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virus: RE: virus/ fw:Tsunami, Mangroves and Market Economy
« on: 2005-01-23 03:58:11 » |
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[Blunderov] The author of the article "Tsunami, Mangroves and Market
Economy" doesn't suggest an alternative to the free market economy and
the question remains of how to feed an increasing population with
diminishing resources.
Mangroves aside, the main threat is that of global warming. The Great
Dying of 250 million years ago was, it now seems, a result of this
phenomenon.
http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2005/01/21/extinction-050121.ht
ml
<snip>
Global warming - not a cataclysmic collision with an asteroid - may have
nearly snuffed out life on Earth 250 million years ago, two recent
reports suggest.
The biggest mass extinction in the planet's history, known as the "Great
Dying," eliminated 90 per cent of marine life and nearly three-quarters
of all plants and animals on land. </snip>
Some visionary and very viable solutions to this economic ball-breaker
have been proposed in this forum (most notably by Hermit) but the
possibility of these or their ilk being taken seriously seems remote at
best and time is not our friend.
It seems to me that there will have to a paradigm shift, whether
voluntary or no, in what we mean by "wealth". Seemingly some quirk of
evolution has made it impossible for us (and I am as guilty as the next
man) to resist the temptation to dig our own graves with our teeth.
Best Regards.
SANE Views
Vol.5, No.2, 17 January 2005
Tsunami, Mangroves and Market Economy
By Devinder Sharma
As the first news reports of the devastation caused by the tsunami
killer waves began to pour in, a newsreader on Aaj Tak's Headline Today
television channel asked his correspondent reporting from the scene of
destruction in Tamil Nadu in south of India : "Any idea about how much
is the loss to business? Can you find that out because that would be
more important for our business leaders?"
Little did the newscaster realise or even know that the tsunami
disaster, which eventually turned out to be a catastrophe, was more or
less the outcome of faulty business and economics. The magnitude of the
disaster was only exacerbated by the neoliberal economic policies that
pushed economic growth at the expense of human life. It was the outcome
of an insane economic system - led by the World Bank and IMF - that
believes in usurping environment, nature and human lives for the sake of
unsustainable economic growth for a few.
Since the 1960s, the Asian sea-coast region has been plundered by the
large industrialised shrimp firms that brought
environmentally-unfriendly aquaculture to its sea shores. Shrimp
cultivation, rising to over 8 billion tonnes a year in the year 2000,
had already played havoc with the fragile eco-systems. The
'rape-and-run' industry, as the Food and Agricultural Organisation of
the United Nations (FAO) once termed it, was largely funded by the World
Bank. Nearly 72 per cent of the shrimp farming is confined to Asia.
The expansion of shrimp farming was at the cost of tropical mangroves --
amongst the world's most important ecosystems. Each acre of mangrove
forest destroyed results in an estimated 676 pounds loss in marine
harvest. Mangrove swamps have been nature's protection for the coastal
regions from the large waves, weathering the impact of cyclones, and
serving as a nursery for three-fourth of the commercial fish species
that spend part of their life cycle in the mangrove swamps. Mangroves in
any case were one of the world's most threatened habitats but instead of
replanting the mangrove swamps, faulty economic policies only hastened
its disappearance. Despite warning by ecologists and environmentalists,
the World Bank turned a deaf ear.
Shrimp farming continued its destructive spree, eating away more than
half of the world's mangroves. Since the 1960's, for instance,
aquaculture in Thailand resulted in a loss of over 65,000 hectares of
mangroves. In Indonesia, Java lost 70 per cent of its mangroves,
Sulawesi 49 per cent and Sumatra 36 per cent. So much so that at the
time the tsunami struck in all its fury, logging companies were busy
axing mangroves in the Aceh province of Indonesia for exports to
Malaysia and Singapore.
