I take the pending onslaught of the emerald ash borer personally.
It is not just that these Chinese-origin insects already infest some trees a half-mile south of my house in St. Paul, but that they eventually will reach the farm in southwest Minnesota where I have slaved for seven years to establish trees in riparian strips along our creek that eventually feeds into the Rock, Big Sioux and Mississippi rivers.
At least half of the trees that have survived so far, perhaps 2,000, are green ash. Their goose seems cooked, although it may take years for the insects to move that far.
But I need to be philosophical. I am just one of millions of people harmed by an exotic species accidentally introduced into a U.S. ecosystem as a result of globalization. I may lose my trees but I have time to plant others, and it is better than being smacked in the face by a leaping 50-pound Asian carp while barreling across some lake in a motorboat.
Nor will I suffer economically as much as the hundreds of Great Lakes fishermen whose livelihood was wiped out in the 1960s when lamprey, brought through the new St. Lawrence Seaway by ocean-going ships from other continents, devastated stocks of the most important commercial fish.
And, unlike people in some areas of Florida, I don’t have to worry about a pet or child being crushed by a Burmese python.
Indeed, it is hard to find a state not affected by some exotic plant or animal, whether purposefully or accidentally. Birds in a Hawaiian nature preserve are being wiped out by snakes from Southeast Asia that crawled into landing-gear spaces to escape the hot sun of Thailand or Malaysia and then dropped to the ground when the plane let down its gear while approaching the Honolulu airport.
Kudzu and multiflora roses are harmful weeds in the south and Russian olive trees displace native cottonwoods along Great Plains streams. Zebra mussels clog water intakes and other facilities in many states.
The economics here is that these are classic examples of an external cost, one that society must bear but that is not paid by either the producer or consumer of the good or service that somehow caused broader harm. These costs are significant: The zebra mussel alone causes some $500 million in damage every year.
Unfortunately, unlike pollution from a smelter, for example, it is difficult to pinpoint who introduced an invasive species and impossible to charge them for damages.
There are palliative measures that can slow the spread of harmful species, but even these run into objections that they cause economic damage. Arguments against closing a canal linking waterways infested with Asian carp to Lake Michigan because it will harm water-borne transportation are a good example.
Countries can impose sanitary measures, such as greater inspection of import shipments, like the wooden crates that brought elm borers from China, or tougher enforcement of requirements to flush bilges and wash anchor chains before “salties” may enter the seaway.
But such efforts require government funding if not employees. In an age of budget deficits and unwillingness to pay more taxes, getting adequate funding for phytosanitary enforcement is an uphill battle.
Economists generally argue for pollution taxes in cases like this, but exotic species invasions are so unpredictable that incentive effects that would result from, say, a tax to limit sulfur dioxide emissions don’t really occur.
Our economy benefits from increased Great Lakes commerce. Most consumers like inexpensive imports. Some believe in a god-given right to own exotic pets. But we also inevitably pay some costs, including the replacement trees that I better start putting in one of these years.
© 2010 Edward Lotterman
Chanarambie Consulting, Inc.