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UN Conference Confronts Dramatic Loss Of Biodiversity
Delegates from 193 nations have opened a UN meeting in Japan to discuss how to address Earth's dramatic loss of animal and plant species.
The Panay monitor lizard is listed as 'endangered' because both it is both hunted by man and its habitat, in forestland on Panay Island in the Phillipines, is declining. Biologists warn that species are disappearing at up to 1,000 times the natural rate of wildlife loss. More than one-fifth of the world's plant species and terrestrial vertebrates are threatened with extinction.(AP / IUCN / Tim Laman)
The two-week Nagoya conference brings together parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.
At its opening, Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environment Program, told delegates the meeting is "part of the world's efforts to address a very simple fact -- we are destroying life on Earth."
A key task facing the 8,000 delegates is to hammer out a set of strategic goals to prevent the further loss of species over the next 10 years.
Experts, such as Jonathan Bailie, director of conservation programs at the Zoological Society of London, doubt the discussions will result in an ambitious, comprehensive international agreement featuring binding targets. But Bailie tells RFE/RL that he expects the talks to reveal a growing agreement among governments about the need to place a price on the goods and services that nature provides.
"Traditionally conservationists have focused on moral or ethical reasons as to why we want to save biodiversity," Bailie says. "But it's becoming increasingly apparent that if we don't put a value on things, then often the wrong market decisions are made. For example, if trees are worth less standing than they are [worth] cut down, they will be cut down."
Disappearing Species
The UN says the world has failed to reach the goal, set in 2002, of a "significant reduction" in species losses by 2010 -- named as the International Year of Biodiversity.
Biologists warn that species are disappearing at up to 1,000 times the natural rate of wildlife loss. More than one-fifth of the world's plant species and terrestrial vertebrates are threatened with extinction. The threat concerns one-third of freshwater fish species. This is mainly due to habitat destruction; expansion of agriculture; deforestation; overexploitation of biological resources such as fish; invasive species; and, on top of that, climate change.
The annual economic cost of environmental degradation and biodiversity loss is estimated at trillions of dollars -- equivalent to as much as 10 percent of global gross domestic product.
Speaking on September 22 at a summit in New York on the species crisis, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon cautioned that biological diversity is closely linked to the world economy.
"Maintaining and restoring our natural infrastructure,"
Ban said, "can provide economic gains worth trillions of dollars each
year. Allowing it to decline is like throwing money out of the window."
Direct Effect
Unless steps are taken to reverse the loss of biological diversity, scientists warn that natural habitats will be degraded and eventually destroyed, threatening a wide range of benefits such as clean water, pure air, healthy soil, adequate food, fuel, and protection from extreme weather events.
This loss will most directly affect the well-being of the world's poorest and most vulnerable people.
In Central Asia, Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, the destruction of forests due to the cutting of trees for fuel, cattle grazing, and land cultivation is affecting the lives of residents -- causing land degradation and erosion that lead to mudslides, landslides, and flooding.
In an effort to break the vicious circle, Bailie says policy makers are to investigate mechanisms designed to ensure governments value ecosystem services that have previously been regarded as free.
Meanwhile, stronger pressure is to be put on businesses to measure the financial costs associated with their impact on the environment.
"With the toxic sludge [in Hungary] and the recent oil spills and so on," Bailie says, "people are realizing that business is having a serious impact on biodiversity, and that business needs to be more accountable and business needs to maintain the resources that they are custodians of sustainably."
Businesses Must Act
"The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity" survey, to be released at the Nagoya conference, is expected to show that there is a strong case for businesses to take action to limit activities that harm biological diversity and to incorporate environmental impacts into their risk management.
Ahead of the meeting, Richard Burrett, co-chair of the UN Environment Program's Finance Initiative and a partner at the investment advisory firm Earth Capital Partners, told Reuters that accounting systems need to fully integrate environmental degradation caused by economic development.
He said that failure to do so meant companies were not measuring their balance sheet and profit and loss accurately.
Ignoring The Threat
Speaking last week at a roundtable hosted by consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, Jon Williams, partner at PWC's sustainability and climate change team, said that besides physical risks to operations and supply chains, such as soil degradation and water shortages, businesses were facing investor risks.
Such risks were highlighted by the recent experience of BP, which has seen its share price halved as a result of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Williams and Burrett said increasing numbers of institutional investors are starting to call on firms to report on the biodiversity threats they face and to change their investment practices with new environmental and social standards.
But PWC this year released a report warning that the vast majority of the world's largest companies are ignoring environmental threats.
The report found that only six of the world's largest 100 companies had measures in place to reduce their impact on biodiversity and environmental habitats and just two had identified biodiversity as a strategic risk.
Bailie says he expects this to change, adding that the companies which manage their ecological footprint will be better positioned.
"I believe that over the next five years or so, there's going to be more public pressure for companies to comply and to better manage the biodiversity," Bailie says. "The pioneers, those that are at the front, will actually benefit in the longer term."
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67 Comments so far
Show AllOnce again we see a market-based approach as a 'solution' to a problem. This time we are going to put a price on things, which supposedly will help us appreciate their worth.
This may have a beneficial effect, but it obviously has limits. Who decides the monetary value? etc. Insofar as it attempts to bring capitalism to heel, it may be of some good, but ultimately, we are going to have to come up with a new way of making decisions regarding the planet and ourselves.
The neoliberal economics approach has led to undeniable improvements in the quality of life (for some, not all) in the short term. Unfortunately, it is a long-term disaster, as is becoming ever more apparent. It is a meme that will be difficult to expunge from the human approach to things.
Neoliberals are great at creating a plethora of feel-good diversions that make you feel like you are part of the solution.
As long as corporations continue to increase their ownership of governments around the globe you will only seethings get worse.
I've always questioned those rationales for rainforest preservation that bring up the possibility of cancer cures lurking in the flora. So, the rainforest might cure OUR disease, eh? Who knows what other benefits lie there--an organism that might make a pretty dye for Her Majesty's clothes? A lotion for her skin? A beast that could be bred for hunting? For CIA work, perhaps?
