Zero-Sum Games in Pollution Control: Ecological Thresholds, Planetary Boundaries, and Policy Choices

• Author: Robin Kundis Craig
• Pages: 11-31

11

Chapter 2

Zero-Sum Games in Pollution

Control:Ecological Thresholds,

Planetary Boundaries,

and Policy Choices

Robin Kundis Craig

I. Introduction

As other chapters in this volume discuss in more depth, John von Neumann

and Oskar Morgenstern came up with t he concept of zero-sum games as part

of their invention of game theory.1 In game theory, a zero-sum game is one

in which no wealth is created or destroyed; one person’s gain must result in

another person’s (or persons’) loss to the same amount or degree.2 As such,

zero-sum games describe situations where there is a single unchanging “pie”

of resources available and several people are seeking to increase the size of

their individual “slices,” but they can only do so by decreasing t he amount of

pie available to everyone else.

Under this strict denition, pollution control regulation does not nec-

essarily involve zero-sum games. Indeed, because most pollution is a form

of waste, pollution laws can inspire waste reduction strategies appropriately

hailed as “win-win” solutions: Industry saves money by more eciently

using raw materials and creating less waste, simultaneously saving the costs

incurred in handling that waste, while public health and the environment

mutually benet from reduced pollution loads. ere are many examples of

this “win-win,” “everybody-can-be-better-o” framing of pollution control.

For example, the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services

advises businesses that:

1. T S. F, G T II-4 (UCLA Department of Mathematics 2011).

2. Id.

Author’s Note: is research was made possible, in part, through generous support from

the Albert and Elaine Borchard Fund for Faculty Excellence. e author may be reached

at robin.craig@law.utah.edu.

12 Beyond Zero-Sum Environmentalism

Reducing waste by cha nging the processes t hat create wastes not only decrease s

your management costs, it also improves eciency[,] making your company

more competitive and protable.

Waste reduction involves changing behavior and attitude of all employees.

e rst step of reducing waste i s to rethink the way you look at waste. Don’t

think of waste as an unavoidable by-product essential to normal operations.

ink of waste as evidence of a aw in the process, which can be reduced or

eliminated by proper control of the proces s.3

Nevertheless, the concept of a zero-sum game has many popular

denitions as well as its technical one, and it remains dicult to avoid

this popular perception in pollution control regulation. Specically, the

perception of pollution as a problem—the conclusion that there is “too

much” pollution contaminating a particular resource—almost by deni-

tion simultaneously creates the perception of regulatory “pollution pies”

and hence zero-sum games, at least in a more colloquial sense. If we do

not want rivers to catch on re, industry must limit the total amount of

oil and other ammable waste that it discharges into the nation’s water-

ways. If we do not want the air we breathe to wreak havoc with our hea lth,

we must limit the amount of toxics and other health-aecting pollutants

that can be emitted. If we want to avoid disastrous anthropogenic cli-

mate change, we must limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to levels

that avoid surpassing some atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide

(CO2) equivalents—perhaps 350 parts per million (ppm), perhaps 400,

perhaps 450, perhaps some other limit.4

Pollution regulation, in other words, tends to focus on limits and thresh-

olds: How much of certain kinds of pollution can a given system absorb

before something that we don’t like actually occurs or is at substantial risk

of occurring? e answer to the “how much” question creates the “pollution

pie,” setting the stage for a regulatory zero-su m game. e result we’re trying

to avoid generally denes the regulatory goal.

3. New Hampshire Dep’t of Envtl. Servs., Environmental Fact Sheet WMD-HW-8: Reducing Hazardous

Wastes in Your Business 1 (2008), available at https://www.des.nh.gov/organization/commissioner/

pip/factsheets/hw/documents/hw-8.pdf.

4. e debate on what constitutes a “safe” concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere continues vigorously,

but a consensus is emerging that the world should seek to keep global average temperature increases

to 2° Celsius or less, with estimates of necessary limits on concentrations of CO2 equivalents ranging

from 300 to 450 ppm. E.g., Inforse-Europe, e Needs to Limits [sic] Greenhouse Gas Emissions—A

Path to Safer Levels of Climate Change, http://www.inforse.org/europe/Vision-GHG-limits.htm (Dec.

2008); David Biello, How Much Is Too Much?: Estimating Greenhouse Gas Emissions, S A.,

https://www.scienticamerican.com/article/limits-on-greenhouse-gas-emissions/ (Apr. 29, 2009);

Duncan Clark, What’s the Target for Solving Climate Change?, G, https://www.theguardian.

com/environment/2011/nov/14/climate-change-targets (Nov. 14, 2011).