Standard economics ignores environmental contribution.

I've had 3 careers during my life. Career #2 was 15 years as a scientist, yes. And these kinds of thought experiments were pretty standard stuff, when testing out some idea or another. The domain within which a certain idea functions is very important, and in economics it was important to not venture too close to the boundaries of a given domain. Unlike the physical sciences economics is a social science, and singularities become a real problem....things as simple as a fundamental change in elasticity can throw a long term projection completely off course.

Your stated exercise in the title of this thread exercise steps right past economic boundary conditions and leaps right into the unknown, which is why it is so easy to come up with haywire examples.

 

What you're saying in your usual windy way is relating economics to environmental support systems is apples and oranges. Just what do you think economics is a product of? However I understand a lot of folks in on our modern society have become so alienated from their roots that they actually don't get the connection or think the environment is a human created stand of trees in a park, sort of a cultural garden.

It's not really your fault. You're just the child of a screwed up modern culture.

 

I could say it that way, but then someone would misunderstand the basics of it. By restating it in a fashion you are comfortable with, I can agree with this basic assessment, and we can move on to the next issue.

So if we agree that economics doesn't relate to costs of ecosystem damage and whatnot, doesn't this negate the entire value of the original question?

Analytic folks who didn't want to become mathematicians or engineers applying their skills to macro level social behavior patterns? A less wordy way to say that might be, "folks wanting to analyze trends"?

Well, I can agree that most humans have become alienated from their "roots" just as they are alienated from where their electricity comes from, or how the fuels for their car is made, or nearly ANY of the things they depend on. Most just don't "get it".

Not hardly. I grew up on a farm, no TV available until I went to college, and from the age of 11 until I left for college at 18 I kept my family in meat with my rifle. From one bullet, one deer, to venison steaks on the table. I didn't learn much about screwed up cultures until I went to college, and met folks who didn't know where their Whopper's actually came from.

But certainly my more modern analytic skills (as opposed to my old hunting and tomato growing skills) can tell an idea that has a chance from one that doesn't pretty quickly. So far, your idea doesn't hold up so well, because of the apples and oranges thing.

 

There could be a nice trick to force markets [and government] to evaluate natural resources of terrestrial biosphere ...

Oxygen: we cannot live without a sufficient percentage of oxygen in the air. This gas is released by land and sea vegetables [generally, not exactly always, but this generalization works], evolved or made by some cells [when not a single cell, think to vegetable cells in the seas and in the oceans].

Ok, satellites could find out the production of oxygen of national territories, and the governments of those territories could begin to sell their surplus of oxygen.

Brazil would stop immediately the destruction of its enormous forest ... in North Africa governments would make the impossible to gain land from the deserts, in Northern hemisphere we would plant entire forests ...

 

If the theory is true about fundamental energy mom and dad investing essentially eternity in designing much of the original species….. then they might give your reply the F!

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/reincarnation04.html#a05


Then again…. they might define your answer as perfect Battle3………. because all of our decisions of what to speak or write or do….. fit perfectly into the massive reality film being produced in the four dimensional holographic environment that we are in???!!!

 

Of course I agree to no such thing. You might as well say that relating money to capital is apples and oranges.

Well good for you that you got to the cattle part. It's the conditionality above that that you seem to have a problem with.

Try extrapolating from shooting game and growing tomatoes and go macro and you might get a clue. My experiences fishing throughout a good portion of the pacific ocean acquainted me with life migrating long distances which helped me understand the perspective of a biosphere rather than simply a stand of trees harboring a deer or a plot of land prepared for tomatoes. If your idea of macro is some fellow recycling air by breathing I'm afraid you have a long ways to go.

 

Why not? For instance the double hit of removing rain forests to increase oil production has huge long term economist costs which we should attempt to evaluate.

The loss of photosynthesis capability associated with terrestrial forest removal and destruction of ocean phytoplankton make this a serious issue.

While countries near the equator will be generally be drying up, those closer to the poles will potentially increase in forest growth. However the balance is not positive I understand. And then you add in increased animal and grain production and rising oceans and loss of glacial mountain water feed and aquifer depletion, the green blanket is progressively stripped away.

 

just as relating economics to unknown in scale, possibly natural, changes in ecosystem (and/or destruction of one or more) might be as meaningless.

It is your question, and you've just answered it. You can stop wondering.

As you have already shown, there is no need for a clue, because it isn't a valid question.

 

Sure. But as you've reasoned, and I've demonstrated, you can't do that with economics.