Eco-tourism, while less offensive, still puts a premium on our species. What use can a rainforest be put to? Yes, people living near one have to make a living, but so do the indigenous people that have inhabited it for centuries. The real solution, of course, is for people to limit their population increase so that it will not be necessary to exploit natural areas. That won't happen, though. It would go against the wishes of the King of Beasts (which is not to be confused with any member of the Felidae).
"This time we are going to put a price on things, which supposedly will help us appreciate their worth."
If "free market" capitalism can't put a dollar value on something, like a smile or a sunset or a life saved, then the defualt value is zero.
Their slogan should be "all that is priceless is worthless".
What price the roll of a great whale alongside my [wooden] sailboat? What price the smell of warm pines on a mountain track? What price the glimpse of some exquisite wild creature in its natural habitat? How can a capitalist approach to pricing these things ever be more than a travesty which will result in those things being sold to the highest bidder?
It seems clear that we ARE about the killing of life on Earth, but that includes our own lives. We are another dead end species, which came so close to sapience, but fell, instead, on the blade of greed.
I have come to despise these conferences. The problems are laid on the table with the answers so obvious a child could get it.
But protocol, protocol, protocol and deferring to this and that with solutions that are so weak and watered-down that another conference will have to be scheduled next year.
STOP POLLUTING THE AIR and the LAND WITH POISONS.
STOP TURNING WATER INTO SEWERS OF CHEMICALS and DISCARDED JUNK AND GARBAGE.
Solve those two problems with innovative technologies and careful, foresightful planning. Expensive initially, yes, but just those two things could change everything.
Oh, I forgot corporations would lose profits. Stocks would go down, and etcetera.
The above is simplistic, but the bottom line is we have to choose whether we are going to live or die.
We are dealing with mindsets in concrete. The major capitalist profiteers cannot think past their piles of money and what they can do next to get more piles of money.
From a previous comment by Ironblood: "It seems clear that we ARE about the killing of life on Earth, but that includes our own lives. We are another dead end species, which came so close to sapience, but fell, instead, on the blade of greed."
What can we each change -- do or not do and give up and let go in our own life that can make a difference?
There is enough of us to do what we need to do to change things. Start right where you are standing.
/cm
Cee, there is only one letter of difference between the words GREEN and GREED; yet, a chasm separates the two in reality. Americans feel the arms of death around them and are increasingly making small green changes in their lives. The decentralized nature of these changes is having an effect. The pace of green change must be increased to offset the pace of death. I do not see that happening either in government or corporations. The real question is do we as citizens have the right and responsibility to challenge greed by taking up arms against it's purveyors? If by their actions they are killing us, do we of necessity, have the right to kill them? Clearly they are out of control and sociopathic in their behaviors. Will we allow them to kill us and the planet?
Excellent post! You really drilled down to the crux of the issue. They value money and property above all else and therein lies the solution to the problem. Any direct action against the property and infrastructure that delivers that money is something that is worth considering. I have found the revolution in the Niger Delta to be informative.
I found the end of this article laughable as it talked about convincing mega-corps that it is in their best interest to go green. I could only think about pigs flying at that point.
The Government and the Fed are again teaming up to print massive amounts of money keeping the dead corpse of capitalism on life support. This effort too will fail. At this point, other than with a gun, how do you tell the government and the fed to stop printing money to support the rich at the expense of the rest of us? Any ideas? Can placing the financial burden on most of us to support the few be allowed to stand?
Once the killing begins it will be a massive and deadly revolution. In my belief system there is a likely probability that waiting until 2012 will allow nature to impose the violence and spare us the duty of setting things straight. A little more patience may be a wise choice for now. The Fed is attempting to tell us that withdrawing our financial support from the corporate system will NOT work because the Fed will just print money to keep it alive. In other words they want us to think our efforts are self defeating. The Fed is short sighted. As people make the necessary changes to a green culture, they also help to insulate themselves from the ultimate collapse of the financial system and empire. Ultimately it is the rich who will suffer the most.
2012 is starting to smell a lot like Y2K or any number of preachers who pontificated the end of the world. I put zero eggs in that basket. Why you view this capitalist system that is morphing into corporate fascism as failing is beyond me. All evidence points to the fact that it grows in strength and power on a daily basis. Printing money is no concern of theirs. Having compliant slave labor is of prime importance. Maintaining massive arsenals of weaponry and developing sophisticated and costly systems of destruction and death are of prime importance. Maintaining world empire is of prime importance.
Given their penchant for death and destruction, do you actually think they give one bit of concern about environment and life? You really drilled down to the heart of the matter when you talked about environmental degradation to the point that massive loss of life is now upon us, trends continue unabated. To stand idly by as we are plunged into the abyss will be the ultimate act of compliance by a society who has lost all ability to defend itself. You raised a serious question in that regard. That said, I seriously doubt that the rich will suffer. This is already apparent as global warming has already begun to devastate the poor and working class.
These conferences and millennium goals are nothing more than window dressing. Whether we admit or not, the human race continues to spiral into the abyss at an ever increasing rate of speed. When is enough enough?
The American neo-liberal economic and political system has become so corrupt that it is unsustainable. When it falls, it will lead to a worldwide reexamination of neo-liberalism's false premises. When that reexamination is underway, then the opportunity for truly progressive populist change will occur in many regions around the world, perhaps before it ever occurs in post-imperial America.
Albert's and Hahnel's original Participatory Economics (parecon) would eliminate money and stock markets up front. They would not allow private/family ownership of any size business but only industrial & farm worker ownership of manufacturing and farming concerns, and government operated banks & infrastructure entities. They place more emphasis on production-for-use committees working together with consumption committees to determine levels of food and industrial production and distribution required on various scales in various timeframes. In their industrial and manufacturing concerns, the workers would rotate through all positions (from entry level to senior managerial) as part of their training and working experience.
