How NIMBYs increase carbon emissions

A shopkeeper’s son smashes a window, causing a crowd to gather. Its members tell the shopkeeper not to be angry: in fact, the broken window is a reason to celebrate, since it will create work for the glazier. In the story, the crowd envisions the work involved in repairing the window, but not that involved in everything else on which the shopkeeper could have spent his money—unseen possibilities that would have brought him greater happiness. The parable, written by Frédéric Bastiat, a 19th-century economist, sought to draw attention to a common form of argument, which has come to be known as the broken-window fallacy.