"Serious" is not an economic term.

and again you have economically quantified....nothing. So the green blanket is stripped away. The planet doesn't care. Been there. Done that. We change the CO2 balance of the atmosphere. The planet doesn't care...been there...done that. You appear to have focused on CHANGE as the thing you think is "serious". Or imply is a problem. The planet has seen it all before...and doesn't care. Maybe some inconvenience species does...be that humans..or the dodo bird...but so what? You aren't even attempting to quantify such basic change economically, you are just complaining about...change.

I have news...change is like death and taxes....you can't avoid it...the kind you are talking about doesn't have an econometric to balance off against "change" because change is going to happen no matter what..and who is going to be responsible for that cost? Tomorrow there is a flood. It wipes out some primordial redwood forest. OH NOES!!! Who are you going to send the bill to, to fix that? Mother Nature, PO Box XXXX, Planet Earth, 11111? Think she'll write you a check to cover the damage she did?

You're a funny guy Dingo.

 

Standard denialist diversion. Change happens. Wow!

As for the impact of the environment on economics the examples are legion. Try Sandy just coming out of the box. I really don't believe you are as clueless as you seem to be portraying yourself. This is some kind of silly conversational exercise - right? "Hey Jack, watch me obfuscate this guys obvious point about there being a relationship between environmental impacts and economic costs. It really looks like I'm actually saying something doesn't it? LOL!" You aren't the first person I have come across trying to take a self-evident topic down a meaningless rat hole. Your motives, I haven't got a clue. I don't want to believe you actually think you are making some kind of serious point.

 

Not at all. It follows directly from how poorly you wrote your original idea.

Standard economics ignores environmental contribution.

I am going to build a Ford F150 factory. I can choose to drain a swamp in Louisiana, wiping out untold mosquitos, chopping down plenty of trees, and build it there, or build it on nice, flat, exposed bedrock in Ohio.

Certainly my standard project economics includes the environmental contribution (cost) of draining the swamp, and building the factory there, versus on the bedrock in Ohio. So this type of analysis of environment is perfectly included in normal project economics.

So why do you maintain that standard economics ignores environmental cost in this run of the mill construction example?

 

Ever see it factored into the GDP? In general, downstream costs are not factored into product and service delivery. They should be. What are the health costs of a gallon of gas? Or the military cost? Or the cost in ocean rise, water pollution and climate change in general? It's hard to be precise but unlike you the folks in my first post who attempted to compute it at least take it seriously while you who just want to turn it into a cynical debunking opportunity.

 

Ever see WHAT factored into GDP? Payments to Mother Nature for chopping down some trees or draining a swamp certainly aren't included in GDP. And why would it be…Mother Nature would never cash the check.

Okay. Downstream costs. My F150 plant requires the movement of those new trucks to the local rail yard. This creates even more CO2 then the plant running itself does. I am charged the cost of this transportation…but it includes no charge for the additional CO2 I create. So who should I write the check for, to account for this additional CO2? Again…if I write it to Mother Nature, it won't matter, because she won't cash the check.

So…to account for this additional CO2, how much, and to who, should this check be written?

Health costs of a gallon of gas? Well…assuming I don't drink it, or pour it on someone and light it, thereby incurring some pretty direct health costs, what do you THINK they should be? Let us say we charge an additional $1/gal to mitigate against "health" costs of using gasoline.

Obviously, not writing the check to Mother Nature, there is only one other authority who will collect that money. The Goobermint. And they will do…what with it…do you think? We already pay some big fuel taxes…and what did Goobermint do with it? Use it to maintain roads, and build bridges. So..we collect this dollar, elect an entirely new set of overlords, hand THEM the $1/gal and say….what? Please use this money to fund the military! ??

Horse(*)(*)(*)(*). I am likely the most analytical person you are likely to run into in some random web forum. Your desire to name call those who don't instantly buy whatever you are selling marks your ideologic bent far more than my inquisitive nature can be characterized as "cynical debunking".

I can manufacture costs for things that might not be costs as fast as anyone else can. That isn't the issue. The issue is more that what you want to count as a cost, not only might be something that CAN'T be quantified as a cost, but some would completely disagree that TRYING to quantify it is just silly.

I provided some obvious examples of this, but am quite willing to discuss reasonable ones. Just don't expect me to agree with the random thought that somehow all things are costs that only YOU want to quantify. Or can be.

Even things as simple as the "health" cost of using gasoline. That might be a good example….with one caveat…we also quantify, in the same wide way, the BENEFIT of gasoline. In terms of cost. What is it worth, movement? Transport to where we want to go, in far less time than before? That time saving component alone could be substantial, if we express benefit in dollars to offset cost.

