ECOLOGY OVER ECONOMICS
Chapter 4. The Shape of the Eco-Economy
Lester R. Brown, Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth
(W.W. Norton & Co., NY: 2001).
Ecologists understand the ecological processes
that support life on earth. They understand the fundamental role
of photosynthesis, the concept of sustainable yield, the role of
nutrient cycles, the hydrological cycle, the sensitive role of climate,
and the intricate relationship between the plant and animal kingdom.
They know that the earth's ecosystems supply services as well as
goods and that the former are often more valuable than the latter.
A sustainable economy respects the sustainable yield of the ecosystems
on which it depends: fisheries, forests, rangelands, and croplands.
A particular fishery can sustain a catch of a certain size, but
if the demands on the fishery exceed the sustainable yield by even
the smallest amountsay,
2 percent a yearthe
fish stocks will begin to shrink and will eventually disappear.
As long as the harvest does not exceed the sustainable yield, it
can be sustained in perpetuity. The same is true for forests and
rangelands.
Nature also relies on balances. These include balances between soil
erosion and new soil formation, between carbon emissions and carbon
fixation, and between trees dying and trees regenerating.
Nature depends on cycles to maintain life. In nature, there are
no linear flow-throughs, no situations where raw materials go in
one end and garbage comes out the other. In nature, one organism's
waste is another's sustenance. Nutrients are continuously cycled.
This system works. Our challenge is to emulate it in the design
of the economy.
Ecologists appreciate the role of photosynthesis, the process by
which plants convert solar energy into the biochemical energy that
supports life on the earth. Anything that reduces the photosynthetic
product, such as desertification, the paving of productive land,
or the acidification of lakes by acid rain, reduces the productivity
of the earth in the most fundamental sense.
Despite this long-standing body of ecological knowledge, national
governments have expanded economic activity with little regard for
sustainable yields or the fragile balances in nature. Over the last
half-century, the sevenfold expansion of the global economy has
pushed the demand on local ecosystems beyond the sustainable yield
in country after country. The fivefold growth in the world fish
catch since 1950 has pushed the demand of most oceanic fisheries
past their ability to produce fish sustainably. The sixfold growth
in the worldwide demand for paper is shrinking the world's forests.
The doubling of the world's herds of cattle and flocks of sheep
and goats since 1950 is damaging rangelands, converting them to
desert.2
An ecologist not only recognizes that the services provided by ecosystems
may sometimes be worth more than the goods, but that the value of
services needs to be calculated and incorporated into market signals
if they are to be protected. Although calculating services is not
a simple matter, any reasonable estimate is far better than assuming
that the costs are zero, as is now the case. For example, a forest
in the upper reaches of a watershed may provide services such as
flood control and the recycling of rainfall inland that are several
times more valuable than its timber yield. Unfortunately, market
signals do not reflect this, because the loggers who are cutting
the trees do not bear the costs of the reduction in services. National
economic policies and corporate strategies are based largely on
market signals. The clearcutting of a forest may be profitable for
a logging firm, but it is economically costly to society.
Another major failure of the market to provide reliable information
comes when governments subsidize the depletion of resources or environmentally
destructive activities. (See also Chapter 11.) For example, over
several decades the U.S. Forest Service used taxpayer money to build
roads into national forests so that logging companies could clearcut
forests. This not only artificially lowered the costs of lumber
and paper, it led to flooding, soil erosion, and the silting of
streams and rivers. In the Pacific Northwest, it destroyed highly
productive salmon fisheries. And all this destruction was underwritten
by taxpayers.3
In a world where the demands of the economy are pressing against
the limits of natural systems, relying on distorted market signals
to guide investment decisions is a recipe for disaster. Historically,
for example, when the supply of fish was inadequate, the price would
rise, encouraging investment in additional fishing trawlers. When
there were more fish in the sea than we could ever hope to catch,
the market worked well. Today, with the fish catch often exceeding
the sustainable yield, investing in more trawlers in response to
higher prices will simply accelerate the collapse of these fisheries.
A similar situation exists with other natural systems, such as aquifers,
forests, and rangelands. Once the climbing demand for water surpasses
the sustainable yield of aquifers, the water tables begin to fall
and wells go dry. The market says drill deeper wells. Farmers engage
in a competitive orgy of well drilling, chasing the water table
downward. On the North China Plain, where 25 percent of the country's
grain is produced, this process is under way. In Hebei Province,
data for 1999 show 36,000 wells, mostly shallower ones, being abandoned
during the year as 55,000 new, much deeper wells were drilled. In
Shandong Province, 31,000 were abandoned and 68,000 new wells were
drilled.4
In an eco-economy, by definition one that respects the principles
of ecology, drilling additional wells would be banned once a water
table showed signs of falling. Instead of spending money to dig
deeper wells, investments would be channeled into measures to boost
water efficiency and to stabilize population in order to bring water
use into balance with the sustainable supply.
Evidence is accumulating that our global economy is slowly undermining
itself on several fronts. If we want economic progress to continue,
we have little choice but to systematically restructure the global
economy in order to make it environmentally sustainable.
ENDNOTES:
2.
Gary Gardner, "Fish Harvest Down," in Lester R. Brown et al., Vital
Signs 2000 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000), p. 41; paper
demand in Janet N. Abramovitz and Ashley T. Mattoon, Paper Cuts:
Recovering the Paper Landscape, Worldwatch Paper 149 (Washington,
DC: Worldwatch Institute, December 1999), p. 10; animals in U.N.
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), FAOSTAT Statistics Database,
apps.fao.org, updated 2 May 2001.
3. U.S. Forest Service and effects of logging in David Malin Roodman,
Paying the Piper: Subsidies, Politics, and the Environment, Worldwatch
Paper 133 (Washington, DC: Worldwatch Institute, December 1996),
p. 19; Janet N. Abramovitz, "Averting Unnatural Disasters," in Lester
R. Brown et al., State of the World 2001 (New York: W.W. Norton
& Company, 2001), p. 128; logging's relation to northwest Pacific
fisheries in T.W. Chamberlin, R.D. Harr, and F.H. Everest, "Timber
Harvesting, Silviculture, and Watershed Processes," in W.R. Meehan,
ed., Influences of Forest and Rangeland Management on Salmonoid
Fishes and Their Habitats (Bethesda, MD: American Fisheries Society,
1991).
4. Hong Yang and Alexander Zehnder, "China's Regional Water Scarcity
and Implications for Grain Supply and Trade," Environment and Planning
A, vol. 33 (2001), p. 85.
Copyright
© 2001 Earth Policy Institute
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