Standard economics ignores environmental contribution.

You haven't spoken or argued for serious economics, and don't appear to have made a single actual economic point during this entire thread. If you are just pimping environmental services of some type or another, then just say so and we can discuss that.

 

Thanks for making my point.

 

That you can't even frame your question within the context of economics? Sure...you're welcome.

 

Or whatever.

Good place to end it.

 

I'm always looking for a good argument. Here's an interesting discussion by Monbiot, where he even attacks the concept of "environmental services" as coopting natural values. He sees the virtuous intent to supply an alternative to conventional market economics but feels nevertheless too much of a Philistine undermining of nature is still going on. In my view economics is the way we usually determine value, like it or not, and finding some way of determining its natural component beyond the obvious GDP math is part of bringing the value of nature into view. Too bad we aren't all pure aesthetes but we have to do the best we can. I think, for instance, the value of photosynthesis is clearly measurable. Still George offers some good points in his wide ranging discussion.

http://www.theguardian.com/environm.../24/price-nature-neoliberal-capital-road-ruin

Here is one perspective he offers.

This sounds good but of course even hunting and gathering folks applied specialized activities and exploited the environment to secure their survival. They used primitive money and they traded. It's the value they gave to the life support system around them that distinguished them. Their environment nourished them so they sustained it and appreciated the limits of exploitation. But they surely were well versed in their own economics.

Here is another.

It seems to me that the issue here is relative power relations, not determining the economic value of the mangroves and the shrimp farms. It certainly is an argument for greater political equity.

 

Apples and oranges comparison, even you should have spotted this nonsense Dingo.

$1,200 per hectare is within a human economic value system...there is no such human value of what fish and crustaceans want of mangrove swamps, therefore there is no value to the humans. So mangroves are worth $0/hectare...and therefore it makes perfect sense to replace it with a shrimp farm, which does have a value in traditional human economic systems. No relative power issues at all, except that of humans having more power than the fish and crustaceans in terms of valuing a thing.

 

Environmental economics is pretty basic now to business despite some head-in-the-sand folks who seem to have inverted conventional economics over the environment in relative importance. Let's see what the Japanese have to say.

http://www.env.go.jp/en/policy/ssee/eag05.pdf

 

Not necessarily. If animal 1 feeds off plant 1 and animal 2 feeds off animal 1 and humans eat animal 2 then plant 1 and animal 1 have some human economic value if you really want to be nitpicky about it because but for plant 1 and animal 1 there would not be animal 2.

Of course, part of the problem is that people do not readily adapt their diets to changes in ecosystems in a modern world. Some societies do, but the west lags considerably. Some have adapted a "eat the invaders" attitude to keep their ecosystems in balance--the chinese starting to eat the jellyfish for instance. Of course the problem with putting a dollar figure on it is that is X-tons per person of Tuna at $Y is replaced by 5X tons per person of jelly fish at 50% of $Y, is that necessarily good or bad. Great for consumers but bad for Tuna fishermen.

 

So how does this schema then flow into a calculation of cost or demand? So the mangrove trees have a value to the rest of the ecosystem needing them, let us say we kill off the mangrove trees, and then the ecosystems crash around it. There is undoubtedly an economic value to the missing pieces of that ecosystem, but how does that value then translate into a value to match against the shrimp farm and $1200/hectare?

If the mangrove based ecosystem supports...I don't know...sweet corn...then you could calculate the value of sweetcorn production in comparison to shrimp production...I could see that. The sweetcorn might still lose obviously.

And thusly does the human economic system work. And this is why the original concept, of trying to get eco-concepts into human economic systems, just doesn't work. Maybe it SHOULDN'T work, they just aren't the same way of calculating value.

 

It would depend upon one's assumptions. I do not buy their bottom line number and I think any number would be highly circumspect, but that does not mean it cannot be done. It is just a question of the utility of doing it. We do not make rational choices, economically or otherwise. We prefer oak floors when bamboo is better; we prefer to allow people to grow cotton instead of hemp when hemp would make more economic sense, etc. I guess the best example would be a woman I know who says she cannot afford to grow her own food, but she has beds full of flowers. You can buy cell packs of veg for what (and sometimes less) than you can buy cellpacks of flowers. She simply prefers the flowers, but in her mind, there is an economic barrier where non exists.

 

I can agree with that. Interestingly, there are those on both sides who object to even the ATTEMPT to doing it, because they are afraid of the answer. Saw this once in a technical meeting where the oil and gas folks came up with a way to attach the value of something MISSING to the biologics in a system. The biologists just went bananas, literally, when they realized that the answer to "what does it cost to keep my ecosystem intact" could be related to BBLs and MCFs and therefore $$. The fear appeared to be that the average person would go for the oil and gas development because it related to their daily lives, and to heck with some bunnies or sawgrass. Swearing was involved, and loud voices, it was a fascinating meeting to be involved in, watching the conflict between the sciences.

