Saturday, May 11, 2019
Mitchell Anderson: Traditional Economics Has Absolutely Screwed Us. UN’s biodiversity crisis report screams for new ways of natural accounting. Capitalism is killing the planet. That is the gist of an exhaustive United Nations report on the bleak state of the world’s biodiversity. One million species face extinction in what has been aptly called a global murder-suicide, driven by a race to commodify ecosystems and externalize the costs of their destruction. If you were looking for a perky read to start your week, this report was not it. However, the collective efforts of 350 leading experts from 51 countries have resulted in the definitive wake-up call for those still doubting the dire consequences of business-as-usual on our one and only planet.
A Noah’s ark of iconic species seems bound for oblivion due to our growing collective consumption and population. Will your children be able to enjoy a world with wild elephants, orcas, or blue whales? Sixty per cent of primate species are threatened with extinction. The taste of a tuna sandwich may soon be consigned to lore.
All of this has been happening in plain view but only recently has this become economically relevant by cutting into the bottom line. Up to $577 billion in global crop production is at risk due to collapsing populations of pollinating insects.
One-third of commercial fish stocks are in steep decline with another 60 per cent being fully exploited, leaving only seven per cent of the world’s fisheries under safe management. This is exacerbated by regulatory failure where landings may be 50 per cent higher than reported, and illegal fishing accounts for up to one-third of the global catch.
Expanding agriculture is one of the main drivers of exploding extinction rates. Between 1980 and 2000, about 100 million hectares of tropical forests — roughly the area of France and Germany combined — were converted for grazing, monoculture plantations like palm oil, or short-term subsistence farming. Desperate humans and multinational companies both encroach on remaining rainforests, seeing only as far as the next growing season or financial quarter.
Why does economics prioritize palm oil over orangutans? Because palm plantations are profitable, producing almost five times the oil yield per hectare of sunflowers, coconut or soybeans. Consumers too unintentionally contribute to this destruction, driving a market for a ubiquitous ingredient found in everything from lipstick to ice cream. Good people bustling through their busy day unaware of the treasures being knocked to the floor in nature’s china shop.
Conventional capitalism is failing because it considers the services provided by nature such as oxygen and food production as free and limitless. Only an economist could fail to see how a collapsing biosphere might be bad for business. Thankfully the dismal science is belatedly beginning to account for some glaring omissions on the planetary balance sheet.
The World Bank is now promoting natural capital accounting, which includes the living world in those metrics worthy of measure. Seen through that recently radical lens, many of economic tools trotted out for decades by policy-makers are profoundly counterproductive.
The UN study found that $325 billion in subsides shoveled at the fossil fuel industry around the world actually result in $5 trillion in costs to degraded natural systems on which our survival depends. A further $100 billion in handouts to the agricultural sector also helps accelerate extinctions.
Throwing public money at the fishing industry to scale up already devastating catching capacity is another bad habit embraced by almost every non-landlocked nation on Earth. It seems the first step in ending a planetary breakdown is to stop funding it with our tax dollars.
Economic failures abound elsewhere. Allowing our oceans to be used as a free garbage dump has driven a 10-fold increase in marine plastic pollution since 1980, threatening 86 per cent of marine turtle species and almost half the seabirds and marine mammals.
And in case you needed another reason to dislike tax havens, UN researchers have you covered. Besides shielding up to 15 per cent of global wealth in jurisdictions of convenience, it turns out tax havens also play a significant role in the demise of ecosystems by channeling money to the majority of vessels implicated in illegal fishing.
Looming over all these various threats to the natural world are ever-increasing concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases. Without comprehensive carbon pricing, fossil fuel companies can continue to externalize the costs of their dangerous product at the expense of our children’s future.
+++ It is also not surprising that the UN found those areas controlled by some form of Indigenous governance — at least one-quarter of the world’s land base — had significantly healthier ecosystems. Having a cultural connection to the land coupled with ancient local knowledge avoids replicating many of the mistakes so often made by so-called experts. A healthy distance from the wage economy seems to help as well.
If we are trying to find a balance of humans and nature on the land, why not look to those who have been doing exactly that for millennia? The long overdue process of Indigenous reconciliation is not a lefty luxury; it is vital for biosphere survival.
However, First Nations, like nature, are also under assault. According to the UN, Indigenous peoples around the world report increasing examples of illegal incursions on their land, destruction of surrounding areas and targeting of their leadership. Between 2002 and 2013, at least 1,000 environmental and Indigenous activists and journalists have been murdered or collaterally killed in resource-related conflicts.
