Tag: Social Costs

EcoEconomics in a Nutshell

Our free market economy is nothing more than a huge auction called ‘Supply and Demand’, which – very efficiently – puts a price on on everything.

The problem is that it allows us to sell everything – the last drop of oil, the last tree, the last fish, the last of everything. It’s called growth – but it is, obviously, growth into oblivion – the exact opposite of EcoEconomics. It is a fatal flaw of our present economic system.

Or, as Greenpeace puts it: “When the last tree is cut, the last river poisoned, and the last fish dead, we will discover that we can’t eat money…”

[…]

The eco-economic price for a natural resource is, therefore, the price you would have to pay if our planet were to release that resource only at a sustainable level.

Who can put a Price on the Environment?  … We all should.

Afterall if we end up decimating the planet’s EcoSystems —  trying to sell off their once abundant natural resources — We can’t eat the money … or gold either, can we?

“This is an impressive crowd: the Have’s and Have-more’s. Some people call you the elites. I call you my base.”

George W. Bush

“It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for its own sake.”

Margaret Thatcher

“Being rich is having money; being wealthy is having time.”

Margaret Bonnano

lest we forget …

Sea creatures flee oil spill, gather near shore

by Jay Reeves, John Flesher, Tamara Lush (AP) — Jun 16, 2010

GULF SHORES, Ala. – Dolphins and sharks are showing up in surprisingly shallow water just off the Florida coast. Mullets, crabs, rays and small fish congregate by the thousands off an Alabama pier. Birds covered in oil are crawling deep into marshes, never to be seen again.

Marine scientists studying the effects of the BP disaster are seeing some strange phenomena.

Fish and other wildlife seem to be fleeing the oil out in the Gulf and clustering in cleaner waters along the coast in a trend that some researchers see as a potentially troubling sign.

The animals’ presence close to shore means their usual habitat is badly polluted, and the crowding could result in mass die-offs as fish run out of oxygen. Also, the animals could easily get devoured by predators.

“A parallel would be: Why are the wildlife running to the edge of a forest on fire?

But, but those Sea Critters, CAN’T RUN onto the Land, most of them.

BP Hard To Pin Down On Oil Spill Claims

NPR, Morning Edition – May 24, 2010

Yuki Noguchi

BP has repeatedly said it would pay all legitimate claims resulting from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but such promises raise a crucial question: What exactly does “legitimate claim” mean?

[…]

BP has declined to define the term or provide examples.

BP American President Lamar McKay remained steadfastly vague during a Senate hearing this month. Despite prodding from Washington Democrat Maria Cantwell, McKay would not veer off of his message: We’re going to pay all legitimate claims.

A BP spokesman declined to discuss the company’s definition of “legitimate.” In an e-mail, the spokesman said BP hired a firm called ESIS to assess all oil spill claims. As of last week, it had received nearly 16,000 claims. The spokesman said BP has in some cases paid some claims within 48 hours of receiving supporting documentation.

What exactly does “legitimate claim” mean?   Good Question.

Cool, being a life-long Science fan, I have always liked Experiments …

But I generally prefer those of the ‘Controlled Experiment’ variety.  Those fly-by-night Variety, like combining a jet of Hair Spray with a tiny Lighter flame, always left me a little frightened.

Funny, I’m starting to feel that way again …

As the oil gushes from the broken well head at the sea floor, Rader says it has the potential to contaminate each layer of the water column that, “directly exposes those animals to toxicity, at the surface including the very sensitive surface zones where not only sea turtles and marine mammals and sea birds can be oiled, but also where the highways for fish larvae exist. And then as it rains back into the abyss over a much wider area carrying toxicants back into the deep sea where ancient corals and other sensitive ecosystems exist.”

One response strategy has been to use dispersants or anti-freeze-like chemicals to break the oil up into smaller globules.

[…]

It is a choice, he says, between two bad options. While the chemicals may protect birds and other wildlife by dissipating the slick before it reaches shore, their toxicity in the Gulf could harm fish and other marine life.

