economic “externalities” and ecocide
I’m in Naples, Florida right now, attending my ailing father. I’ve come here for visits with my family for over a decade, enjoying family time and the turquoise-blue warm-water Gulf Coast beaches. Some of my daughters’ most intense encounters with non-human creatures have occurred here; and I’m thinking now of how at Delnor-Wiggins Pass we swam a few hundred yards out one day so we could stand on a sand bar. While we were splashing around, we freaked out as sting rays flapped by, and then chattered excitedly as a pod of dolphins gamboled only five yards away. We were close enough that we could see them looking at us as they breached: an experience we still remember with awe and joy. In those sublime moments, my daughters saw that the dolphins were curious. It had never occurred to them that non-human creatures might be as interested in looking at us as we are at them.
The ecocide underway not too far from Naples, the BP oil spill that is going to destroy the living systems of the northern Gulf, is tragic. Aristotle said tragedy is caused by hubris, which is a know-it-all attitude combined with gluttonous, uncompromising aggressiveness. BP’s recent track record is miserable—a blown-up refinery in Texas, a massive leak in an Alaskan pipeline—yet its lobbyists fought off all attempts by weak-willed regulators to make it follow stringent environmental protection laws. The result is horrifying, and tears have come to my eyes thinking about how it will take centuries for the toxins being spewed to dissipate, how many creatures will perish, and how many of us will never ever get a chance to have the experience that I’ve described above.
Expect our political partisans to attack each other; if we lived in a sane and just world, BP would not have been allowed to follow its own “voluntary” regulations. But we don’t live in a sane and just world, and the tragic results—well, we live in them, breathe them, eat them, take chemo to try and bring them into remission.
But, even though we’ll have to endure their finger-pointing exercises, both political parties are proud supporters of an economy that constantly “externalizes” the true costs of every product we produce, consume and then “throw away.” (Note: it is impossible to throw anything way, b/c every where it gets thrown is connected to everywhere else.)
My point is this: BP and its supporters argued that regulations cost them too much $$ to bear, and that since their scientific testimony showed there was 0% chance of a disaster, regulations were an unnecessary burden on oil consumers. The fact is though, that BP might lose so much $$ because of their legal-b/c-unregulated-crime, it might go bankrupt. Moreover, BP could drop infinite baskets of cash into the mess, but $$ will never restore the myriad marine ecosystems they have poisoned, with our penny-pinching approval. Even the stupidest and ugliest civilizations of yore never poisoned hundreds of square miles of their own food-producing territories—but we, with our economic system that “externalizes” the true costs of the products we produce and consume do. Everyday, and for logical (penny-pinching) reasons.
If we were to pay the actual cost of our products, we would change our lives in exactly the way that we—who yearn to live in a just and environmentally sustainable world—hope to. Imagine the actual cost of a AA battery: we would pay living wages to the miners, pay for the stringent regulations that protect the environment and the workers, and we would pay for the full clean-up of the mess left behind. We would pay the same costs every step of the way until the raw materials assumed the shape we recognize as a battery. Then, we’d use it until its energy was exhausted, and pay for its full disposal costs, and not just the fees for immediate disposal, but the total cost of keeping its toxins out of the water and food supplies forever. A AA battery might cost $5,000. if all of these “externalities” were responsibly accounted for. No Democrat or Republican is going to campaign to raise “cost of living”; both parties agree that we can never address the issue of economic “externalities”—of passing the costs of the products we consume and “throw away” onto the next generations.
I suppose I sound like an extremist in bringing this up. But I argue just the opposite. You see, we have been led to believe that we are the most important humans who have ever lived, and that we—with our unparalleled intelligence and technological abilities— have a divine right to consume and “throw away” whatever whenever we want. That’s hubris, folks. And that’s why—after only 300 years of industrial capitalism—we all live in toxic waste dumps. (I was shocked to find out that Truro, Mass., where we go on vacation to enjoy nature, has some of the worse air pollution in the US because of continental wind patterns; and did you know that every fish that lives in natural bodies of water is contaminated with mercury? There are no “pristine” areas on our planet.)
The purpose of civilization is to ensure the birth, health and survival of our next generations. The BP ecocide shows us once again how well we are achieving this most essential and important goal.
Until we reform our economic system so that we pay the real price for products, either through a revolution of law and politics or through a mass movement of uncoerced change in personal behavior, we will continue to destroy ourselves. Nature doesn’t care about us, you see. And neither does the Earth. Both were here long before we were, and both will be here long after we are gone.
To care for ourselves, and achieve the goal of civilization, are we willing to pay $5,000. for a AA battery—or evolve into a new mode of living that doesn’t require AA batteries? Or fossil fuels?
Are we the most important humans who have ever lived—with our unparalleled intelligence and technological abilities—or is that just one more example of deceptive advertising?
BP's voluntary regulations
Related posts:
