Global Warming

Article Summary

John S Veitch
The Network Ambassador

The breakdown of the financial system we see in 2009, is related to the obvious global warming that is occurring and to our failure to find an easy solution.
All of our leading traditional industries are part of the problem. If you want to invest, which companies should we avoid? You can see the problem.
Few of the existing businesses are adapted to the future that is coming. As environmental problems increase, good options become fewer and fewer.

Deforestation around the world destroys natural capital of between $2 trillion and $5 trillion every year for a fraction of that in forest products.
We use resources faster than they re-develop because we choose to ignore the cost. Apparently "its free". At some future time nature will send us a message.

We have strong evidence that governments will NEVER act to restrict the destructive economic activities of commercial interests.
In the North Sea and on the West Coast of the USA, repeated warnings about over-fishing were not sufficiently heeded and eventually the fish stocks collapsed.
When told what they need to do people plead that no government would be able to bring in such strong restrictions on the way people live and get reelected.
The "political cost" is too high, so atmospheric pollution will continue, the Greenland ice sheet is likely to melt, sea levels will rise, and global food supplies will fall.
Millions of people will die and that will be "politically acceptable". We will call that an act of nature, and excuse ourselves. History shows that we'll choose ignorance.
The Kyoto Protocol is a failure. The National Academy of Sciences finds that; "No region on earth is decarbonizing its energy supply" as the Kyoto Protocol intended.
No government anywhere in the world has made a serious attempt to do what's essential. Until the public FORCE them to act no government will.

In my own view, only strong democratic countries with informed citizens are capable of FORCING decarbonizing policies into law.
Prof. Robert Costanza, believes that the 2009 financial crisis is an opportunity to put the economy right.
The natural world he says, "is not free" and we have to introduce the concept of natural capital into our balance sheets and to our profit and loss assessments.
The current practice to value those services at ZERO is clearly wrong, and leads us to make errors of judgment whenever we make financial decisions.

If you need the original article it's here.