In India, mangrove cover has been reduced to less than a third of its
original in the past three decades. Between 1963 and 1977, the period
when aquaculture industry took roots, India destroyed nearly 50 per cent
of its mangroves. Local communities were forcibly evicted to make way
for the shrimp farms. In Andhra Pradesh, more than 50,000 people were
forcibly removed and millions displaced to make room for the aquaculture
farms. Whatever remained of the mangroves was cut down by the hotel
industry. Aided and abetted by the Ministry of Environment and Forests
and the Ministry of Industries, builders moved in to ravage the
coastline.
Five-star hotels, golf courses, industries, and mansions sprung up all
along disregarding the concern being expressed by environmentalists.
These two ministries worked overtime to dilute the Coastal Regulation
Zone (CRZ) norms thereby allowing the hotels to even take over the 500
meter buffer that was supposed to be maintained along the beach. In an
era of market economy, that was reflected through misplaced Shining
India slogan, the bureaucrats are in league with the industrialists and
big business interests. Much of the responsibility for the huge death
toll therefore rests with the government and the free market apologists.
Tourism boom in the Asia-Pacific region coincided with the destructive
fallout of the growth in shrimp cultivation. Over the last decade,
tourist arrivals and receipts rose faster than any other region in the
world, almost twice the rates of industrialized countries. Projections
for the year 2010 indicate that the region will surpass the Americas to
become the world's number two tourism region, with 229 million arrivals.
What is being projected as an indicator of spectacular economic growth
hides the enormous environmental costs that these countries have
suffered and will have to undergo in future.
In the past two decades, the entire coastline along the Bay of Bengal,
Arabian Sea, and Strait of Malacca in the Indian Ocean and all along the
South Pacific Ocean has been a witness to massive investments in tourism
and hotels. Myanmar and Maldives suffered very less from the killing
spree of the tsunami because the tourism industry had so far not spread
its tentacles to the virgin mangroves and coral reefs surrounding the
coastline. The large coral reef surrounding the islands of Maldives
absorbed much of the tidal fury thereby restricting the human loss to a
little over 100 dead. Coral reef absorbs the sea's fury by breaking the
waves. The tragedy however is that more than 70 per cent of world's
coral reef has already been destroyed.
The island chain of Surin off the west coast of Thailand similarly
escaped heavy destruction. The ring of coral reef that surrounds the
islands did receive some punching from the furious waves but kept firm
and thereby helped break the lethal power of the tsunami. Mangroves help
to protect offshore coral reefs by filtering out the silt flowing
seawards from the land. Tourism growth, whether in the name of
eco-tourism or leisure tourism, decimated the mangroves and destroyed
the coral reefs.
If only the mangroves were intact, the damage from tsunami would have
been greatly minimized. Ecologists tell us that mangroves provide double
protection - the first layer of red mangroves with their flexible
branches and tangled roots hanging in the coastal waters absorb the
first shock waves. The second layer of tall black mangroves than
operates like a wall withstanding much of the sea's fury. Mangroves in
addition absorb more carbon dioxide per unit area than ocean
phytoplankton, a critical factor in global warming.
It happened earlier in Bangladesh. In 1960, a tsunami wave hit the coast
in an area where mangroves were intact. There was not a single human
loss. These mangroves were subsequently cut down and replaced with
shrimp farms. In 1991, thousands of people were killed when a tsunami of
the same magnitude hit the same region. In Tamil Nadu, in south India,
Pichavaram and Muthupet with dense mangroves suffered low human
casualties and less economic damage from the Dec 26 tsunami. Earlier,
the famed mangroves of Bhiterkanika in Orissa (which also serve as the
breeding ground for the olive-ridley turtles) had reduced the impact of
the 'super cyclone' that had struck in Oct 1999, killing over 10,000
people and rendering millions homeless.
The epicenter of the Dec 26 killer tsunami was close to Simeuleu Island,
in Indonesia. The death toll on this particular island was significantly
low simply because the inhabitants had the traditional knowledge about
tsunami that invariably happened after a quake. In Nias island, which is
close to the Simeuleu island, mangroves had acted like a wall helping
people from the destruction. The challenge therefore for the developing
countries is to learn from the time-tested technologies that have been
perfected by the local communities.
Let us now look at the comparative advantage of protecting environment
and thereby reducing the havoc from the growth-oriented market economy.
Having grown tenfold in the last 15 years, shrimp farming is now a $9
billion industry. It is estimated that shrimp consumption in North
America, Japan and Western Europe has increased by 300 per cent within
the last ten years. The massive wave of destruction caused by the Dec 26
tsunami in 11 Asian countries alone has surpassed the economic gain that
the shrimp industry claims to have harvested by several times. With over
150,000 people dead, the staggering social and economic loss will take
some time to be ascertained.
World governments have so far pledged US $ 4 billion in aid. This does
not including the billions that are being spent by relief agencies.
World Bank has in addition considering boosting the aid packet to US $
1.5 billion. It has already given (by Jan 10, 2005) $ 175 million, and
bank President James Wolfensohn has been quoted as saying: "We can go up
to even $ 1 billion to $ 1.5 billion depending on the needs." In
addition, the World Food Programme (WFP) plans to feed some 2 million
survivors for the next six months. The feeding operation is likely to
cost US $ 180 million. If only successive presidents of the World Bank
had refrained from aggressively promoted ecologically unsound but market
friendly economic policies, a lot of human lives could have been saved.
What did the world gain from pushing in market reforms with utter
disregard to environment and human lives? Can Wolfensohn justify the
financial backing doled out to the aquaculture and tourism sectors by
drawing a balance sheet of the costs and benefits, including the social
cost involved? Take the shrimp farms, for instance. The life cycle of a
shrimp farm is a maximum of two to five years. The ponds are then
abandoned leaving behind toxic waste, destroyed ecosystems and displaced
communities, annihilating livelihoods. The farms come up at the cost of
natural eco-systems including mangroves. The whole cycle is then
repeated in another pristine coastal area. It has been estimated that
economic losses due to the shrimp farms are approximately five times the
potential earnings.
Tourism is no better. Kerala in south India, marketed as "God's own
country", destroyed the mangroves in a desperate bid to lure the
tourists. It is only after tsunami struck that the state government was
quick to announce an Rs 340-million project aimed at insulating the
Kerala coastline against tidal surges. Other tourist destinations in
Asia will now probably go for a rethinking. The question therefore that
needs to be asked is whether we need to extract a heavy human toll
before we realize the follies of blindly aping the stupid market economy
mantra? How many more people we want to die and how many millions we
want to go homeless before we realize the grave mistake of pushing in
the market economy? Who will hold these free market economists
responsible for the human loss and suffering?
(Devinder Sharma is a New Delhi-based food and agriculture policy
analyst. Responses can be mailed to: dsharma@ndf.vsnl.net.in)
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simul
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Re: virus: RE: virus/ fw:Tsunami, Mangroves and Market Economy
« Reply #1 on: 2005-01-23 10:33:56 » |
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Prophecies of global destruction and ressurection seems to be the hallmark of religion.
The fact that science is heading in this direction only indicates, to me, that our scientific institutions are losing their grip on reality. Maybe this is inevitable.
As science becomes a religion, will religion become a science? Or will mankind simply be lost in a collective ego?
The Dalai Llama was quoted in a recent issue of Nature. When asked what he would do if neurobiology concluded that Buddhist philosophy was provably incorrect, he replied, “We would have to change the philosophy”.
The obvious solution to dwindling resources on this planet is the colonization of other planets.
One great way to develop Martian atmosphere and improve habitability would be to plant a fast-growing series of bacteria and lichen on the surface.
What's disturbing to me was the clamour in the scientific community seeking to prevent terrestrial bacteria from growing on Mars as a result of our rover landings. The purpose was to “preserve possible alien life” on Mars.
