Abuse of Ecosystem Threatens Earth
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) predicts an increased risk of abrupt collapses in nature that could spur disease, deforestation or “dead zones” in the seas. Sudden changes in water quality, the collapse of fisheries and shifts in regional climate are other likely features of our over-use of resources, it warns.
It doesn’t take a genius to realize that use of resources at unsustainable rates can’t last forever.
“At the heart of this assessment is a stark warning,” said the 45-member board of the MEA. “Human activity is putting such strain on the natural functions of Earth that the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted.”
So what is the solution? Strict conversion to an anti-capitalist platform advocated by many leftist environmentalists before its too late? Not so fast.
Check out this TCS Article which talks about this report, and also the conclusions of how to solve the problems, which have been much less reported on.
Now that’s what I call shocking and almost unbelievable, that 1,300 scientists from 95 countries, working under the auspices of the United Nations, seem to have drunk the free market Kool-Aid. The end result of this years-long investigation is that us free market tree hugger and greenie types are actually correct in our contention that it is not the presence of markets, or the failure of markets, that leads to the devastation, it is the absence of markets. Just as we have had to, in centuries gone by, work out a system of laws that allows markets to flourish, thereby leading to the most efficient usage of resources, so now the task is to do the same for those areas of life where there are no markets. In water, pollution, fishing quotas, tropical forestry, in, in fact, all those sectors where we face the Tragedy of the Commons.
I don’t think that pure privatisation will solve all environmental issues, but it can solve a lot of them.
I think this is an example of conclusion-first-facts-second reasoning. Just because there are some instances in which a market -based solution is environmental doesn’t mean that will be the case all the time. The classic example of where the free market creates incentives to pollute is where a rational economic actor finds that the cost he or she bears as a result of the marginal pollution he or she releases downstream is outweighed by the cost of disposing of waste cheaply. Replicate this individual economic incentive across a free-market economy and you get a lot of pollution. That’s why it’s appropriate sometimes to have government regulation for purposes of stopping pollution.