In my modified version of participatory economics--which would be global in scale with all nations participating--money would operate in parallel with work credits as the old money economy is gradually absorbed into the work credit system over a long period (up to a century if need be). I feel this is necessary because value equivalents between items of particular monetary value (subject to differences between long-term intrinsic value and comparatively temporary market value fluctuations) versus work-credit equivalents would have to be sorted out over time as society as a whole gradually readjusts to an economy centered on the common good & commonwealth that has slowly absorbed and thereby phased out its upper-class--as opposed to the present economy that rewards reckless, large scale casino capitalist speculation with other people's money, corporate lawlessness and hoarding of things of perceived or intrinsic value for greed's sake by a parasitic financial elite.
I would retain family ownership of small- to some medium-sized businesses that, due to the nature of specific types of such businesses, could operate just as efficiently and equitably as fully parecon workforce-operated businesses on a similar scale. I would compel small & medium-sized family business owners to rotate all workers from entry level to managerial positions just as in a fully parecon workforce, but I would provide government subsidies for any negative financial outcomes experienced by these businesses due to temporary managerial incompetence brought on by the parecon process of non-hierarchical inclusiveness. All large, multinational and holding companies would be broken up. Most would be nationalized or converted to a mixture of medium-sized, family-owned private concerns or municipal concerns. The only joint stock corporations that would be allowed to exist would be those engaged in research & development of environmentally and economically ("environomically"--metal) sustainable goods, services and energy systems. The only stock market that would be allowed to exist would trade investments in the form of work-credits in those R&D entities. I would maintain an investment/R&D link between those limited definition corporations and universities with government subsidies where necessary. Government would also buy some patents from those R&D entities and refer related production decisions to regional environmentally sustainable economies ("environomies"--metal) deemed by my macroeconomic global democratic body of non-corporate scientists (who determine long-term regional resource/habitat/species/human population allocations) to be applicable.
Industries and farms that rely on fully parecon workforces would retain their production committees who regularly meet with local & regional consumption committees. These fully parecon committees would include production liaisons from the small and medium-sized family-owned businesses in relevant industrial & agricultural sectors to help coordinate a projected balance between local and regional production & consumption with prerequisite storage of reserves of critical necessities in case of economic, environmental or other local or regional emergencies.
One of the goals, among many, of such a system would be to reconfigure the profit incentive away from the temptation towards selfish individual economic exploitation of others (and related hoarding and over-concentration of wealth) towards an economy which "lifts all boats"--one in which all citizens feel no need to hoard wealth or exploit the misery of others because they feel and know by personal experience that we are all in this adventure called life together, all created as equals, and that our primitive materialist obsessions and desires to feel superior to others that still divide us are psychological fictions induced by millennia of upper-class elites and sustained only by our reciprocal gullibility, capitalistically indoctrinated fear and immaturity as a sentient species. The opportunity to grow beyond this is almost upon us.
metal - copyright 2010
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
You're a defeatist who has nothing better than my ideas to offer.
"The purpose of journalism is to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted."
--H.L. Mencken
Regarding your critique of original Participatory Economics:
I primarily appreciate the general spirit of egalitarianism and opposition to fixed class hierarchies in pareconomics as best advanced by the parecon idea of rotating workers through all positions from entry-level to managerial level at regular intervals. Traditional socialism lacked this method for preventing the recapitulation of the work environment into fixed managerial vs. worker hierarchies (leading to all the old class differences, top-down exploitation and resentments that made many socialist worker-owned & operated businesses fail). But I modified nearly every other doctrinal aspect of it considerably, relegated it primarily to microeconomic decision making and developed a different but connected system for global macroeconomic decision making that is itself of another order. This is substantially different from original pareconomics.
Regarding what "many on the Left" are impressed with or not: Many on the Left believe all sorts of things. So what? That's not going to stop me from trying to reach out to individual progressive minds who might actually read, consider and appreciate my ideas. If that offends you or "many on the Left" I could care less. The more American progressives, progressive dilettantes, DLC Dims, neo-cons, Tea Partiers, etc., across our obsolete political spectrum that my ideas exasperate or infuriate the happier I am. That is because at least I have kicked them in the shanks of their complacence and made some of them think.
I did my best to try to help build a street movement under Bush II only to see it languish under the constant onslaught of corporatist propaganda, fear of terrorism, fear of the economy and of authority. Then I saw it perish when the scattered remnants, utterly lacking in solidarity, abdicated on mobilization after accepting DLC chimera Obama as an actual progressive. I no longer believe present generations of Americans (let alone American progressives) are capable of an intelligent, organized revolution on a sufficient scale in a timely manner. I expect to see scattered protests, rebellions and would-be rebellions, surveilled and then crushed for a while, leading to a spreading breakdown of the civil infrastructure and related chaos, followed possibly by regional Balkanization. In my opinion, this country will tear itself apart with its crude throw-back Social Darwinism before any coherent system ever coalesces again. The working-class has forgotten too much (or never learned enough) of its own history.
Meanwhile it is important for thinking progressives here and abroad to remember not to let their imaginations be captivated by the prevailing but failing neo-liberal/neo-conservative paradigm. To survive with their progressive populist humanity intact they must regularly exercise their brains to think outside that class-riddled, capitalist exploitation box; to envision a better future with sane and just steps and directions to move towards. Younger generations must not be intellectually and propagandistically beaten into laissez-faire globalist submission without ever having been offered some better vision than what is now degrading humanity and the biosphere perhaps beyond restoration. If you can't get what I'm saying here, then I don't know how to explain it to you any better than that.
The problem among American progressives--even on sites like this one--is not that there are too many of us envisioning a different better future and trying to write and think about it and bounce ideas about it off others. It's that there are woefully too few. Our lack of vision is reflected by the utter lack of vision of our post-Carter presidents. Carter was the last one who looked ahead at least a little--enough to warn us of our over-dependence on foreign oil and the need to conserve energy. Progressivism as a public concept in America has progressed negligibly since his one term in office 30 years ago.
