What Alex Honnold’s Climb Reveals About How Government Values Life
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Rock climber Alex Honnold was reportedly paid a mere $500,000 to perform a free-solo climb of the Taipei 101 skyscraper in Taipei, Taiwan. Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Free-solo climber Alex Honnold was reportedly paid about $500,000 to climb the Taipei 101 skyscraper without ropes or protection, an act that carried a nontrivial risk of death. His decision highlights a core flaw in how economists value human life, namely, the risks people choose to take on their own are often not a sufficient guide for public policy. That problem now sits at the center of a heated debate over the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent decision to stop monetizing the “value of a statistical life” (VSL) in its air pollution regulations. Under the new policy, EPA will no longer assign a dollar figure to lives saved when evaluating rules for air pollutants like fine particulate matter (PM₂.₅) and ozone. That marks a break from longstanding practice, as regulators have long relied on the VSL to value mortality reductions in regulatory cost-benefit analysis. Critics accuse the Trump EPA of callously valuing human life at $0, warning that ignoring the benefits of saved lives will lead to weaker pollution controls and “dirtier air”. For example, Stanford environmental economist Marshall Burke blasted the move, arguing “The Trump administration is saying, literally, that they put zero value on human life.” Others, like University of Chicago professor Michael Greenstone, believe the change undercuts decades of economic analysis. “When you allow people to lead longer and healthier lives, that has value that can be measured in dollars,” Greenstone insists. Much of this criticism assumes that the way individuals price their own lives provides a sound basis for public policy, an assumption long held by economists but one that deserves closer scrutiny. In their view,…
Filed under: News - @ January 27, 2026 2:24 pm