Let’s take a look at a few studies that have come out recently and see if we can find a common thread.
- A West Virginia University researcher found that “coal mining costs Appalachians five times more in early deaths as the industry provides to the region in jobs, taxes and other economic benefits,” reports the Charleston Gazette.
- The Mountain Association for Community Economic Development found that “the coal industry takes $115 million more from Kentucky’s state government annually in services and programs than it contributes in taxes,” reports the Lexington Herald-Leader.
- A recent peer-reviewed paper in the journal Science found that areas of Brazil that cut down their rainforests to sell the wood or plant crops “do see a short-term boost in per-capita income, life expectancy, and literacy rates,” reports The Vine. “But once the trees are gone, those gains disappear, leaving deforested municipalities just as poor as those that preserved their forests.”
- The International Fund for Animal Welfare found that “in 2008 whale-watching generated $2.1 billion of tourism revenue worldwide ... more than double the estimated $one billion generated by the industry in 1998,” reports Agence France-Presse. Said Australia Environment Minister Peter Garrett, “Whales are worth much more alive than dead.”
- The University of Michigan found that “the Detroit Three automakers can become more profitable and slow the growth of their Japanese rivals if they simply meet tougher new government-mandated fuel economy standards,” reports the Detroit Free Press.
These are disparate areas of study and disparate conclusions. One thing they all have in common: an environment-degrading practice often defended as necessary to economic health is revealed, upon closer inspection, to be uneconomic. I wonder how many other allegedly economic environment-degrading practices would also be revealed uneconomic if examined with a fresh eye?
It’s almost like the economy is embedded in an environment, and degrading the latter ultimately degrades the former.
Cautious optimism for Copenhagen deal as Barcelona climate talks end
Another coal plant bites the dust
Barcelona outcome: White House strategy is plea for more time
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Tyler Durden Posted 12:10 am
01 Jul 2009
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walt k Posted 7:36 pm
01 Jul 2009
Barbara Kingsolver- "Recall that whatever lofty things you might accomplish today, you will do them only because you first ate something that grew out of dirt."--Forward, The Essential Agrarian Reader;
Sen. Gaylord Nelson- "The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment." c. 1970;
Wendell Berry- "The environment is the economy." and "Nature bats last.";
William O. Douglas- "I am for the individual over government, government over big business and the environment over all";
Lyndon B. Johnson- "Three things, and three things only, sustain life on this planet. They are: a thin layer of soil, a cover of atmosphere, and a little rainfall. That is all the Lord has given us. Except one thing: He has given us a choice of what we do with it. We can waste it. We can pollute it. We can neglect it. Or we can conserve it, and we can protect it, and we can develop it, and we can pass it on to our children more promising, more abundant than we received it."-- 25 September 1964;
Sir Albert Howard- "The real Arsenal of Democracy is a fertile soil, the fresh produce of which is the birthright of nations." -- The Soil and Health;
Short answer, everyone with a brain who was willing to use it knew. And this fella not only knew, but could tell us about the folks who didn't ---Will Rogers- "You know, we're always talking about pioneers and what great folks the old pioneers were. Well, I think if we just stopped and looked at history in the face, the pioneer wasn't a thing in the world but a guy that wanted something for nothing. He was a guy that wanted to live off of everything that nature had done. He wanted to cut a tree down that didn't cost him anything, but he never did plant one. He wanted to plow up the land that should have been left to grass. We're just now learning that we can rob from nature the same way as we can rob from an individual. All he had was an ax, and a plow, and a gun, and he just went out and lived off nature. But really, he thought it was nature he was living off of, but it was really future generations that he was living off of." 1932
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sindark Posted 11:43 am
07 Jul 2009
‘balance the economy and the environment.’ I think this is a misleading
categorization for two reasons. Firstly, the balance has always been tilted virtually 100% towards the
economy, in Canada at least. When the government talks about the need to scale
back climate mitigation programs for economic reasons, they are talking about
scaling back a handful of ineffectual programs that are not proving effective at
reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The ‘balance’ dial between environment and
economy is already twisted sharply towards the latter. Secondly, even if we completely ignore the natural environment, the need to
mitigate emissions remains. The Canadian economy could not survive the
consequences of unrestrained emissions and climate change, with a temperature
increase of 5.5°C to 7.1°C by 2100. If we care at all about the state of the
economy 20, 50, and 80 years out, we need to avoid catastrophic climate
change. The economic analyses of mitigation that have been undertaken in the UK,
Australia, and elsewhere have painted the same broad picture: it is possible to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly at a modest cost, provided you
start early. The costs associated with inaction are much higher than those
associated with this mitigation programme. To succeed, the whole economy needs
to be pushed in the direction of decarbonization – a fact that remains true
regardless of what balance you care to strike between economic health across the
long term and environmental protection.
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Username Posted 6:24 am
14 Jul 2009
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