My understanding of ParEcon is that it is something that can be created in any new "businesses" now to be ready to set an example of how to continue once the system as we have it falls. Some businesses to a large extent actually work on its principles already.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Socialists don't provide a blueprint for the new society they want to create because they have none. Socialism has only ever worked on very small scales such as the Israeli kibbutzim, Quakers, Shakers, Amish, etc., because it also had the communally shared cultural glue of common religion to help hold it together. But those societies were and are exposed to constant subversion by the material goodies of the capitalist societies around them and many of them have been corrupted or failed over relatively short periods of time compared to much more ancient capitalist/imperialist regimes.
"Socialists believe that the working class itself is the agent of revolutionary change and they, themselves, - not theoreticians - will create that new society as an outgrowth of revolutionary struggle."
This is hundred year old obsolete Marxist nonsense. It is why no attempt at large State communism could ever get to the point where the State surrendered enough of its police powers to "wither away" to allow its replacement by committee rule of the proletariat. Revolution does not equal or spontaneously translate into a new, resolved and sustainable form of society. There are always several phases of transition before revolution leads to either a temporary or long-term settled form of new society. Plunging into the future without a coherent map or any kind of step-by-step game-plan, and ignoring basic components of human nature like the psychological desire to own and operate small family businesses; to feel economically self-sufficient; the need to believe in a spiritual aspect of life (and afterlife), etc., is what destroyed the credibility of Marxism with respect to its proposed "solutions" to capitalism. This despite the fact that its original critique of capitalism is still correct.
Also, just because one creates some sort of step-by-step plan to transition from neo-liberal capitalism to a society with economic fairness, social justice and environmental sustainability does not mean that said plan or its steps cannot be changed to adapt to changing circumstances. At least it would provide a coherent direction in which to proceed until certain steps are altered or discarded in favor of others. It's not a good blueprint for a sustainable society of the future if it cannot adapt to change because the degradation of the biosphere and human over-population will drive nothing but change after change (much of it predictable, some of it not) for centuries to come.
Conversely, it is precisely the kind of inflexibility regarding dogma that Tom Larsen criticizes that has rendered Marxism and much of socialism, including original participatory economics, obsolete or unworkable.
To simply assert that "real democracy (socialism) means that we have to create it ourselves" without considering the practical process of what that would entail on a national or global level is absurd. Which "we" are you referring to? Who would "we" include and exclude? How would that select "we" persuade all the others on the national and international level, including those armed & powerful interests decidedly against socialism because of all the historical baggage that term carries with it (and who already hate the concept of democracy as it is)? By what organizational process would "we" create this brave new society and on what scale? Marching, waving flags and planting communal gardens? Kibbutzim have a more sustainable cultural model and look how widely they've spread in 60 years surrounded by the materialist temptations of the surrounding capitalist paradigm.
How would your new socialist society interact with other societies that will oppose its existence by hook, crook or force if necessary? If it is achieved on a national level and develops an environmentally sustainable economy, how will it spread that form of society to the rest of the globe that still exists under an unsustainable paradigm? How will it address the problem of human over-population in a humane way? Until you can answer difficult questions like this you will only repeat the 20th century failures of communism, socialism and original participatory economics. Plenty of heat but no light.
The majority of solid anarchist thought that I have seen in recent years is not so much about "overturn world capitalism" - Empires fall, you see, and ours already shows signs of being in its dying throes. The problem is that, when an empire does fall, there is a power vacuum. This could be filled by a dictatorial presence, or we could finally evolve.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
"...solid anarchist thought..."
I believe it is true that the American globalist empire has overextended itself to the point that its own lack of judgment or any moderation will inexorably drag it down into true collapse. But what follows and how it will translate into some nondescript global system of anarchism is what you need to explain instead of assuming such a system accomplished without the describing the nature of the transition period that will lead to it or the political system and methods for maintaining it. Believing that it will both arrive and sustain itself spontaneously is like believing that given infinite time the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus will genetically engineer little bunny Santas that will co-operatize the world.
Anarchist thought is the most practically, militarily indefensible and therefore, naive thought there is in terms of envisioning a LASTING world order to replace the existing unsustainable capitalist paradigm. There will always be armed opportunists who will prey upon and pressure the consolidation of anarchist communities into larger and larger, more militarist and intensively capitalist cities, city states, nations and empires.
"I didn't like the play, but then I saw it under adverse conditions--the curtain was up."
--Groucho Marx
You suggest that you would like to see a post capitalist society and the overturning of capitalism, but you criticize (1) academic Left Libertarians (implying that I am one, which I am not), (2) pareconomists (of whose ideas I only borrowed one and provided alternatives to every other major doctrinal component of participatory economics), (3) anarchists, who you say "as of now" have hardly shown themselves about to overturn world capitalism and then assert fictitiously that Marxists "have been holding post-capitalist society together with their successfully led national revolutions." The process of revolution and a lasting societal model are two entirely different things that you apparently confuse. Those "post-capitalist societies" that you praise are not settled societies, but face continual opposition and persecution by very powerful enemies who inhabit the globally dominant capitalist paradigm still capable of crushing any of those opposition "societies" upon which they choose to focus. They just happen to be focused on grand oil theft mostly in Muslim countries right now. The entire 19th century political spectrum from communism to fascism (and everything in between on that continuum) is as obsolete as your own redundant, failed approach.
Revolution is ONE type of means, and sometimes a very good one, sometimes not, but it is not the only means and it is not an end unto itself that one can point to and say, "Look! There's a new form of society!"
Lastly, what are YOUR ideas for how successfully organize the revolution you seek? If you're so smart and activist and anything besides another armchair critic offering zero original ideas, then why have you failed to organize a successful revolution? What type of political and economic system would you create that would address the issues of over-population and degradation of the biosphere and replace the neo-liberal capitalist paradigm as my system would? I don't think you even read my ideas but only scanned them for words or sentences at which you could fire your half-baked barbs. I think you're jealous because YOU'VE GOT NOTHING NEW OR ORIGINAL TO SAY. You don't provoke thought, you anesthetize it.