The future hangs in the balance, perched on a ballot box. Are we going to support leaders with the courage to face the future, or dangerous populists harkening to the past? The election of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro may go down in history as one of the world’s great ecological catastrophes. Eight former ministers in previous Brazilian governments warned this week that Bolsonaro is systematically destroying legal protections for the rainforest and Indigenous peoples.
"People with disabilities are used to adapting because the world isn’t built to fit us.”
A FEMINIST SISTER AND WICCAN WHOM I KNOW WAS IN SAMOIS THE WOMEN'S LESBIAN SM GROUP, AND SHE ALSO WORKED WITH THE DISABLED, AS WELL AS BEING DISABLED AS HAVE SEVERAL OTHER MEMBERS OF THE KINK COMMUNITY I HAVE KNOWN.
A terse disagreement on the floor of the Alabama Senate Thursday led lawmakers to table a controversial abortion bill until at least next week.
BAD ENOUGH ALEXA FOR ADULTS DOES THIS, AS DOES SIRI AND OTHER VOICE ACTIVATED AI APPS FOR YOUR HOME
Amazon
workers reportedly listen to what you tell Alexa — here's how Apple and Google
handle what you say to their voice assistants
Amazon
has people transcribing your conversations with Alexa
Alexa
Is Listening All The Time: Here's How To Stop It
Your Phone Is Listening and it's Not Paranoia
Is
your smartphone listening in on your conversations? | One Page
It's
not paranoia, your phone really IS listening to you
No,
you’re not being paranoid, your phone really IS listening to you
Why
people think their phones are listening to them
Is this proof your smart phone is eavesdropping on EVERY single word you say?
Is your smartphone listening to everything you say? We asked the experts
Apple's Siri interrupted the UK defense secretary during an important speech: 'It is very rare that you're heckled by your own mobile phone'
Which Smart Speaker Should You Trust Most—and Least?
Retail giant Amazon is being accused of capturing and saving customers' voice conversations through its popular Echo Dot digital assistant for children, advocacy groups said in a complaint Thursday
VOICE ASSISTANTS
AMAZON ALEXA / ECHO
Amazon Admits Listening To Alexa Conversations: Why It Matters
Amazon
workers reportedly listen to what you tell Alexa — here's how Apple and Google
handle what you say to their voice assistants
Amazon
has people transcribing your conversations with Alexa
Thousands of Amazon Workers Listen to Alexa Users' Conversations
Analysis | The Technology 202: Alexa, are you spying on me? Here's why smart speakers raise serious privacy concerns
Alexa
Is Listening All The Time: Here's How To Stop It
Amazon Listens to Random Echo Owners' Alexa Commands of Things?"
Amazon Alexa user receives 1,700 audio recordings of a stranger through ‘human error’
Is your Amazon Alexa spying on you?
Do you swear at Alexa? What our treatment of AI assistants says about humans
The Deliberate Design Flaw In Every Amazon Echo
APPLE SIRI
Apple considering offline mode for Siri that could process voice locally on an iPhone
Siri is always listening. Are you OK with that?
How to Keep Commercials from Activating Your Smart Speaker
Apple Addresses Privacy Questions About ‘Hey Siri’ And Live Photo Features
Female digital assistants like Alexa and Siri remain popular in Silicon Valley. It's time to boycott them.
SMART PHONES
Your Phone Is Listening and it's Not Paranoia
You're not paranoid, your phone really IS listening to EVERYTHING you say
Is
your smartphone listening in on your conversations? | One Page
It's
not paranoia, your phone really IS listening to you
I thought I was paranoid but now I’m 100% sure our phones are listening to us – and I’ve got proof
No,
you’re not being paranoid, your phone really IS listening to you
Why
people think their phones are listening to them
Is this proof your smart phone is eavesdropping on EVERY single word you say?
Is your smartphone listening to everything you say? We asked the experts
Apple's Siri interrupted the UK defense secretary during an important speech: 'It is very rare that you're heckled by your own mobile phone'
Security experts WARNS your phone LISTENS to EVERYTHING you say to target ads
HOW TO STOP YOUR DEVICES FROM LISTENING TO YOU
How to stop your devices from listening to (and saving) everything you say
Which Smart Speaker Should You Trust Most—and Least?
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