An economist would say that while not all actors are rational, the macro level results are still predictable. And then they throw in a caveat about how their assumptions tend to depend on a free market environment rather than one being manipulated.

 

It somewhat relates to arguments about land use. If one acre yields X amount of beans at y cost, that can be put into dollar numbers. If that same acre is left fallow for future use to grow beans when your current bean field is nutritionally depleted, it becomes highly suspect as to how you put a dollar number on that. Likewise, if the beans you grow are high yielding but nutritionally inferior, you can put a dollar number on the high yield but not the nutritional deficiency in comparison to a lower yielding but more nutritionally rich bean.

There are many perspectives. Kudzu is treated as an invasive weed with a cost associated with eradication, but it is edible, its fibers could be used for production, and it has been known to absorb and stabilize low level radioactive water. So would we measure its value in the cost of spraying for it or in its potential uses?

The list goes on and on of how this would be a fool's errands to try to put into economic terms.

 

Strange the most incoherent economics is the standard that most folks anoint as real economics. For instance economic growth increases with the burning of coal. Of course the fact that it is wrecking the environment and people's health is not factored in as a negative. Once you change the criteria to an environmentally positive standard, something related to sustainability in the long term, then the Econ. 1A crowd start screaming THAT'S NOT REAL ECONOMICS!

Insane but I get to read that kind of stuff right on this thread.

 

An amazing comment, considering that no one has written what you claim in this thread.

 

In substance you have. But as I've commented before your inability to read yourself is well established.

 

You are too fixated on cap and trade carbon taxes to see the forest. Hydroelectric would even have a ecosystem cost because it alters ecosystem. That is why people are blowing up old dams. The only way to reduce ecosystem drain would be to significantly reduce the standard of living.

 

I read fine. I also am quite literal, and know the difference between what I wrote, and how someone else, desiring nothing more than to pretend to win internet debating points, improperly characterizes it.

- - - Updated - - -

and at its ultimate extreme, dispense with the existence of people altogether.

 

As far as I'm concerned cap and trade is a scam. Now a real carbon tax makes sense. Any reason folks shouldn't start moving toward paying off the real costs of their fossil fuel use?

So does a beaver dam. Simply throwing out a generic statement like denialists do as in "Well climate changes naturally" adds nothing to the discussion.

That's of course ridiculous. Better use of resources and a lower population for instance would improve our standard of living unless your only criteria is more, more, more.

 

No, you just want to tax corporations for supplying you with your wants.

Then why did you bring up beaver dams. Hydroelectric dams do not occur naturally. I do agree, however, that you have added nothing to the discussion.

There is no "better use" in relation to carbon output if we already exceed the alleged tipping point of output. There is use or non-use. There is no in-between. Standards of living have to be lowered.

 

Do you? And if you don't, why should they?

A starting point based on one of the few facts of the case adds nothing? I beg to differ.

but of course you arrive at the logical conclusion to the entire schema…controlling things we don't like in others…and we will TRUST that the right people lower our population in a way happy to all..and failing that…well….they will just find a way to get rid of those that don't agree with them, they have the wrong ethnic or racial background, aren't of the same religion, etc etc.

The story is as old as mankind itself, only the mechanism of how it is sold has changed through time.

 

I'm a pay for what you use guy. A hefty gas tax would be good for a start. So I take it you want your nanny state subsidies even if it means destroying the planet.

Because they met your stated criteria. And yes you added nothing to the discussion.

I haven't the slightest idea of what you are talking about. I wonder if you do.

 

I notice with you everything devolves down to an obsession with something or somebody trying to control you. At some point you might want to deal with a topic on its merits and realize it's not all about you and your paranoid obsessions.

 

More likely the other way around.

It had nothing to do with my "stated criteria" since I did not state a criteria. You blast natural occurring things and beaver dams at the same time. Big old fail pail. There is a carbon cost to build hydroelectric dams because you know, all that concrete has to be made by people who have to drive to work and stuff.

Your ignorance required no admission, but thanks anyways.

 

No doubt there is some linguistic expert who can decipher your incoherence. Sorry I'm not up to the challenge. Your two other attempts I will let stand as double downs on my points.

 

You are not up to many challenges. You are on this thread crying about carbon output while on another thread crying about needing more infrastructure projects like new roads that are just slathered with petroleum products. I imagine expecting constancy from some one, or at least a pretense of it, appears incoherent to people whose knowledge depends upon wiki and the huffington post.

Here you go champ--the NOAA estimates that if carbon were reduced to zero output today, it would still take 1,000 years for the environment to stabilize. Reducing the rate of carbon output growth does NOTHING, ZERO, NOT A THING to stop this alleged global warming, and neither will taxing it to pay for your carbon free roads used by carbon free vehicles filled with people running to the Whole Foods to buy their garlic grown in Brazil that was shipped here in your carbon free boats via Fantasy Island.