Currently the only ways of improving the enviromment are to stablish some qualitative restriction on actions of certain kinds or to subsidie some kind of technology, but these seem not to go to deep into the question on how much does something improve the enviromment, so here is my take on it:
Capitalism&Enviromment
Let’s be real, free markets and evirommentalism are not conceps that tend to go together but there are some proposal from that field that seem interesting to the game.
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Polution Tax
Acording to some economist, like Milton Friedman, taxing polution, instead of resticting it to some degree determined by some expert, and then using the money that the government gets from that to solve the problems caused by polution, will provide a better economic output for the same envirommental protection. -
Property Rights
Some people like Terry Anderson and Donald Leal argue that our curret problems regarding the enviromment could be solved by defining and defending property rights, and that that model could provide the best evirommental protection that we want and can aford, at a minimum price.
Cars&Enviromment
Currently, a lot of the policies that aim at improving the enviromment are car related, but I think that this has a big problem.
Cleaner cars don’t clean the enviromment, they just polute it less, so it would make more sense that each policy reducing the impact of cars should reduce that impact of cars on the enviromment. I know that nowadays it is imposible since you cant have equations that large, but my main point here is that cleaner cars shouldn’t be better for the enviromment than no cars.
Related to these I would also suggest that the efects of the policies “Hybrid Cars Initiative”, “Biofuel Subsidies” and “Clean Fuel Subsidies” should be reduced with the Electric Car Transition.
Also, regarding Electric Car Transition I would suggest a feedback loop, with Electric Car Transition increasing Electric Car Transition in order to reflect a second hand EV market, and maybe that Biofuel Subsidies reduce it as some may see that option and keep their current car more envirommentaly frienly.
Renewables&Enviromment
Similar to what I said with cars, renewables don’t make the enviromment better per se, they are just better for the enviromment than fossil fuels.
Apart from that I would say that maybe another simulation should be introduced:
- Price of renewables
It should reflect that to some extend, subsidies were not planed only to make it more atractive, they were plane to drive it price down to make it cost competitive. It could reduce the cost of Clean Energy Subsidies and Micro-Generation Grants and reduce the downside efects of Mandatory Microgeneration. It could alse serve to reflect the energy industry investing in renewables because they are cost competitive, and how enviommentalist would invest in it, even in it’s early stages.
Ecosystem
Currently, the only program of investing money into directly improving the enviromment is Reforestation, and while it improves air quality and captures CO2. Just planting trees can be a bit distuptive to the enviromment. A new program like Nature Conservation from Democracy 3: Africa, could be a good option to take care of the enviromment.
Regarding reforestation I would like to suggest a new simulation an a new policy:
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Forest Area
A simple simulation aimed to reflect that there are some native forests, trees planted by envirommentalist, and especially, trees planted by the wood industry(link to GDP?), that for air quality and carbon caputure are equivalent to those planted by the state. I could also reflect in some way the downsides of tree planting due to a reduction in land avaliable to farm, like a reduction in farmers or a increase in food price. -
Ban Logging
Some envirommentalist believe that we shouldn’t cut trees so the policy should please envirommentalists, while removing the imput of the wood industry to forest area and reducing.
Also, there are some issues regurding hunting, currently increasing game hunting restrictions always improves the enviromment, while in real life sudden increase in restrictions on hunting can cause a lot of damage to the enviromment, due to the abundance of herbivores relative to their predator.
Other suggestions
Currently Eco Home Regulations don’t improve the enviromment while in real life, old heating apliances, like diessel boilers, generate a lot of polution.
The non social engineering efects of Keep The Country Tidy Campain and CO2 Campain could be influenced by envirommentalism.
Charity could also boost the enviromment based on enviromentalism.
