Could the economic crisis save the environment?

[Francis2004]

Could it be that 2009 will be the year we start to save the Environment to protect our Jobs ?

What a concept..

In the year that all companies are falling into bankruptcy and looking for the next widget to sell, might it have been there in an "inconvenient" way. ( sorry I just had to )

It seems that for the last quarter of 2008, not a day went by when the word "bailout" didn't dominate the headlines.



The now-ubiquitous term is often associated with the need for massive government help for banks, the financial sector, and auto industry. But more and more economists and commentators are linking the need for bailouts with the environment. They say the current economic crisis -- and the challenges the global community faces -- present a nearly-unprecedented opportunity.

The New York Times's columnist Thomas Friedman was one of the first to link the crisis to the need for new environmentally centred economic policies.

CTV.ca | Could the economic crisis save the environment?

Do you think this will be the economy of the Future ?

 

[Tonington]

For additional reading, I recommend the proposal by Architecture 2030.

 

[Machjo]

There is a point to that. If the government intends to restructure the economy to make it more resource-efficient, a recession (or better yet, a depression) would be the ideal time to do it for a number of reasons:

1. A restructured economy would need a new set of skills, and that means having to hire teachers to retrain the workers. In times of labour shortages, we'd have to compete with other employers for these teachers, and would also have a hard time finding students since people would all be working trying to keep up with inflation.

In a recession, laid-off workers are availabel, and thus cheaper to hire owing to less competition from the private sector. And unemployed workers willing to undergo retraining are available too, since they're unemployed anyway and would be more than happy to upgrade their skills for the future job market. In addition to this, low inflation saves the government money on having to increase social assistance benefits to keep up with inflation.

2. To restructure the economy costs money. In times of labour shortage, inflation and/or interest rates is/are high, so people aren't willing to pay more taxes needed to pay the retraining to restructure the economy, nor will they accept the government printing money to get the needed funds as that would raise inflatoin even more, and borrowing money would be at high interest too.

In times of recession when interest rates and inflation are low, people are less likely to worry about tax hikes since prices and interest rates are low already. And should the government print some money, the risk of inflation then is not as high either. I still oppose government debt, but if the government must go into debt, then at least during a recession, interest rates are low too. So a recession, or better yet a depression, is the ideal time to restructure the economy at low cost.

Of course re-education would be just a part of restructuring. Creating more energy efficient infrastructure would be part of it too, but the rulse would apply all the same as with retraining. Workers are cheaper, inflation is down, interest rates are low, so the government can get a good deal if it restructures now. In times of labour shortages, it would have to compete with the private sector for the needed workers and materials, having to outbid them, thus driving inflation and interest rates even higher.

 

[L Gilbert]

I don't think it will. Our gov'ts have been dense as far as leading the population to change. We should have beaten Germany at putting solar panels up, Portugal for using wave and wind power, etc. But we didn't because we are conditioned to be consumers not inhabitants of our world and gov't does little to point us in the right direction.
Nothing will change until we accept that our societies should be people- and planet-minded, not profit-minded.

 

[darkbeaver]

Despite the droning on about the environment it isn't threatened by humans in any but a very small way. Ask the dynosaurs. What is threatened is the human economy and humans, so as much as environmentalists like to believe thier saving the environment, it dosen't realy need any help. Time heals all, and the environment has lots of it. Ninety per-cent of all life that has ever existed on this planet has gone extinct because of environmental change. You see it isn't the little birds we're worried about but our own worthless skins. Of course this does not apply to all humans just most.
The human requirements will be extracted from the environment economic crisis or no economic crisis. An economy (like our present model) will of course accellarate the stripping of the environment because of it's production efficiencies on the supply end and it's enormous waste on the demand end. The bio-regional models offer a way out of the dilema but they do not serve the bankers so they won't be implimented while the bankers live.