If we're coming up on such an imminent resource crunch, shouldn't we colonize Mars and Titan now before it's too late?
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First, read Bruce Sterling's "Distraction", and then read http://electionmethods.org.
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MoEnzyme
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Re: virus: RE: virus/ fw:Tsunami, Mangroves and Market Economy
« Reply #2 on: 2005-01-23 17:23:47 » |
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My last understanding of this left me with the notion that there is a high
likelihood of natural interplanetary contamination on the microbe level due
to natural meteor bambardments over time. So I don't feel particularly
concerned about that level of contamination. It was highly likely to
happen over time anyway. To get jumpy about that is irrational IMV. It's
not like we are sending the pope there yet. -Jake
> [Original Message]
> From: Erik Aronesty <erik@zoneedit.com>
> To: Church of Virus <virus@lucifer.com>
> Date: 01/23/2005 7:29:00 AM
> Subject: Re: virus: RE: virus/ fw:Tsunami, Mangroves and Market Economy
>
> Prophecies of global destruction and ressurection seems to be the
hallmark of religion.
>
> The fact that science is heading in this direction only indicates, to me,
that our scientific institutions are losing their grip on reality. Maybe
this is inevitable.
>
> As science becomes a religion, will religion become a science? Or will
mankind simply be lost in a collective ego?
>
> The Dalai Llama was quoted in a recent issue of Nature. When asked what
he would do if neurobiology concluded that Buddhist philosophy was provably
incorrect, he replied, “We would have to change the philosophy”.
>
> The obvious solution to dwindling resources on this planet is the
colonization of other planets.
>
> One great way to develop Martian atmosphere and improve habitability
would be to plant a fast-growing series of bacteria and lichen on the
surface.
>
> What's disturbing to me was the clamour in the scientific community
seeking to prevent terrestrial bacteria from growing on Mars as a result of
our rover landings. The purpose was to “preserve possible alien life” on
Mars.
>
> If we're coming up on such an imminent resource crunch, shouldn't we
colonize Mars and Titan now before it's too late?
> ---
> To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to
<http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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Blunderov
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RE: virus: RE: virus/ fw:Tsunami, Mangroves and Market Economy
« Reply #3 on: 2005-01-23 17:32:57 » |
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Jake Sapiens
Sent: 24 January 2005 12:24 AM
<snip>
My last understanding of this left me with the notion that there is a
high
likelihood of natural interplanetary contamination on the microbe level
due
to natural meteor bambardments over time. So I don't feel particularly
concerned about that level of contamination. It was highly likely to
happen over time anyway. To get jumpy about that is irrational IMV.
It's
not like we are sending the pope there yet. </snip>
[Blunderov] Lol. I'm all for it. Even the Pope. Maybe especially the
Pope. Luckily the search for a new home has begun. (The specifications
of the Brashear telescope may even go some way towards mollifying WW's
annoyance at the loss of his much beloved Hubble.)
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/03163/191316.stm
<snip>
Brashear working on telescope to help NASA search for planets
The telescope Brashear is helping to design and build will fly on a NASA
Discovery Mission set to launch in 2006. It will be "the first
space-based, planet-finding mission," said John M. Barentine, business
transformation and development for Brashear.
Using a high-precision camera, the telescope will search for planets by
measuring tiny changes in the brightness of stars caused by planets as
they pass between stars and Earth. The size of the planet can be
determined by the brightness of the star. Whether these planets may be
able to sustain life can be analyzed by measuring how frequently the
planet passes in front of its parent star: Planets too close to the
parent star would most likely be too hot for life while planets too far
away would be too cold.
As it orbits, the Kepler Telescope will monitor 100,000 stars and is
expected to locate more than 600 planets, said Barentine.