Michael Moore’s new film puts spotlight on Petaluma company

By Jeremy Hay, Press Democrat

In “Capitalism: A Love Story,” which opens today around the country, Moore takes aim at what he characterizes as a capitalist culture run amok.

He holds up the bakery – with 117 employees and $24 million in annual revenues – as an example of a successful capitalist alternative, where workers are as powerful as executives, profits are shared equally and workers are valued for more than their labor.

“This could be potentially a new model,” said Cory Fisher, a field producer and researcher for Moore. “A way for workers to feel engaged and not marginalized, and that they have a stake in their future.”

[…]

“They stood out,” she said. “They’re successful, their workers are able to make a living wage, they seem empowered and happy and you just start to look around and wonder, “Why aren’t other companies doing this?”

Why aren’t other companies doing WHAT?

Starting their own, Employee Owned Business.

In case you missed it the stock market lost about a 1000 points a few days ago — all in a matter of minutes.

It was in “free fall” — market traders were bailing left and right.

With the Greek Euro Debt crisis, serving as a back-drop — Stock Prices in rapid decline, was the last thing Institutional Fund managers wanted to see.  Kind of makes you want to sell ‘before it’s too late’ too.

Many of them did.  

But then almost magically, the stock market fall slowed, paused, and then begun a similarly rapid return.  The bungee chord dynamic, reached its limit — and thankful — rebounded.

But what if next time, the Market gets spooked like that, and goes into a cascade of frenzied selling … what if the next time …

It just keeps falling ?    say goodbye to those 401k and Pension funds     [if you haven’t already, that is].

US oil regulator ‘gave in to BP’ over rig safety

Firm allowed to drill without devising plan to cope with blow-out

By David Usborne, independent.uk, US Editor — Friday, 7 May 2010

As crude oil continued to pour out of control into the Gulf of Mexico yesterday, questions were being asked over the relationship between BP and regulators in Washington amid allegations that the company was allowed to drill the deepwater well without filing plans for how it would cope with a blow-out like the one now in hand.

Crude Oil Futures: Crude Oil Tops $100 for 2018 on Threat From BP Spill

Energy Markets

Margot Habiby, Bloomberg – May 5, 2010

Crude oil futures for delivery in 2018 surged above $100 a barrel this week as the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico led the government to consider a halt in future drilling.

The crude oil futures contract dated furthest into the future jumped after President Barack Obama said no new offshore drilling leases should be issued until a “thorough review” of the April 20 rig explosion. […]

Crude oil futures for delivery in December 2018 rose to $100.38 a barrel May 3 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest settlement since Jan. 20. […]

“You may not pay today, but we will pay tomorrow,” Phil Flynn, vice president of research at PFGBest in Chicago, said in a report.

[…]

“That $100 oil equates to pretty close to $4 a gallon gasoline” in the U.S., said Bruce Bullock, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “We know when it hit $3 a gallon two years ago drivers started to get concerned, and at $4 a gallon demand evaporated.”

March 24, 2009

RIKI OTT:  […] Exxon promised to make us whole. You know, “You’re lucky you have Exxon.” We hadn’t even gone to court by 1993. We had fish run collapses, bankruptcies, divorces, suicides, you know, domestic violence spikes, substance abuse spikes. The town was just unraveling. And we were waiting for somebody to help us: the State of Alaska, the federal government, the court system, Exxon. Nobody. And–

AMY GOODMAN: There were 33,000 plaintiffs.

RIKI OTT: There are 32,000 claims, 22,000 plaintiffs.

[…]

AMY GOODMAN: You’ve said that is not just an environmental disaster, but a crisis in democracy.

RIKI OTT: It is a democracy crisis. The question we started asking as our lawsuit went on and on and on, and we didn’t get paid, was how did corporations get this big, where they can manipulate the legal system, the political system? What happened here?

[…]

AMY GOODMAN: How many animals died?

Riki Ott, author, community activist, marine toxicologist and former fisherma’am. She is author of Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Spill.