
Dismantling Free Markets Won't Solve Biodiversity Threat - shubhamjain
https://humanprogress.org/article.php?p=1911
======
defterGoose
"What is this garbage?"

 _...reads the About Us section_

Ah, an arm of the Cato Institute, that makes sense.

Seriously, we have a lot of very immediate work to attend to with regards to
our environment. Our vital ecosystems are literally under assault from many of
our current ways of living. That we have not had a watershed moment of
ecosystem collapse yet is frankly astonishing, but be assured, it _is_ coming,
and be assured that there are powers-that-be that have the most to gain from
suppressing open dialogue about this. The people funding this type of
editorial are among those who will be least affected by the dire impact that
the destruction of the natural world will have on all peoples' ability to live
happy, prosperous lives. For them, only their personal wealth (read,
happiness) is at stake, and as far as that goes, their perspicacity ends at
their next quarterly report.

Our shared home beseeches you: Don't fall for it.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
I guess he doesn't think the international ban on commercial whaling that led
to the recovery of the humpback whale counts as disturbing free markets. How
odd he makes no mention of the 50+ year IWC ban, or perhaps not.

Written by Matt Ridley, who sits out by Rees Mogg at the extreme end of
political spectrum. He was famously Chairman of Northern Rock during which
time, in 2007, it became the only British bank in a century and a half to have
a run on the bank. It had to be nationalised out from under him. He was
extensively criticised in the parliamentary investigation into the bank's
failure. Yet he keeps on arguing for almost no regulation (on anything).

Also owns the land on which one of the few remaining UK coal mines sits. He
still claims climate change will not be damaging, we should carry on using
fossil fuels and not seek to decarbonise. I am sure these are entirely
unconnected beliefs.

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Zarath
Markets aren't "free" in the sense that you mean if they are externalizing
their costs. They are, in fact, distorted markets in which the cost of goods
is pushed into the future.

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devoply
> The threat to biodiversity is not new,

> not necessarily accelerating

No it's slowing down with a mass extinction of most other life on the planet.

> mostly not caused by economic growth or prosperity

Nope not caused by real estate infringing on nature, not caused by intensive
farming methods using pesticides, not caused by the fossil fuel industry, not
caused by intensively farming animals.

[https://fortune.com/2019/03/06/human-land-use-
study/](https://fortune.com/2019/03/06/human-land-use-study/)

> nor by climate change

Nope highly adapted animals are very similar to humans and can simply move to
areas more conducive to their survival and avoid any impact from climate
change.

> won’t be reversed by retreating into organic self-sufficiency.

Look at Chernobyl that proves that in fact it will be exactly. No humans, lots
of biodiversity. Lots of humans, very low biodiversity. Low or no economic
activity, high biodiversity... etc.

> A favourite nostrum of many environmentalists is that you cannot have
> infinite growth with finite resources. But this is plain wrong, because
> economic growth comes from doing more with less. So if I invent a new car
> engine that gets twice as many miles per gallon, I’ve caused economic growth
> but we’ll use less fuel. Likewise if I increase the yield of a crop, I need
> less land and probably less fuel too. This “growth as shrinkage” happens all
> the time: think how much smaller mobile phones are than they once were.

Ever heard of Jevon's Paradox?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox)

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littlestymaar
> it is important to recognize that labor-market, and even some environmental,
> regulations have become excessive in most developed countries. Free trade
> curtails some of the excesses because developed countries then have to
> compete harder against imports from developing nations.

Gary S. Becker, 1993[1]

Getting rid of free market isn't a sufficient condition, but it's a necessary
one.

Also, most of the author's argument is like “environmemtalists say fish
species are declining everywhere in the world, but that's wrong jellyfishes
are thriving!”.

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/1993-08-08/nafta-
the...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/1993-08-08/nafta-the-
pollution-issue-is-just-a-smokescreen)

------
mistrial9
the number of flip, easy-going and "hey by the way, this is yet another notion
that everyone has, that is wrong" .. is way past a red-flag indicator on this
article. More specific rebuttal TBD, but basically, no.

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namirez
The author is equating "capitalism" with "free market" with "Western values".
These are different and for the most part, unrelated concepts.

~~~
chillwaves
Many are surprised to learn that competition and markets are not soley the
realm of capitalisms. Co-ops (which are socialism) exist and can compete which
each other in the market.

~~~
dmix
They don't _really_ compete with industry. More like serve a small niche.

~~~
tsimionescu
Have you ever heard of Mondragon?

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation)

It's more of less a large co-op and, according to Wikipedia:

> It is the tenth-largest Spanish company in terms of asset turnover and the
> leading business group in the Basque Country.

~~~
dmix
I hadn’t heard of that. Thanks. Sounds like a nice alternative working
arrangement while still maintaining a sane corporate structure. Plus a way
better voluntary option that centralizing everything and ruining it with
forced gov policies applied to everyone which are usually employed to reach
similar goals.

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drak0n1c
For what it's worth, there are many interesting tidbits sourced from
scientific studies in this article:

"they found that organic dairy farms cause at least 30% more soil loss, and
take up twice as much land, as conventional dairy farming for the same amount
of milk produced, for example."

We shouldn't forget the macro-level environmental benefits of non-organic GMO
factory farming.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
It's hard to tell whether or not the claims are credible or not as he links to
no sources for any of the figures. Given the article's author I'd want to
validate any such claims.

~~~
drak0n1c
They are sourced, the researchers and universities behind each of the figures
are named and it is easy to look them up. Are hyperlinks necessary? The
findings are published in journals, not on websites.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Journals publish on the web, albeit often behind a hard paywall. When one
doesn't mention the the journal it appears in, the year or title of the study,
and it doesn't appear in the list of many papers associated with the professor
at Wikipedia a simple link would assist. You have to wonder if the choice not
to link is obfuscatory, especially when several other discussions in the
article are very carefully cherry picked - not mentioning a global ban on
whaling for instance.

Besides, it is the web, it is only courtesy to the reader link and cite. I
think less of mainstream media who don't link to source or cherry pick. So I
am _certainly_ going to think less of someone who claims to be a scientist who
doesn't bother, and question their motives just as strongly.

