Actually, the generalization already exists, I was pointing to this as one concrete example. Humans, by nature, don’t like pollution. Whether through the market or the government, we tend to punish those who are dirty.

The wider point (and this better addresses Dogma_addicts’ comment), though, is that the way out of the mess isn’t simply banning things you don’t like. It’s finding ways to make them better, which is what technology offers us. For example, there are lots of very smart people working on finding alternative ways of generating energy. Hybrids are an example of a desire to reduce pollution and increase gas mileage (thus decreasing usage cost) of automobiles. Banning internal combustion engines won’t make automobile technology better any faster, it will just make it a hell of a lot more expensive and less efficient as those very smart people continue working. Technological breakthroughs are unplanned, and adding pressure doesn’t change that, it just makes sure that we’ll use what’s infant technology is currently available and inefficient while we wait, instead of using what’s already proven and working at lower cost. We may internalize the externality with current alternative-fuel technology, but by doing so we’re trading economic growth for a cleaner environment, when allowing that economic growth to occur first will likely lead to that cleaner environment down the road naturally.

The solution? In addition to government guidelines, the market needs to be restructured so that going green is INHERENTLY profitable, not the opposite. There are few ways to do this: create demand for green, or use the government to create incentives for green or penalties for anti-green (as previously mentioned). Rallying market forces to accomplish environmental goals has never been a bad idea, but it takes effort.

I could go on….