Also, Just because I borrow one idea from parecon doesn't make me a pareconomist, yet you repeatedly attack parecon as if I care or am one. If I substantially agreed with it I wouldn't have gone out of my way to fundamentally alter ALL its other ideas as part of my microeconomic theory. And to another critic: Just because I didn't specifically mention co-ops or the Mondragon folks doesn't mean that there's not a place for them in the world I envision. They would fit much more smoothly into my paradigm than into any previous example of Statist Marxism or large-scale anarchism (a pre-historical and historical non-starter/oxymoron in a post hunter-gatherer world where localized anarchy has always enticed opportunists who would prey upon it into a process of raids and warfare that gradually consolidates anarchic communities under larger scale and typically capitalist regimes).
Simply repeating the obvious, exhausted assertion that folks who oppose predatory capitalism need to organize better is pointless if you don't posit an effective organizational plan and some intelligible ideas to organize around with a coherent goal in terms of societal outcomes. YAWN...Next?
Why reinvent the wheel when the 150 year old cooperative movement accomplishes the same goals and is thriving at Mondragon, food cooperatives, and open source software?
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
So your alternative to my ideas is to let cooperatives somehow spontaneously evolve and spread to replace Billionaire-controlled, armed neo-liberal capitalism at some unknown pace that you somehow imagine is going to be timely enough to prevent the death of billions of human beings and the extinction of millions of species by the advent of the 22 century? Wow!
Why not just strap on your Harry Potter invisibility hat and wave your magic wand? Open source software and food cooperatives (laudable as they are) won't scientifically or humanely address a global over-population of 6.3 Billion people and all the costs they exact on the biosphere. Food cooperatives won't create a science-based system for creating a harmonious, empirically measurable and sustainable balance between human populations, regional industrialized habitats, regional remnant wilderness habitats, domesticated species and remnant wild species. Your assertion that your ideas here somehow "accomplish the same goals" as my ideas is tragi-comic at best.
Some ideas for solutions:
Corporate "legal personhood" should be eliminated and corporations subjected to direct oversight by elected officials in the cities, States and countries in which their businesses operate with the regulatory epicenter in the cities in which they first incorporate and receive their business operating licenses. If they behave in a manner that elected officials determine is detrimental, then their business operating licenses should be jerked and their patents seized and auctioned to more socially responsible business operators who produce similar but more economically & environmentally sustainable goods and services.
Personally I think all big businesses should be broken up and that only small to (some) medium-sized businesses should be allowed to exist. Big Oil & Coal, Big Banks, Big Insurance, Big Weapons & Mercenaries, Big Pharma and Big Media have all shown why.
I propose a modified form of Participatory Economics (parecon) that allows for small and some medium-sized business ownership, a parecon workforce with shared planning, implementation and operation of farms and manufacturing concerns, and a stock market limited to investing only in agricultural and industrial concerns that provide an environmentally and economically sustainable good or service to society.
I think there should be a parallel system for economic exchange that allows for a very gradual transition from a money economy to a work-credit economy (over a hundred years if necessary), and that people should be paid in work-credits based on the degree of physical and psychological difficulty exerted upon them and environmental threats posed to them by their occupations. Bankers, politicians, most journalists, privatized intelligence gatherers, insurance executives, drug distributors and weapons makers would not be well paid under such a system. All this would be on the microeconomic scale.
The macroeconomics of my proposed system would include a global democratic scientific decision making body composed of non-corporate-sponsored scientists from all nations who would use the best available science to make resource allocation decisions about finite resources on a global scale based on regionally tailored habitat/species/resources/human population sustainability plans that include humane methods for gradually reducing regional over-populations of human beings to environmentally sustainable levels.
The present failed course will only compound the negative global effects of rampant Third World over-populations; neo-liberal capitalism pitting work-forces around the world against each other in order to vanquish any notion of a common good or commonwealth within or among nations; spreading resource wars exacerbated by racism, sectarianism, class differences, etc., and continued deterioration of the biosphere with all its predictable and unpredictable adverse consequences.
Existing obsolete political and corporate power systems that now dominate the world are all 19th century throw-backs whose decision making is over-reliant on the subjective, self-aggrandizing, self-serving decisions of corporate owned politicians and their corporate campaign finance donor puppeteers.
A global democratic decision making body of non-corporate scientists for the macroeconomic purposes I describe above would refer to objective empirical criterion as a basis for making long-term economically and environmentally sustainable policy decisions, and thus have a fact-based yardstick by which to more competently measure competent governance and resource, species and human population management over time. The present failed system is over-reliant on highly subjective, empty and, more often than not, ahistorical, corporatist and militarist rhetoric. That rhetoric is now constantly maintained by an over-consolidated corporate media, massive corporate-funded election campaign war chests with minimal press scrutiny of their degree of factual content.
There is no widely understood, easily referenced yardstick by which to compare historical and present standards & results of good vs. bad governance. This is reflected by the present extreme imbalances in the globalized neo-liberal capitalist system in everything from the international banking corruption of credit, derivatives & real estate markets to extreme resource plundering, extreme destruction of species populations and habitats, extreme exploitation of labor forces including a resurgence of industrial slavery, sex slavery and child labor, extreme and accelerating income disparities and over-concentrations of wealth, overturning of human rights, specific civil rights and Constitutional protections (moving from the jettisoning of habeas corpus to torture-as-policy to unitary presidential claims of a fictitious "right" to assassinate U.S. citizens overseas without due process using secret presidential criterion in less than a decade).
Moving toward a more egalitarian, sustainable participatory system like the one I partially describe above cannot take place in my opinion until the old system falls of its own weight.
metal - copyright 2010
Would you please run for president?
Horace: "Force without judgment falls of its own weight."