It also will have more capability to view much larger portions of sky
and for much longer periods than NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, which
was launched in 1990. </snip>
See also
http://www.kepler.arc.nasa.gov/
Best Regards
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Cassidy McGurk
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Re: virus: RE: virus/ fw:Tsunami, Mangroves and Market Economy
« Reply #4 on: 2005-01-23 19:36:56 » |
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I think there is a distinction between "prophecy" and prediction.
I would hope all the doomsayers have got their calculations wrong for
both your and my children Erik, but the consensus would indicate
otherwise. I don't really pay that much attention, but it seems to me
that the mavericks (lomberg and simon et al.) have the loudest voices
because they are bankrolled by vested interests while the vast
majority of serious scientists seem to just get on with the work of
working out how long we've actually got. I know the chief govt
scientist here in the UK has complained about being hounded by US Oil
and other paid-interest lobbyists over merely voicing the prevailing
scientific view of global warming.
Strangely these seem to be the same groups of people who told us that
the dot-com bubble was a new economic paradigm, I'm not sure I'd trust
them with the future of the planet.
I note that Jared Diamond has an interesting new tome
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse:_How_Societies_Choose_to_Fail_or_Succeed
one for the VBC perhaps
On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 15:33:56 +0000 GMT, Erik Aronesty <erik@zoneedit.com> wrote:
> Prophecies of global destruction and ressurection seems to be the hallmark of religion.
>
> The fact that science is heading in this direction only indicates, to me, that our scientific institutions are losing their grip on reality. Maybe this is inevitable.
>
> As science becomes a religion, will religion become a science? Or will mankind simply be lost in a collective ego?
>
> The Dalai Llama was quoted in a recent issue of Nature. When asked what he would do if neurobiology concluded that Buddhist philosophy was provably incorrect, he replied, "We would have to change the philosophy".
>
> The obvious solution to dwindling resources on this planet is the colonization of other planets.
>
> One great way to develop Martian atmosphere and improve habitability would be to plant a fast-growing series of bacteria and lichen on the surface.
>
> What's disturbing to me was the clamour in the scientific community seeking to prevent terrestrial bacteria from growing on Mars as a result of our rover landings. The purpose was to "preserve possible alien life" on Mars.
>
> If we're coming up on such an imminent resource crunch, shouldn't we colonize Mars and Titan now before it's too late?
> ---
> To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
>
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simul
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Re: virus: RE: virus/ fw:Tsunami, Mangroves and Market Economy
« Reply #5 on: 2005-01-24 22:44:53 » |
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Anyone can concoct a list of reasons for any outcome they desire to prophesize using the available culturally dominant methods of logic and turn it into a prediction. Accordingly, I choose not to make a distinction between prophecy and prediciton.
The consensus was that all the computers would crash in 2000.
And the consensus was that Satan would arrive on earth in 1666 to initiate Armageddon.
These prophecies were widely held beliefs by the intellectuals of their day.
Just because something is a widely held belief does not make it so or not so.
Science is at its best when it doesn't busy itself with prophecy and rather is occupied with describing the workings of relatively recent realitiy.
(Feel free to quote me)
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Re: virus: RE: virus/ fw:Tsunami, Mangroves and Market Economy
« Reply #6 on: 2005-01-25 09:25:48 » |
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I don't think prophecy is based on any logic I'd recognise
On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 03:44:53 +0000 GMT, Erik Aronesty <erik@zoneedit.com> wrote:
> Anyone can concoct a list of reasons for any outcome they desire to prophesize using the available culturally dominant methods of logic and turn it into a prediction. Accordingly, I choose not to make a distinction between prophecy and prediciton.
I don't think prophecy is based on any logic I'd recognise
>
> The consensus was that all the computers would crash in 2000.
Not anywhere I worked
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simul
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Re: virus: RE: virus/ fw:Tsunami, Mangroves and Market Economy
« Reply #7 on: 2005-01-25 12:33:13 » |
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> I don't think prophecy is based on
> any logic I'd recognise
If you're talking about ancient prophecy, then you're talking about ancient logic, which is, of course, unrecognizable to all but historians, philosophers and theologicians who have acquainted themselves with outmoded logics. However, I believe it would be easy enough for someone to create an argument for most any prophecy based on modern logic, which was my basis for not drawing the distinction.
