Nature’s markets got to be right eh?
They got to be Good for us and the species right?
They are our God eh?
Not so fast bro.
Hold your horses.
The freaking out markets much like wild horses, can and will destroy species and habitats solemnly and without much fanfare. Quickly and efficiently – if not ruthlessly. Much like the village Commons collapse the effects of self serving overgrazing are well understood.
Markets make very good servants but are rather lousy masters. They are absolutely horrible as religion too. You believers and zealots out there just wake up and smell the manure…
All markets do is allocate scarce resources efficiently for the short term. And that’s it – according to Adam Smith – a man who spend a little time studying them closely…
Markets were never intended to take care of our world and the species in it. That’s our job; a free people coming together to ask the question: What is our World like now and what kind of world do we want to live in…
Yes we need leadership to take us to the promised pure lands and we have it from our free thinking and unfettered actions.
Still the idiocy that we must delegate everything to the markets persists. Even the smart thinkers and Climate and Environment Economists have fallen prey to this wild dog – because they are applying the lessons of the carbon markets to biodiversity protection.
And because this is the best recipe for disaster, cooked up by smart yet short sighted economists and market lovers… we send our regrets.
Yes, we regret to say that we will abstain from partaking in this market of morons and idiotic economists.
What are the species markets like after all if not a form of monopoly game going on something like this: ”We hand over $10 million, and the fluffy animals get it in Alaska and Canada – because we can afford to pay the $5000 for a polar bear hunting licence – but we get some monkey credits from Congo, in exchange, right?”
This scene is taking place on a trading floor near You; a few years hence, should a ‘biodiversity market’ gets up enough steam and starts operating. Exactly such a market is becoming the subject of public discussion and debate among senior EU officials under the request of industry and leading Economists.
One such neophyte, pseudo conservationist Peter Carter, head of the sustainable development unit at the European Investment Bank (EIB), proposes the adoption by the EU of ‘biodiversity credits’ that for Carter, would involve “building on the lessons from the carbon market.” Notably, overzealous and Gung-ho like all white big game hunters, however, Carter went on to say that “We should not wait until the problems facing the carbon market are all resolved.”
Where are all those armed squirrels hiding when You need them, to come out and fill his ass with birdshot.
For the Environmental Parliament, this is precisely the elephant in the room when it comes to the carbon markets.
It is that the problematic aspects are of an essential nature, and to consider applying it as a model for a biodiversity market is not so much barking up the wrong tree, but plain barking mad.
Carbon trading – worth $144 billion globally in 2009 – has done nothing to halt climate change. In addition to privatising the right to pollute and turning the air we breathe into a tradable commodity, the carbon market has been a striking failure as a market, costing (more) billions in public subsidies with the potential to bring about another catastrophic speculative bubble like the one seen in mortgages. It has also had negative impacts on communities all over the world locked into dubious contracts, furthered corruption and increased inequality between North and South.
The EIB is clearly aware of these failings, and it cannot have failed to notice that one of the most high profile beneficiaries of its recent crisis-lending – steel giant Arcelor-Mittal – has been making a killing on the EU Emissions Trading Scheme due to its excessive allocation of carbon credits.
To consider applying carbon as a model for a biodiversity market is not so much barking up the wrong tree, but more plain barking mad. Mad dog darling simmer down. Wipe that foam out of your mouth – please.
Ship the bastard to the pound, best, for human species protection. Because at the end of the day we are another species ourselves and the wanton destruction of other species will soon spell our own doom. When the nice neighbouring species get to be extinct, our turn will come soonest. Remember that when your neighbour’s gone your turn isn’t far behind…
We are acting like the Black Plague for the Ecosystems and the thousands of species killed each year. Our turn isn’t far behind if we keep the despeciation rates up.
Whatever possessed the morons to create biodiversity markets that is any different than the ivory poachers auctioning off the elephant’s ivory tusks to the highest bidder in Cameroon or in Kongo…
If there is something else that marks out biodiversity and animal life and various whole taxonomies for different treatment if it is to be valued and to fall under environmental accounting and the inevitable market hammer?
On a fundamental level, while carbon emissions are a global problem, and it does not strictly matter where emissions take place, biodiversity clearly has a strong local orientation. The destruction of habitat to permit a road project in the Congo rainforest is rather different than permitting a road project in Wales.
No matter how convenient and neat it seems we cannot simply offset the Congo devastation through a project in Western England or the land of the Welsh poets. Cardiff isn’t Kinshasa. Get it?
Perhaps the nub of the issue is that business just does not like certain legislation that covers biodiversity, such as the European Commission’s Habitats Directive. Yet even if natural capital is to be calculated alongside other ‘capitals’ such as social, human, economic, industrial; still the nature protection regulations should be recognised as a clear off limits area.
Biodiversity regulations must not be watered down. Japan’s thirst and huger for whale blood and whale meat cannot be satiated anymore than UK’s sustainable development strategy for the Olympic games of 2012 for instance, captures the value of nature in monetary terms.
Because whatever else, Biodiversity and species protection regulations aim to motivate landowners to protect biodiversity in their own habitat as it is only there that can be stewards of the land and it’s living legacy. And that is the most valuable part of the equation.
The Stewardship Doctrine…
The last couple of years have seen unprecedented market failures, requiring billions in public bailouts that are about to blight European public services for a generation or more.
What we see in these albeit initial noises from a senior EIB environment official about biodiversity markets is that, in spite of considerable evidence of market failures, the EIB is still besotted with the ‘market knows best’ approach. And they have the gall to demand the same lessening of regulations that caused the banking and Financial meltdown. Only in the instance of species there isn’t a lender of last resort when Collapse ensues. There ain’t no printing press to print out species. Even Venter’s God like dreams are a bit far off to be of any use…
EIB advertising of its climate change credentials has previously featured in the world’s Media with some peculiar images of penguins basking in the strong sunshine on a receding piece of Antarctic ice-shelf.
Strong debate about biodiversity issues is clearly needed, yet on this occasion the EIB’s framing of the issue conjures up some rather frightening images. Especially, if traders are ever permitted to drive the natural world to markets much like another animated penguin image making the rounds of the social networks these days.
It’s the nasty cool and calculating penguin, who smacks the unsuspecting smaller penguin passing by – smacks him hard upside the head – and drops him in a hole…
Yours,
Pano
That’s the lasting image of European Investment banker-wanker folks and their intentions.
That of course must be kept now between the two of us, as some serious economists and friends act like silly penguins too.
Tell me learned economists: What is the market failure penalty for the Business model of human species’ disappearance?