Thank you for what I can only guess is a compliment of sorts. But all realistic campaign finance and corporate media hurdles aside, to run for president would mean that I think the now systemically corrupt American economic and political structure, with its broken Constitution and abandoned Bill of Rights, is somehow still salvageable, and that present generations of mostly dumbed-down and/or brain-washed Americans would be capable of salvaging it. I don't. Most of them have never heard of the New Deal. Most of them have been programmed right down to the poorest minorities to be either suspicious of or blindly anti-union. But the neo-lib/neo-con over-extended empire is teetering from its rulers' and infotainment pimps' own limitless greed and incompetence. For any substantive positive change to take place on a national level (and especially on a global level) that teetering ship of fools needs to surrender to its own dark gravity. Amurka in its present incarnation runs entirely too much interference with economically and environmentally sustainable progress in the world.
Population.
aka, the Pope's Revenge.
Having read the article and the comments I feel I must say this: Any and all solutions that demand absolute control over everyone and everything are just Dominionism in another disquise. That is the disease, not the cure. Until we understand that we have neither the ability, nor the right to control any other life but our own, indivdually or collectively, we will continue to be the cause of our own extinction.
Respect for life, not ill-fated attempts to control it is what is needed here. Dynamism, not dominionism will continue to be the Law the rules the living; with or without our consent.
Thank you for your consideration.
Yes.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Your post is so vague that it could be equally applied to the generic definition of anarchy or Adolph Hitler's assertion that he did not see "why man should not be just as cruel as nature." Unregulated human procreation combined with industrialized farming, industrialized transportation and industrialized medicine has led directly to the global rise in human population from roughly 1 billion in 1800 to 6.3 billion in 2010--with all its related economic and environmental fallout. Simply letting humanity breed itself and concomitantly resource pillage itself out of planet and home will only drag homo sapiens itself into the 6th great extinction event. Adolescents of any human society must learn some degree of self-discipline in order to survive. Humanity must learn some degree of mutually agreed upon self-control and self-discipline as a species in order to forego its own extinction. That will require some global degree of political organization with its own regulations and methods of enforcement. The alternative is more of what we see in the world today. Exponentially more.
In basic terms of "control" the big difference between the present systems of world governance and what the world needs for humanity to have a decent future are that the present atavistic, dysfunctional system elevates the world's capitalist ruling elite above their national and international laws and, conversely, subjects working-classes and the poor to the often arbitary and capricious laws exerted upon them by the ruling elite. In any sustainable future national or global civilization ALL classes should be subject to regulations and enforcement that perpetuate a socially just, economically fair and environmentally sustainable national or global society.
Krailey, when you see the ref's on the field, course, or ring before the sporting events start, the one thing they always say is: "Just play fair, be nice to one another and don't take it to seriously. I'm going home an take a nap. I trust you to be on your best behavior. Oh yes, and if all else fails let the market decide."
The absurdity of this is irrevocably plain to any sports fan. But start talking about work, wages, wealth, ...... (that's just the w's) and any number of other complex issues that greatly impact our lives and many lose the ability for abstract multi interdependent thinking. All to often producing the religion of libertarianism as if we've all only recently set off from points east in our wagons in the early 1800's and have staked out our claim some where west with a cabin or sod hut, axe, gun and prolific child producing woman and declared "I am free to do whatever the fuck I want."
Unfortunately, this generation has made its choice. For a good example, we repeatedly allow ourselves to get sidetracked with the war on smokers. It works every time, and for some very good reasons -- Under 18% of US adults smoke. Very few smokers actually develop a disease as a result of smoking, and most of us have no exposure whatsoever to second hand smoke, but we put tobacco second only to the threat of nuclear war. We do this because it enables us to tell ourselves that we're good, conscientious people without actually having to make any sacrifices. Finger-pointing is the most popular exercise in the US.
We know that the most carcinogenic type of smoke is the kind that contains oil particles -- from burning fossil fuels, not tobacco. So why target smokers? Precisely because few US adults smoke, while most of us drive, and most of us resist public transportation. It's easier to demand that someone else make the sacrifices. The leading cause of breathing-related disease today is (obviously) the most prevalent air pollutant, and its primary source is traffic, but no matter. We aren't going to do much more about it, and that's tragic.
This sort of reasoning extends to a full range of destructive products and practices, but the bottom line is that as long as the general public is unwilling to make changes in their own lives as well as demand changes from govt (i.e., an increase in public transportation, etc.), it's pretty much a lost cause.
"people are realizing that business is having a serious impact on biodiversity, and that business needs to be more accountable and business needs to maintain the resources that they are custodians of sustainably."
Wow, what a real insight, that business is having an impact on biodiversity. And i love how it is business that "needs to maintain the resources" as though they have any concern about sustainability, or ever had.
No, capitalism is the enemy, it is a system of greed that demands that we exploit natural resources and people for profit. It's called a class system, run by a greedy ruling class hell bent on extracting every last bit of value from the earth.
Unless we challenge the underlying values of the system, we are doomed.
This sad story prompts me to re-post the proposed =Pledge= I created in September of 2008. Notice that the words consist not of expressing loyalty to a government but to a covenant or social contract.
.
.
I pledge allegiance to the democratic ideals of the United States of America, and to my neighbors across this land of beauty who seek tolerance, liberty, justice, education, equal opportunity, a healthy populace, and accountable government of, by, and for the people.
We pledge allegiance to the goal of nonviolent conflict resolution within this nation; to peaceful co-existence among the Family of Humankind; and to fair relations with other species of life obliged to share this planet.
.
.
Trylon
I second the motion.
>>What a load of frosting out of the can!
Good one! A little glurge as the sheep are rounded up for the slaughter.
Desmond Tutu says the rich are causing the global warming disasters.The rich must take responsibility for cleaning up and repairing the damage they have done to humanity, the flora, fauna and the earth. They must understand that their behavior is causing OUR destruction.
bring back the dinosaurs...........they have a good track record.........160 million years.
homo sapiens will be long extinct before a fraction of this time passes.................
Blah, blah, blah! Blah, blah, blah!