> >
> > The consensus was that all the
> > computers would crash in 2000.
> Not anywhere I worked
Nevertheless, there was widespread belief, held by a majority of people, many of them learned, that there would be some recognizable and at least somewhat nationally impacting failures.
But there wasn't.
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RE: virus: RE: virus/ fw:Tsunami, Mangroves and Market Economy
« Reply #8 on: 2005-01-26 17:34:19 » |
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[Blunderov] A bit quiet on the list at the moment so I hope nobody minds
too much if I post this entire report. Blair has gone up in my
estimation (FWTW) but handsome is as handsome does.
Best Regards
Blair Calls on U.S. to Take Climate Change Seriously
Wed Jan 26, 2005 03:26 PM ET
By Sean Maguire
DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - The United States, realizing it cannot
defeat global threats like terrorism alone, must cooperate to fight
other planetary challenges like climate change, British Prime Minister
Tony Blair said on Wednesday.
"Interdependence is no longer disputed," said Blair, speaking to a forum
of business and political leaders. "If America wants the rest of the
world to be part of the agenda it has set, it must be part of their
agenda too."
President Bush's inauguration speech last week showed the United States
realized it could not defeat terror threats just by military means or on
its own, said Blair, one of the U.S. leader's staunchest allies.
Defending the speech, which was accused of not reflecting the reality of
U.S. policies, Blair said its support for extending democracy and
liberty "emphatically puts defeating the causes of terrorism alongside
defeating the terrorists."
Blair said after international divisions over the war in Iraq, there was
"a wish to re-unify." He has predicted Bush's second term would see more
account taken of the views of Europe, which the president visits next
month on a fence-mending trip.
There was common purpose in fighting global terrorism, extending
democracy and seeking peace in the Middle East, said Blair, stressing
that those issues and his agenda for this year's Group of Eight
presidency could not be decoupled.
Blair wants to focus British leadership of the G8 group of leading
industrialized nations on relieving poverty and disease in Africa and on
combating climate change.
But the Bush administration has little enthusiasm for mandatory action
to tackle the warming of the planet.
It has refused to sign up to the Kyoto protocol on cutting emissions
thought to cause global warming, arguing it would cost U.S. jobs and
unfairly burden developed states while imposing no obligation on poorer
polluting states such as China and India.
LOW COST CLIMATE SOLUTION
A broad belief in Europe that scientists have proved global warming is a
reality is not so widely shared in the United States. The evidence of
climate change had been clearly and persuasively advocated by a very
large number of entirely independent and compelling voices, said Blair.
"The majority is not always right. But they deserve to be listened to."
If governments proposed solutions involving drastic but justified cuts
in growth or living standards they would not be agreed, Blair conceded.
But global warming could be tackled without enormous economic cost
through more intelligent use of science, a greater contribution by
rapidly developing economies and market mechanisms like emissions
trading, he argued.
"We need to send a clear signal that whilst we continue to analyze
science ... we are united in moving in the direction of greenhouse gas
reductions," said Blair.
An international panel of experts this week described global warming as
an "ecological time bomb" and warned that without fast action carbon
concentrations would push global temperatures up from pre-industrial
times by 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
That level would trigger "substantial agricultural losses, greatly
increased numbers of people at risk of water shortages, and widespread
adverse health impacts," the panel warned.
Blair used his speech to repeat his call for more aid for Africa, faster
debt relief, imaginative financing of help for the continent and a
dismantling of unfair trade barriers.
He speaks on a panel on Africa on Thursday with rock star Bono, South
African President Thabo Mbeki, Microsoft chief Bill Gates and former
U.S. president Bill Clinton.
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