Terracotta Reader: A Market Approach to the Environment

The green movement aims at changing the human nature to preserve the environment. This book builds a terracotta movement that focuses on changing incentives to manage the environment. Terracotta means 'burnt earth,' and refers to earthenware made from this material. It is the creation of human action on a natural resource. Terracotta symbolises the philosophy that values natural resources, not in isolation, but in their relation to human beings. This relationship is not always extractive or consumptive, as the greens claim. It is often aesthetic, contemplative, and spiritual. All the varied relationships are nonetheless between humans and the ecology - and their complex interactions and interdependence. Theirs is a heroic mission to change human nature, ours is a human endeavour to create a better world by restructuring incentives. The green vision versus the terracotta vision! To provide material comforts we use material resources, leading to environmental problems. The greens' governmental approach of guns and guards has proven to be a dismal failure. Instead of rethinking the approach, they are determined to intensify it: more consciousness raising, stricter rules, harsher penalties. The terracotta approach relies on the incentives that come with resource ownership for prudent, sustainable management. The individual, family, and community owner-ship or stewardship provides right incentives. Government ownership leads to the tragedy of the collective.