Can ecosystems be priced?
While most people consider nature to be priceless, economists have recently attempted to place dollar values on the services ecosystems provide.
While most people consider nature to be priceless, economists have recently attempted to place dollar values on the services ecosystems provide.
As Maurice Strong who spearheaded the 1991 Rio Earth Summit wrote in the U.N.’s Conference on Environmental Development (UNCED) report: “It is clear that current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle-class … involving high meat intake, consumption of large amounts of frozen and convenience foods, ownership of motor vehicles, small electric appliances, home and work place air- conditioning, and suburban housing are not sustainable .… A shift is necessary toward lifestyles less geared to environmental damaging consumption patterns.”
“Green grabbing involves novel forms of valuation, commodification and markets for pieces and aspects of nature, and an extraordinary new range of actors and alliances. Pension funds and venture capitalists, commodity traders and consultants, GIS service providers and business entrepreneurs, eco-tourism companies and the military, Green activists and anxious consumers, among others, find once unlikely common interests.”
This week Naderev M. Sano of the Phillipines delegation made a tear-filled speech to COP 18 in Doha, Qatar. In contrast to the delegates wrangling for national advantage, the shameless rent-seeking of the carbon profiteers and the left-wing agendas of the radical NGOs, Mr. Sano projected a refreshing sincerity. Sadly, he is sincerely wrong.
The rich kids are trying to push Africa around, bullying African countries into accepting their opinions and, even worse, adopting their “solutions.” Africa should resist the moral and psychological pressure being exerted on it to agree to binding limits on carbon dioxide emissions. Any such agreement would place African countries at the mercy of rich UN nations without any benefit accruing to Africa.
The Rio+20 World Environmental Conference has come and gone. The “Plus 20” comes from the fact that it took place twenty years after the first such conference, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. Between these dates, I was a delegate at the 2002 world environment conference in Johannesburg, South Africa. Ever since 1992 I have watched the eco-evolution taking place.
Oxford Union Chooses Economic Growth Over Climate Change Debate Win for CFACT Advisor Lord Christopher Monckton Last week the Oxford Union, one of the world’s premier debate societies, chose economic growth over climate change by a vote of 133-110. The vote by students at an elite U.K. university illustrates the continued shift of public support away from the global warming scare. The proponents of global warming policy always seem to lose whenever they encounter a fair forum where both sides receive equal time. Key warmists such as Nobel Laureate Al Gore and the IPCC’s Rajendra Pachauri avoid debate at all costs. [...]
CFACT recently completed a development project in Valle Verde, Mexico. CFACT partnered with a coalition of relief organizations to provide local residents with solar panels, recycled laptops, and basic computer training. […]
The great Norman Borlaug Died September 12, 2009 By PAUL DRIESSEN (Washington) Norman Borlaug just turned 94 – and is still going strong During the “Eat This” segment of their docu-comedy series BS, Penn Jillette beat Teller in a round of their “Greatest Person in History” card game. Penn needed just one card: Norman Borlaug. This Iowa farm boy and University of Minnesota agriculture graduate lived Thomas Edison’s maxim to the fullest. “Invention,” Edison once remarked, “is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” Dr. Borlaug did most of his 99% in the sweltering fields of Africa, India, Mexico and Pakistan. [...]
HOLGER J. THUSS (JENA) With 150.000 copies and about twice as many readers every day, the Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung is not only the largest Swiss newspaper, but also the most respected daily paper among the German-speaking Europeans. Under the headline “Eco-imperialism at the expense of the poor,” it also was the first major print media that informed its readers of CFACT’s newly published German edition of Paul Driessen’s Eco-imperialism: Green Power Black Death on September 11. According to the reviewer, Detmar Doering of the German Liberal Institute, it is “fully comprehensible” that “humans care for an environment worth living [...]
Too many of them perpetuate disease and cost lives PAUL DRIESSEN (Washington) If an accident kills wildlife or people, punishment is meted out and restitution made. A host of regulators, lawyers, judges, activists, journalists and politicians help bring the wrongdoers to justice. But when it comes to policies and programs that sicken and kill millions of parents and children a year, these ethics cops and eco warriors are not just silent. They refuse to hold government agencies and activist groups to the same honesty and accountability standards they apply to for-profit companies. They even oppose programs that would reduce disease and [...]
CFACT Europe's German edition of Paul Driessen’s Eco-imperialism: Green Power – Black Death received a lengthy review in Die Idee, published by the Junge Schweizerische Volkspartei [JSVP] (Young Swiss People's Party). CFACT Europe is proud to join the political debate in one of the world's oldest democracies. The JSVP has approximately 5.800 members and is the youth wing of the Schweizerische Volkspartie [SVP] (Swiss People's Party), Switzerland's largest political party (ca. 85.000 members, 26,6 % or 56 of 200 seats in the lower house of parliament). The SVP is strongest in German-speaking areas of Switzerland and is led by Mr. Ueli Maurer. It is [...]
Berlin, Germany, 20 Jan. Today, Dr. Holger Thuss, Executive Director of CFACT EUROPE, joined a panel debating the role of ethical values in foreign affairs, in order to present his translation of Paul Driessen’s best-selling book Eco-imperialism: Green Power – Black Death. During his presentation, Dr. Thuss strongly emphasized the importance of value-based foreign policies, particularly in such areas as development aid and WTO. As an example he mentioned the global ban on DDT, that is supposed to guarantee DDT-free imports from developing nations, where the ban causes millions of death since even the responsible use of the substance against malaria [...]
In their article, David Rothbard and Craig Rucker urge EU policy makers to ensure that their new policies towards Africa will be beneficial in particular to African nations that were once European colonies. "The answer to Africa’s needs, however, is not more handouts or even aid forgiveness, as was recommended at the June 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. Rather, it is in creating a new class of entrepreneurs from among the poorest Africans and in affirming the value of market principles, relying on sound science and re-committing to a balanced Judeo-Christian understanding of environmental stewardship." Other [...]
It has largely been accepted that so-called “smart growth” development policies raise the cost of land. But do they also increase the price of home construction?