economics

Pres. Bush: The Skunk at His Own Garden Party

Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ECOLOGY, economics, Energy, News

By Stephen Leahy


Credit:White House Photo/Chris Greenberg

President George W. Bush addresses the Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change on Sep. 28, 2007.

Sep 29 (IPS) – After years of denial, the U.S. White House-sponsored summit on climate change ended Friday with President George W. Bush admitting that global warming was real and humans were responsible and asking for heads of state to join him at yet another summit next year (when his presidency ends).

It’s doubtful if anyone of consequence will attend that future gab-fest since President Bush continues to push voluntary cuts to greenhouse gas emissions when the rest of the world, including much of the business sector, has already said that approach simply doesn’t work.

“President Bush has so little credibility on climate change,” said Chris Flavin, president of the Worldwatch Institute, a U.S.-based environmental group. Continue reading →

“Climate change is like the Internet — it is never going away”

Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ECOLOGY, economics, ENVIRONMENT, News, sustainability , , , ,

“Climate change is like the Internet — it is never going away.”
— Paul Dickinson, CEO of the Carbon Disclosure Project

Climate of Change Confronts Wall Street
By Stephen Leahy

Sep 24 (IPS) – Stockholders, investors and financial analysts are now demanding to know how climate change will affect companies’ bottom line, and a new report reveals large corporations’ risks and opportunities.

At the behest of institutional investors managing over 41 trillion dollars, several hundred large corporations voluntarily revealed how they are responding to this new reality in a report released Monday at a major event on New York’s Wall Street, where former U.S. President Bill Clinton will also speak.

“Climate change will change the way we do everything,” said Paul Dickinson, CEO of the Carbon Disclosure Project, an independent not-for-profit organisation.

“Nothing will go back to the way things were,” Dickinson told IPS.

Continue reading →

How to Kick-Start the 21st Century Eco-Economy

Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ECOLOGY, economics, ENVIRONMENT, Global Issues and Perspectives, Media, News, sustainability

restore-cover-wri-sml.jpg Toward a Green Economy
By Stephen Leahy*

May 31 (IPS) – Humanity is facing historic and truly unprecedented challenges from climate change and the rapid decline of ecosystems that sustain life.

This article is final part of a three-part series published by IPS on natural capital and how future global prosperity and equity can be achieved through the preservation of ecosystems. See Part One: Like Enron, Earth Inc. Sliding Into Bankruptcy and Part Two: Global Warming is Real But I didn’t Do It 

The 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) found that 83 percent of the planet’s natural systems are in serious decline or on the brink. Adding to this already dire situation are the twin pressures of population growth and increasingly consumptive lifestyles.

Global population is expected to soar from today’s 6.6 billion to 9 billion by 2050. Even though we crossed the point of sustainable use of natural resources in the mid-1980s, many of the 2.4 billion people living in China and India are striving mightily right now to approach the materialistic lifestyle of the average North American.

So how can we find our way around the global calamity the human race seems to be hurtling towards?

“Humanity needs a fundamentally new approach to managing the assets upon which we all depend,” said Janet Ranganathan, director of the People and Ecosystems programme at the World Resources Institute, an environmental group based in Washington.

“We need new ways of making decisions at all levels that fully value ecosystems and the services they provide us,” she said.

Continue reading →

Global Warming Is Real But I Didn’t Do It

Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, economics, ENVIRONMENT, Global Issues and Perspectives, News, Pollution and Toxics, sustainability


CLIMATE CHANGE:
Overcoming the Ostrich Effect
By Stephen Leahy

May 30 (IPS) – The vast majority of North Americans now declare that they want action on climate change. But whether people are truly willing to embrace “carbon-neutral” lifestyles — including giving up their gas-guzzling sports utility vehicles — remains an open question, say experts.

This article is part two of a three-part series published by IPS on natural capital and how future global prosperity and equity can be achieved through the preservation of ecosystems. See Part One: Like Enron, Earth Inc. Sliding Into Bankruptcy and Part Three: How to Kick-Start the 21st Century Eco-Economy

Scientists have made a strong case that the only way to stave off the worst impacts of climate change — floods, storms, wildfires, disease epidemics and sundry other unpleasant events — is by slashing greenhouse gas emissions a whopping 80 percent from the 1990 baseline by 2050. European policy-makers are already putting plans in place to meet that target.
North Americans, whose region is by far the worst polluter, are beginning to talk about reductions, but few understand the sweeping breadth of the changes needed to reach the 80 percent target.

“The American public’s awareness about global warming is extremely high, but that doesn’t mean very much,” said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of Strategic Initiatives at Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies

Continue reading →

Like Enron, Earth Inc. Sliding Into Bankruptcy

Stephen economics, Global Issues and Perspectives, News, sustainability

Earth Inc. Sliding Into Bankruptcy
By Stephen Leahy


Credit:WWF-Canon / Hartmut

Mangrove destruction for shrimp farming in Thailand.

May 29 (IPS) – Build a shrimp farm in Thailand by cutting down mangrove forests and you will net about 8,000 dollars per hectare. Meanwhile, the destruction of the forest and pollution from the farm will result in a loss of ecosystems worth 35,000 dollars/ha per year.

This article is part one of a three-part series on natural capital and how future global prosperity and equity can be achieved through the preservation of ecosystems. See Part Two: Global Warming is Real But I didn’t Do It    Part Three: How to Kick-Start the 21st Century Eco-Economy


Many leading development institutions and policy-makers still fail to understand that this ruthless exploitation for short-term profits could trigger an Enron-like collapse of “Earth, Inc.”, experts say.

For example, the World Bank and other economic development agencies would happily loan a shrimp farmer 100,000 dollars to clear more mangroves. Continue reading →

Can Capitalism Be Green?

Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ECOLOGY, economics, Energy, ENVIRONMENT, Global Issues and Perspectives, Multilingual Versions, News, sustainability , , ,

Copyright 2006 Renate LeahyCan Capitalism Be Green?

By Stephen Leahy

Experts say continuous economic growth, intrinsic to capitalism, is not viable on a planet with increasingly scarce natural resources.

May 7 (IPS/IFEJ) – Capitalism has proven to be environmentally and socially unsustainable, so future prosperity will have to come from a new economic model, say some experts. Just what this new model will look like is the subject of intense debate.

One current states that continuous growth can be environmentally compatible if clean and efficient technologies are adopted, and if economies stop producing material goods and move towards services. This is known as sustainable prosperity.

International agreements to fight global problems, like the thinning of the atmosphere’s ozone layer and climate change, used market principles to achieve compliance by the private sector.

But the problem is, “We are consuming 25 percent more than the Earth can give us each year,” says William Rees, of the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia.

Continue reading →

CARBON FORESTS: Can the Free Market Slow Deforestation?

Stephen Biodiversity, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, economics, Forests, Global Issues and Perspectives , ,

Sumatra burning forest courtesy of Kim Worm Sorensen sml

By Stephen Leahy

IPS 28/10/2006

Tropical forests’ ability to store carbon dioxide and mitigate climate change makes them more valuable than alternative uses like pasture or lumber, and rich countries ought to pay tropical countries to preserve their forests, the World Bank says.

However, some environmentalists caution that while reducing deforestation is vital, a so-called carbon trading system is the wrong approach and too complicated to implement.

The world’s tropical forests have been shrinking at a rate of five percent per decade since the 1950s. In the past five years, more than 50 million hectares of tropical forest have been lost — an area nearly the size of France. Aside from the loss of biodiversity, destruction of ecosystems and other negative impacts, deforestation is a major source of human-made emissions of climate-altering greenhouse gases (GHGs).

In fact, deforestation contributes almost twice as much GHGs as does all road transport around the world.

“The trees are worth more alive, storing carbon, than they would be worth if burned and transformed to unproductive fields,” said Kenneth Chomitz, lead author of the World Bank report released Monday. Continue reading →