 

[Francis2004]

Despite the droning on about the environment it isn't threatened by humans in any but a very small way. Ask the dynosaurs. What is threatened is the human economy and humans, so as much as environmentalists like to believe thier saving the environment, it dosen't realy need any help. Time heals all, and the environment has lots of it. Ninety per-cent of all life that has ever existed on this planet has gone extinct because of environmental change. You see it isn't the little birds we're worried about but our own worthless skins. Of course this does not apply to all humans just most.
The human requirements will be extracted from the environment economic crisis or no economic crisis. An economy (like our present model) will of course accellarate the stripping of the environment because of it's production efficiencies on the supply end and it's enormous waste on the demand end. The bio-regional models offer a way out of the dilema but they do not serve the bankers so they won't be implimented while the bankers live.

I would ask the Dinosaurs but they have eaten all the Bankers.. Of course they are extinct from environmental changes they could not understand..

However this thread is not about that topic but more about the Environment creating a new economy.. And yes the Bankers will quickly fund such programs as Humans have much to create in a new and untapped market. If you wish to argue to topic of "Climate Change and Global Warming" till you are Dark Blue in the face, be my guest, but the real object here is getting people back to surviving and feeding families.

 

[L Gilbert]

Despite the droning on about the environment it isn't threatened by humans in any but a very small way. Ask the dynosaurs. What is threatened is the human economy and humans, so as much as environmentalists like to believe thier saving the environment, it dosen't realy need any help. Time heals all, and the environment has lots of it. Ninety per-cent of all life that has ever existed on this planet has gone extinct because of environmental change. You see it isn't the little birds we're worried about but our own worthless skins. Of course this does not apply to all humans just most.
The human requirements will be extracted from the environment economic crisis or no economic crisis. An economy (like our present model) will of course accellarate the stripping of the environment because of it's production efficiencies on the supply end and it's enormous waste on the demand end. The bio-regional models offer a way out of the dilema but they do not serve the bankers so they won't be implimented while the bankers live.

Possibly. However, we seem to have a habit of shooting ourselves in the foot via damaging the environments we live in. Even pigs don't crap in the area they eat, sleep and have fun in. Apparently we aren't that intelligent.
As I said, until we change our attitude towards our world, we will still be consumers, not inhabitants.

 

[coldstream]

If you look at worst environmental offenders of the last 50 years, they are all countries experiencing desperate poverty, industrial breakdown, vast polarization of wealth.. an economy dominated by dictates of International Trade and Usery, with ineffectual national governments who cannot moderate between economic necessity and environmental damage.

I'm not talking here of international FRAUDS, like Global Warming, i'm talking about REAL threats like the toxic lakes and dried up watersheds of old Soviet Union.. or unregulated dumping of harmful chemicals into the atmosphere and soil in the 'Free Trade Zones' of Mexico and China.

This blather about a 'green economy' producing a new industrial revolution in 'green' technology is really nonsense. There is nothing wrong with setting sensible goals for cleaner emissions.. but it will not be able to support an economy that is not producing transportation, housing, agriculture, energy in its fundamental human life supporting forms, first and formost.

The environmental movement has taken on a very nasty undercurrent in the last couple of decades.. portraying mankind as some kind of evil interloper on a pristine natural utopia. It is not above imposing any kind of misery on these 'invaders', through such things as the economically calamitous conditions of Kyoto Climate Accord, by trumped up threats and fear mongering. In truth, the surest way to guarantee a collapse of the biosphere is to remove man from the natural equation.

An economic collapse, and it is already upon us, will have a disastrous effect on the environment.

 

[Scott Free]

The average species lasts 4 million years and so we're half way. From anything I can tell that's probably the best we'll do. We have just been too successful. A huge pandemic or massive war is probably the only thing that could save us though few could see it. Our species thinks too highly of itself. There is no way we can "fix" this problem because we are the thing that needs to be "fixed" and nature is all too willing to oblige us. There are some fundamental principles at play that we have no control over.

 

[Cliffy]

Scott Free,

Most people have no idea what those fundamental principles are. Nature is in the beginning of the process of fixing the problem. The present economic meltdown was man made through greed but by the time Momma is in full swing, the economy will take a hit that will probably be the death knell of the economy as we try to rescue the millions (possibly billions) who will be affected by the cataclysmic events that are just now beginning to elevate in intensity and frequency.

Unfortunate as it is, a cleansing is as inevitable as it is necessary.