This will likely come as a real shock to a lot of so-called Progressive readers, but the only--the ONLY--way humans will ever accomplish anything good for Earth and all its human, nonhuman, and nonliving entities will be to drive a stake through the heart of civilization! To put it more bluntly: kill syphilization! Do it now!
Don't get it? Read Derrick Jensen's book, Endgame, volumes 1 and 2 and his book, What We Leave Behind.
Still don't get it? Then continue on the path you are now following around your little Isle of Denial and "hope" that God, or some other imaginary divinity or worse, human politicians, who control the one and only party on the planet, the Capitalist/Corporatist Party, will solve the problems Earth faces! Good luck with that!
Pointblank: Kill Syphilization Now or learn to live on a dead planet!
EarthHugger
Horace: "Force without judgment will fall of its own weight."
The present global economic and political system is already slowly crashing from the weight of its own corrupt imbalances. What is your point here? Adolph Hitler once said, "I do not see why man should not be just as cruel as nature." Is it this degree of a return to nature that you are advocating? How would that be substantially different than the prevailing but failing one except in level of technology? "Might makes right" is the operant principle under the neo-liberal, Nazi fascist and animal regimes.
I have read the books you mention, but am left with much the same conundrum he seems to find himself in at the end of them. Some things are a lot easier said than done, if one is to have a real effect.
Of course, part of the problem is also to do so without killing humanity at this point. Preferably keeping as many as possible alive in fact.
Something that is going to be very difficult to do with the whole global warming and nuclear proliferation and general ecocide that has been going on...
"There is only one possible solution to this all-encompassing planetary crisis, and that is the euthanasia of capitalism, replacing it with a new economy geared to sustainable human development, ecological plenitude, and the cultivation of genuine human community. The sooner we begin to construct this qualitatively new system through our mass struggles, the better the long-term prospects for humanity and the earth will be."
- John Bellamy Foster and Fred Magdoff
Eventually, the human race after it has poisoned the atmosphere, the oceans. After we commence WWIII fighting over the remaining natural resources, oil, gas, lithium. After the bombs are dropped and the radiation is released. After the food chain collapses when all the honey bees have died off and the vegetation cannot get pollinated. ...and there is mass starvation everywhere... ...after the coral reefs have all died off too.....and the little fish that feed on the reef die off, so the bigger fish that feed on the little fish die off too........then the big fish that feed on the ........
As species after species after species become extinct, and eventually we too will become extinct just like the dinosaurs.
But even when the dinosaurs died out and the Earth went into numerous ice ages, even then, ALL LIFE did not die out.
Eventually, numerous new species evolved over time. Of course, it took 250 million years, but as George Carlin has pointed out, "The Earth has been around for Billions and Billions of years, so what's a couple of hundred million years to the Earth?" That's nothing in the breader scheme of things.
Eventually millions and millions of years from now, life on Earth will spring back in a multitude of other forms and the planet will once again be teaming with life in abundance and diversity.
So don't worry, in the long run everything will be just fine.
Hopefully, with any luck, 200 million years from now, there will be no Republicans or Democrats.
Watch this, it's good:
An Earth Day message on intellectual arrogance, from George Carlin
http://jeffreyellis.org/blog/?p=4558
The Planet is fine By Comedian George Carlin
Excerpt
“We’re so self-important. So self-important. Everybody’s going to save something now. “Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails.” And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. What? Are these fucking people kidding me? Save the planet, we don’t even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven’t learned how to care for one another, we’re gonna save the fucking planet?
I’m getting tired of that shit. Tired of that shit. I’m tired of fucking Earth Day, I’m tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren’t enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world save for their Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don’t give a shit about the planet. They don’t care about the planet. Not in the abstract they don’t. Not in the abstract they don’t. You know what they’re interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They’re worried that some day in the future, they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn’t impress me.
Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked. Difference. Difference. The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We’ve been here, what, a hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we’ve only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT to think that somehow we’re a threat? That somehow we’re gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that’s just a-floatin’ around the sun?
The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles…hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages…And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet…the planet…the planet isn’t going anywhere. WE ARE!
We’re going away. Pack your shit, folks. We’re going away. And we won’t leave much of a trace, either. Thank God for that. Maybe a little styrofoam. Maybe. A little styrofoam. The planet’ll be here and we’ll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet’ll shake us off like a bad case of fleas. A surface nuisance.
Yes, well, with all due regard for the late, great George Carlin, humans ARE killing the ecosystem--that was the topic of the article and it would be best to re-read the article if you missed that 'fact.'
Humans are like a cancer upon the planet. Most everything we do seems toxic and out-of-sync with the rest of the life on the planet. Industrial 'civilization' is a killing machine. No one is safe from the suicidal tendency of corporations to chase the bottom dollar, taking us down their rat hole with their paid-for politicians leading the way.
Our legacy - DU - Depleted Uranium.
D U are the first two letters in the expression 'Dumb fucking humans'.
With that much radiation in such a wide area, it should act as a bit of an accelerator of evolution due to increased mutation... in the long run we may end up creating almost as many species as we have killed off....
Well, I see readbetweenthe_lines ("Glad someone else posting here is not braindead." 6:44 pm post) had no trouble understanding my post at 6:13 pm!
Metal, you're not getting it. No surprise.
Metal, your "ideas for solutions" (3:46 pm post) are hackneyed old ideas that are way too little and way too late and they only tinker around the margins of the problem--Earth is dying, and we are killing it!! And your later post quoting Hitler (6:23 pm) simply attempts to cloud the issue.
Earth aches, and neither capitalism nor communism nor any other -ism will save Earth.
Again: read Derrick Jensen's thoughts (Endgame, vols. 1 & 2) on what's really killing humanity and Earth.
Humans: get off your Isle of Denial and kill civilization (syphilization) now!
Earth First (Not Humans) in All Things n' Thoughts, Deeds n' Decisions!
Earth Lives!
EarthHugger
RE: "Businesses Must Act"
Right.
