I understand what liberal economists won't talk seriously about
slowing or stopping growth in the US economy. But why won't PEN-L
touch it?
Conservatives believe growth is good, the WD-40 for all problems.
Liberals won't advocate stopping growth as the crisis response because
it is career threatening. But why won't PEN-L seriously discuss this?
There is a way to stop growth and at the same time have the possiblity
of a real correction in the mal-distribution of income and wealth in
the US. As the Sandwichman has been showing, cutting working hours
is the most important crisis response.
Gus Speth, Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental
Studies, a man TIME magazine called "the ultimate insider" has written
about the crisis of capitalism. He calls for dealing with growth.
The book is utopian in many dimensions, including one of his key
ideas, nicer corporations that don't have growth as an objective. He
lays out and documents the environmental crisis in his book and now in
many other places, such as the text below that appeared in The
Nation. Speth does mention cutting working time, but doesn't develop
the point nor does he offer how to go about it. But what about
economists?
Robert Frank, from Cornell, wrote a popular book that sold well,
Luxury Fever. In it he deplored rampant consumerism and also attacked
the exisitng income distribution. He ended lamely by suggesting
higher taxes on the rich as a remedy for both, but remarked that such
wouldn't pass Congress. He didn't touch growth or worktime as the
solution.
Economists won't touch the growth subject. Why won't PEN-L?
Gene Coyle
Here's Gus Speth
“Sadly, while environmentalists have been winning many battles, we are
losing the planet. Half the world’s tropical and temperate forests
are gone. The rate of deforestation in the tropics is about an acre a
second. Half the planet’s wetlands are gone. An estimated 90 percent
of the large predator fish are gone and 75 percent of marine fisheries
are overfished, fished to capacity or depleted, up from 5 percent a
few decades ago. Twenty percent of the corals are gone; another 20
percent severely threatened. Species are disappearing about 1,000
times faster than normal. The planet has not seen such a spasm of
extinction in 65 million years, since the dinosaurs disappeared. Each
year desertification claims a Nebraska-sized area of productive
capacity worldwide. Toxic chemicals can be found by the dozens in
essentially every one of us.
Earth’s ozone layer was severely depleted before the change was
discovered. Human activities have pushed atmospheric carbon dioxide
levels up by more than a third and have started the most dangerous
change of all -- planetary warming and climate disruption. Earth’s
ice fields are melting. Industrial processes are fixing nitrogen,
making it biologically active, at a rate equal to nature’s; one result
is the development of hundreds of dead zones in the oceans because of
overfertilization. Withdrawals of fresh water consume more than half
of accessible runoff, and water shortages are multiplying here and
abroad. The following rives no longer reach the oceans n the dry
season: the Colorado, Yellow, Ganges and Nile, among many others.”
James Gustave Speth, “Progressive Fusion” , The Nation, October 6,
2008, p. 28. This is essentially the same as he writes on page 1 and
2 of The Bridge at the Edge of the World, Yale University Press, 2008,
where the claims are footnoted with documentation.
On Oct 29, 2008, at 6:06 AM, Louis Proyect wrote:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/oct/29/climatechange-endangeredhabitats
The Guardian, Wednesday October 29 2008
by Juliette Jowit
World is facing a natural resources crisis worse than financial crunch
• Two planets need by 2030 at this rate, warns report
• Humans using 30% more resources than sustainable
The world is heading for an "ecological credit crunch" far worse
than the current financial crisis because humans are over-using the
natural resources of the planet, an international study warns today.
The Living Planet report calculates that humans are using 30% more
resources than the Earth can replenish each year, which is leading
to deforestation, degraded soils, polluted air and water, and
dramatic declines in numbers of fish and other species. As a result,
we are running up an ecological debt of $4tr (£2.5tr) to $4.5tr
every year - double the estimated losses made by the world's
financial institutions as a result of the credit crisis - say the
report's authors, led by the conservation group WWF, formerly the
World Wildlife Fund. The figure is based on a UN report which
calculated the economic value of services provided by ecosystems
destroyed annually, such as diminished rainfall for crops or reduced
flood protection.
< snip >
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