Thanks for the recommendations! I'm going to watch the YouTube video and then come back and comment, and do the same for your post. But I wanted to address your last two paragraphs now.
Replace the words "property rights" with "government action" and I think your statement is still true. No solution is perfect.
Yes, absolutely. I've often lamented that the government isn't better at protecting the environment. However, I feel right now, in the real world, as (crony) capitalist markets are, that they are better than a "free" market solution (since I don't believe one can actually exist in 2017). Simply because private property and tort laws are not set up correctly to address this issue, and common resources are not clearly defined under the law (as Murray and Smith point out in this article). Therefore, massive, spiraling, lobbyist "cures" are the best we have. And honestly, I don't see this issue being resolved any time soon. Libertarians can't seem to get elected to any powerful office, and the duopoly isn't interested in anything but big government. I point again to my sea turtle example, and, because you're also right, I immediately contradict myself with an example of bald eagles: they're federally protected, but dying by the masses because their prey is being shot with lead bullets and they're poisoned. The federal government isn't doing anything about that, and I'm sure if they did, some other unintended consequence would rear its ugly head.
I am suspicious of absolutes, so I strongly suspect that government would win on some issues and markets would win on others, but if we're going to use force against people in certain cases, we'd better be pretty darned sure that we've ruled out all voluntary solutions and that our ideas aren't going to make things worse.
Only a Sith deals in absolutes! :) I completely agree, except to the extent that using force against people in this case is the role of the government. My very narrow definition of the government's role is "To protect me from you and you from me" from personal and property harm. Polluting and harming the ecosystem falls under that umbrella in my worldview. Again, I know this is a slippery slope because as these authors pointed out, the "environment" is synonymous with "everything." So I really don't have an answer except to go with what we've been going with because we're not all dead yet, which I know is a completely terrible, moot argument.
I'd like to address one more excellent point you made:
(W)e'd better be pretty darned sure... that our ideas aren't going to make things worse.
Yes. This. I actually had another looong paragraph written in response to this statement but I decided to make a post about it instead! Thanks for the idea, the dialogue, and the excellent references. I feel like steemit is leaps and bounds ahead of every other social media platform in this regard, and I've only been here about 2 weeks! (Also, there seems to be a lot less trolling, although perhaps that's because I'm staying in my sheltered corner of steemit.)