Thread: How interesting

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7662565.stm
Politics AND the environment...have fun.

The thing that really drives me nuts, is that sustainable logging practices are not hard to do. You just make a little less money emplying them; like most environmentally sound solutions. If only more people had some foresight...lose a little profit now, but have a sustainable profit forever.

Originally Posted by SoySoldier

The thing that really drives me nuts, is that sustainable logging practices are not hard to do. You just make a little less money emplying them; like most environmentally sound solutions. If only more people had some foresight...lose a little profit now, but have a sustainable profit forever.

The thing is, it seems a lot of the people managing these logging outfits do not really care if their company continues to prosper after they no longer have a stake in the company... It's all about how much money they can make right now with as little time/effort possible.

Originally Posted by ebaconjr

Years ago an economist proposed including the value of natural resources in accounting measures. My understanding is that right now the resources are considered free. So, for example, if a company burns $1000 in gas and spends $2000 in labor to harvest a portion of forest, the cost is reflected on the books as $3000. Under the proposed method the value of the trees would also have to be added. I think the proposed accounting was supposed to promote renewing resources over havesting native ones.

I'll try to dig up the article later. Soy might already be familiar with it.

And that is the root of many of the environmental issues we face today: externalities. We do not pay the actual cost for many things we buy, but rather hope our taxes will allow the government to manage those externalities. And in a system where the goal is to completely minimize inputs and maximize outputs, we tend to create a lot of externalities that could be manages easily: following the FEMAT guidelines is an example.

A group of EPA and other scientists known as FEMAT put together an enourmous megabizzilion page document describing how to best manage forests for sustainability and to protect the human environment (EPA prime directive, note the word human is modifying environment). Out of those megabizzillion pages a relatively small amount of information was actually used by regulators and lawmakers; including a paragraph, taken out of context that says removal of very old growth may be beneficial in some circumstances to prevent fire. Now, whenever they want to log just about anything that people here in the NW don't want logged, they cite that. It is really frustrating I tell you...scientists do all that hard work and then the big-wigs cherry pick to maximize their pocketbook.

I think the market system we use is a great mechanism, but it does have it's flaws, externalities being high on my list along with the gap between payscales (although that has more to do with governance than market mechanisms).