Left to its own devices what would the unrestrained Free Market ultimately 'create' ... What is its ultimate goal ?
EcoEconomics in a Nutshell
Our free market economy is nothing more than a huge auction called 'Supply and Demand', which - very efficiently - puts a price on on everything.
The problem is that it allows us to sell everything - the last drop of oil, the last tree, the last fish, the last of everything. It's called growth - but it is, obviously, growth into oblivion - the exact opposite of EcoEconomics. It is a fatal flaw of our present economic system.
Or, as Greenpeace puts it: "When the last tree is cut, the last river poisoned, and the last fish dead, we will discover that we can't eat money..."
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The eco-economic price for a natural resource is, therefore, the price you would have to pay if our planet were to release that resource only at a sustainable level.
After that last tree is cut, that last fish is poisoned, that last drop of oil is burned ...
Will the Free Market then discover that
-- We can't eat piles of money ...
-- We can't drink tainted water ...
That a wheel barrel full of gold doesn't really buy peace and security.
The unrestrained Free Market is a strange beast ...
It consumes Nature's Resources, without a thought for their true value.
If a Commodity can be sold -- then the Commodity MUST be sold
-- the market demands it.
Resources are Free for the taking, or so the theory goes ... You snooze -- you Lose!
The fatal flaw, in the theory however is
the true currency of nature, is life, not death.
-- is sustainability, not endless consumption.
The true currency of nature, is NOT one simple transaction, and that's that.
Nature enforces consequences. Nature is interconnected.
Nature always exacts its hidden costs.
Human kind, for the most part, remains oblivious to Value-Subtracted-Tax that Nature keeps adding to our Accounts.
And try as we may to rise above, we remain intricately bound within Nature's web.
Our Carbon Footprints are weighty.
Our race for riches, leaves any lesser lives in the dust.
Our boundless ambition, will one day crash back to earth however, with a series of Market-shaking thuds.
And even that won't awake the King Midases --
moving markets, moving futures, moving commodities off of Nature's shelves.
What will King Midas do when he discovers those shelves empty,
and the things he values most in life, have somehow passed him by?
... besides stumble over to the Next Hot Market ?
Such are the Titans of Commerce, forever-trying to rewrite the world in their own image ... and forever-failing;
and Nature shudders ... as nature's participants continue to struggle and weep:
http://youtu.be/...
from the MotherNatureChannel
Rare Frogs & Endangered Species - Planet Earth - BBC Wildlife
http://www.youtube.com/... [Click link to watch clip]
"Whole frog communities are crashing. On a global scale, out of something like 6000 Frog species altogether -- now nearly one-third are classified as endangered."
NATURE - Frogs: The Thin Green Line - Preview - PBS
http://www.youtube.com/...
"Around the world frog are vanishing. 'You could walk any trail and you would hear frogs calling. There's just nothing here now.' "
Nature is exacting her price. With her currency. On her terms.
Will we ever become wise enough -- scared enough -- to factor in the unseen, unrecorded Environmental Costs ... the Value-Subtracted-Tax we borrow take from Nature's storehouse everyday ?
Maybe ... After the last tree is cut ... that last barrel of oil is burned ...
Maybe then ... the King Midases will wake from their never-ending game of charades.
Maybe then ... they'll discover the true cost of all their gold.