimace on her face, but somewhere in the back of her mind there is some secretive joy.

For the economical subject, every choice is a sacrifice. In the science of scarcity taking something always means giving up another thing. How much you need to sacrifice of one thing to get the other depends on their relative prices.

One possible conclusion to draw from this is that only price matters. You might choose to live a environmentally aware, respectable life, but that is just an expression of your crazy preferences. Everyone else is busy working out how to maximize their well-being and will not notice. To really make a difference you need to put your effort into fighting for more stringent policies. Go throw rocks at policemen or whatever works. If you manage get the environmental costs into the prices the transition will happen in a magical painless instant. People will wake up one day and notice: Ooh! Gas is expensive. I will take my bike instead.

This view is true to the extent that public work is independent of private choices.