Australian restaurants teach us how to deal with climate change

Assume that all we’re told about climate change is true. No, go on, assume. The question then is, well, what to do about it? The secret of that is illustrated in this little tale from The Guardian:

Restaurants and cafes are constantly adapting their menus to try to mitigate the rising cost of produce and cutting staff hours, as inflation hits profit margins in the hospitality sector.

Jackie Middleton, who co-owns Earl Canteen, a small sandwich chain in Melbourne, and Dame, a high-end cafe on Collins Street, says not a single day goes by when she doesn’t get an email saying the price of a product has increased.

To handle it they are adapting their menus, substituting expensive vegetables with cheaper ones and finding inventive ways to use seasonal produce.

As the insistence is, in the face of climate change everything must change. So, how do we change everything?

As we can see here from Oz, a change in relative prices means that every supplier - and on the demand side, every consumer - is thinking about how to deal with that change in relative prices. How much lettuce is on a plate, which type of lettuce, the presence of lettuce at all. Change prices and the entire society, at the most microscopic level, includes those costs and benefits in each and every decision.

At a level which not even the most demented and powerful planner could ever reach of course.

So, if we wish to embed climate change into each and every decision in the society, at the most microscopic level, then we’ve got to change prices. If everything must change then we want the consideration of change to be within the decision making incentives of everyone, on every decision.

This means that the solution to climate change is the carbon tax - which embeds those costs and benefits in every decision made by everyone at the most microscopic level. That this also frees us from the power of planners, including the demented ones, is in itself a benefit, but even without that the point still stands.

If you’re in favour of doing something about climate change but not in favour of the carbon tax then you’re simply not being serious. Or, obviously, are a demented planner.