 

You're consistent anyway. Any chance to obfuscate rather than be serious seems to be your modus operandi. "Who should I write the check to?" or words to that effect is your cute copout in addressing a serious subject. No you are not analytic, simply diversionary. You just play literal games to avoid substance. I can't give you exact dollars and cents so environmental degradation as cost is dismissable. If you were better at it you could turn it into a Marx brothers comedy routine.LOL

No question we live longer and travel further for now but what cost has that exacted from the environment and what does that bode for the future like maybe tracking us to a 6th extinction event? The Faustian bargain definitely lends itself to a cost/benefit analysis and not one that simply applies to mono-culture homo sapiens riding ourselves off a cliff. Adding in environmental costs actually makes costing more real. Present costing is unreal and yet you want to use them as the standard because you can dollars and cents a can of soup. Insane!

 

If you don't understand even basic brainstorming to solve a problem, or are incapable of responding to real world examples in a theoretical construct, then have a nice day. I recommend you think more, and better, prior to launching the next idea you want to PRETEND you are capable of discussing your own concepts.

 

Getting back to the original topic. Here more specifically the economics of the environment is attempted.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/06/09/3446662/natural-capital-142-trillion/

 

Advocacy positions, particularly those based on ecological principles of overshoot (you do know who Catton is don't you?) are not economic assessments of anything...they are assemblies of ideas to support a position. That is why advocacy positions aren't science, and in this case don't even mind the reader knowing it.

 

I'd say ecology is more science than economics. We're not talking about physics but your ability to step on your own feet seems to never end. Have you said anything on this thread that isn't diversionary and/or silly.?

 

Both are sciences. The problem is being an advocate.

 

Physical sciences are generally given more credibility than social sciences. Darwin's theory of evolution(Including Malthusian math) trumps Milton Friedman any day. And yes advocacy of denialist pseudo-sciences prominently associated with mindless growth orientated economists is a problem.

 

I agree with you. But that doesn't negate the point of those forming advocacy positions aren't doing science...they are assembling some construct to make a point.

The problem in this case isn't economists, it is those forming an advocacy position by pretending to be economists. Because then they can use some of those mindless ideas. What does it say when you are forced to use known, bad ideas to make your case? You don't have much of a case.

 

I understand you don't believe cutting down the rainforests is reducing our capital base. There are plenty of statistics to support such a proposition but it is not the kind of economics that shows up on the New York Stock Exchange. Your biases do not constitute real economics despite your insistence that they do.

 

This is a little far out but it is least thought provoking. Total debt is rising a lot faster than GDP. Check this out.

http://www.oftwominds.com/photos2014/debt-GDP.png

Might this rising relative debt to a certain degree represent an overdraw on ecosystem services? Check out also the world wide rise in water use. The curve line seems kind of similar.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgref...kZHFD9_c-NM:&docid=f4lh2Z9ooO0g1M&h=461&w=600

The question is what is happening to generate this escalating spread between debt and GDP? One perspective is the low hanging fruit provided by our ecosystem services is disappearing and therefore we need to borrow more and more to generate incremental benefits from our apparently depleting biosphere - think global warming, ocean acidification, loss of forests, topsoil, less available fresh water, pollution etc. Excerpting from the first link.

So when looking at that graph at top of this post it is at least worth considering the growing proportion of future borrowing required to generate a small increase in GDP based on our moving toward a planetary limit. Our economic Ponzi Scheme may be hitting a wall with Mother Nature getting ready to say "Sorry folks, I'm milked out."

Let's imagine on an annual basis we are overdrawing on our ecosystem services by 2 percent and losing on an annual basis one percent of planetary capital(due to partial rebound) which would slowly rise over the years. Based on compounding how much might that contribute to the debt? You might recall from my original link overshoot is supposed to have begun around 1970. 44 years is a lot of compounding. From this perspective the exponential growth of debt(Again look at graph link at top of post) looks right on schedule.

 

I certainly didn't say that. And it has nothing to do with your original supposition. See what happens when you put out a bad idea...you are forced to change the subject and make things up. I recommend you come back with a better initial idea..or at least THINK about the one you write down.

What bias? I am the one trying to figure out YOUR original statement, while you are the one running from its ridiculous nature as fast as possible.

I recommend more thinking and less stereotypes of political leanings when you are pushing a bad idea.

 

Keep blowing smoke dude. Your whole thesis is to poo poo environmental services as having any relation to serious economics. I bet a lot of people have discovered your trait of running away from your own silliness once its absurdity is laid out in stark terms. In fact you are so out of it you can't even acknowledge my obvious conflation.

Read yourself. You really come off as lost, but then so are many of your brethren. How can you mount an argument when you don't seem to know what you are saying? You remind me of one of those tea party folks - "I don't want government messing with my medicare."