Excerpt from a great interview with John Bellamy Foster:
Interviewer:
Isn't it possible that capitalists will become conscious of the urgency of the climate problem and put pressure on governments for green policies? After all, they are not helped with increasing energy costs, rising prices of raw materials, losses from ecological disaster, social upheaval, etc.
John Bellamy Foster:
Some capitalists are becoming conscious of it. But of course as actual capitalists, that is, as personifications of capital (the system of self-expanding value), their task is to expand their profits, capital, wealth. It is the fiduciary responsibility of a corporate CEO to promote the interests of stockholders above all else, which means expanding the company. One could of course imagine a case in which a corporate head became so deluded as to think that the environment came before profits in the operations of his/her firm. As long as this delusion was confined to the realm of thought probably no one would care, but the moment that executive went so far as to act on the basis of such a delusion he/she would be removed by angry shareholders. Corporations are machines for accumulation. It is as simple as that. There is nothing in the nature of rising ecological costs that will alter this in the slightest. The system can profit off of high resources costs (e.g. rising oil prices). Faced with increased costs corporations will undoubtedly shift their things around to ensure continued profitability. But the idea that they will reduce their overall ecological footprints goes against everything we know about the nature and logic of capital.
The whole interview is worth reading. Also discussed are "technological solutions" for global warming, "cap-and-trade","over-population", the massive carbon footprint of the wealthy vis-a-vis everybody else...
Source: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/foster270410.html
The issue of preserving life-on-Earth has become a religious problem now I think. Humanity, and especially many liberals, need to re-evaluate and come to appreciate the underlying principles that originally gave rise to religious sentiment, which comes as a deep and positive desire to collectively preserve societies' most dear possessions: their best knowledge of protecting their families, their communities, their livelihoods, the lands and waters that feed and nourish all of this ...
Originally and primarily intended to unify people and bring enlightenment to the mind, our world's religions have currently been usurped by our society's elite to simply be transformed into this years Reason for the Season™® of consumption, or this month's slogan to convince us to nuke a Muslim country, or next weeks excuse to beat the crap out of the gay neighbor who just moved in down the street.
People who love and care for the Earth need a healing force that can't just come from an academically posited intellectual system. It has to be both spiritually and scientifically anchored, and collectively organized as a unified front, based on real, unarguable premises of biological necessity where there is no longer any room for argument. Saving this planet is no longer for me simply about having a blog discussion. I believe it is my 'religious duty' to act in as many ways that I can, with as many others as I can, as a spiritual/ecological warrior for the health and preservation of this planet.
Sadly, its been hard for me to find in my day to day life others with whom I can share solidarity.
(please note: the following is not meant to disparage good members of the religions named) There is a banner for the Christians to stand under as they bomb the Muslims. There are banners for the Muslims to stand under as they bomb the Hindus. There are banners and insignia, and societies and gathering places for all these spiritually unified groups to come together for their strategies of opposition, xenophobia and exploitation. But where is there a meeting place, a spiritual mecca for sane people, who just want to get over all this crap, live with scientific realities, and just appreciate the differences of my fellow citizens instead of being suspicious of them? It does not exist. We need this insignia. We need to organize under ideals that we share religious/spiritual value in defending, otherwise humans won't muster the volition necessary to face this great and necessary task the we are confronting. We are literally facing off against the terminators here and we need strength that can't come from another empty political slogan.
–SS
Well said. Among the wisest and most practical of all the postings I've read thus far.
Many if not most of these folks want nothing to do with anything that has to do with organized religion- perhaps they were too traumatized by it in their youths. As an agnostic who cares far more about the big issues that we are all discussing than my own personal distaste for organized religion, I am perfectly willing to use any means that makes sense. What you are proposing makes a whole lot of sense to me.
A while back I posted the following on another thread:
"We need to start attending church. Hear me out. They represent the largest, most stable set of community organizations, and they are everywhere. Whether you believe or not, find a church near you and start going. Become a part of the community. Be upfront about the nature of your beliefs, be they religious or otherwise. Tell them that you want to become a part of their community. Tell them that you are not interested in being converted, heck the subject might not even come up at first.
Tell them that you respect the basic moral tenets of their religion, and that you want to find which values we all share and that you would like to find ways to work together to actively promote those values through practice in the larger community. You want to be involved in helping people, you want to get to know more of your neighbors, you want to build a community that cares about and for its members regardless of religious affiliation, lifestyle or political beliefs. “Love thy neighbor” is a powerful call to action and religious faith is not a requirement to give or receive that love.
Become a member of their community. Build trust. Ask hard questions about Capitalism, Nationalism, and the nature of the political process- not in a way that challenges the faith that these people have but in ways that challenge them to live the most sacred and difficult teachings of their religion: caring for the poor, the sick, widows, orphans; stewardship of Creation; peace, forgiveness, tolerance and love. This is not about trying to make people feel like hypocrites; this is about building dialogue, trust, respect, and understanding. They need to understand who we progressives are, what ultimately motivates us, and we need to extend that same understanding without malice or judgement. None of what we are talking about here has a damn thing to do with God, gays, guns and abortions. This is about what kind of world we are leaving to our children, this is about a world where the abundance of Creation has been stolen and hoarded by a few so that so many of the rest of us suffer, this is about building bridges instead of walls. If we want the rest of the country to develop compassion, to live in a way that is more sustainable, we have to start by living as members of a community that does not divide itself along religious, partisan, class, and race lines."
I wrote that and more, and got exactly zero responses.
"This loss will most directly affect the well-being of the world's poorest and most vulnerable people."
I don't know who wrote that statement in the report but I can assure that any multimillionaire CEO or otherwise wealthy person who read it probably heaved a sigh of relief and went out to celebrate.
The only people with the power to modify industry are not doing it. A human population reduction is attractive to these rich pigs. Perhaps they obsess about all the other species going extinct but then some scientific technonut tells them we can save the DNA and do a jurrasic park after most of the useless humans have been put out of their misery.
It's pretty much over already. The rich are too stupid to help. And the rest of us don't control the nuclear and chemical polluting monster in any way.