how can global warming have a cost that can be counted in curency?

Question

surely this is time to surmount capitalism and do what has to be done for our future, for our future, not for a few dollars more?

Answer 1

You see, that's the beauty of things, the absolute beauty of the capitalist system; everything has a price, and we are supposed to believe that the price includes all things that should be included in this unfettered world where information flows freely and everybody has a voice (including the guy who sees the sea at his doorstep instead of 20 metres away, and the guy whose crop failed the thrid year running because it just doesn't rain as much anymore) and so on and so forth...

But is that the case? Definitely not, these 'external costs' are most of the time ignored, and only the private costs of the corporations are taken into account. So it doesn't matter if the drinks conglomerate takes water off the slowly accumulated water, lowering the water table, drying up villagers wells ,and causing the water to be more concentrated in minerals, salts and fertiliser, destroying the livelihoods of the farmers as well as slowly poisoning their customers, as long as the cost of a bottle of the black drink is less than what customers pay for it.

Only if the poor farmers effectively lobby, and cause politicians to intervene would the farmers' costs be taken into account, may be some form of compensation...

Now think of that on a slightly larger scale...

Think of say the forest fires in Indonesia, caused by logging companies who want to save by not clearing the land, and how these fires spread and afect the lives of people not only in Indonesia, but in Malaysia, Singapore, think of the people who get asthma attacks, or worse. Do you think they can lobby their governments? Even if they could, can the Malaysian or Singaporean government influence the Indonesian government? Can the Indonesian government get the logging companies whose policy is to burn, cut and run, to pay for anything?

Think now of a global scale...

It is impossible to internalise costs...

How about the cutting of trees, the clearing of rainforests? How can we tell say Brazil they shouldn't do this because they are damaging our planets lungs when our own countries have destroyed the lungs in our countries? When the sheer volume of carbons we have spewed into the atmosphere during industrialisation (and remember early industrialisation was coal driven, jsut like what China is being accused of, although they cook with coal) is so large, how can we ask developing countries to halt their development and not do like the developed countries? Isn't that holier than thou hypocrisy?

There are two issues:
First it is impossible to measure the true cost of global warming and make organisations internalise costs.
Second, the measures we are trying, as a planet, to take are unfair and hypocritical, do what I say and not what I did so you will never have a life like mine.

What we should do is do our own effort as individuals and recognise that others have the right to progress too.

We should recycle, stop waste, and decrease the unnecessary burdens we impose on our planet.

We should buy products from, and therefore encourage organisations that have the same concerns as us and address them by treating the planet and people fairly; and at the same time punish the organisations who only think of profits by not buying their products; Use the system to beat the system.

We should stop thinking about what others should do, but think of what we should do. If enough of us to the right things, we can change the behaviour of corporations, and this will change the way everyone of us lives.

These are things we can start doing today.

Answer 2

The UK has increasingly become an uncomfortable, and undesirable country in which to live.

Whilst we don't pay the highest rate of income tax in europe, we do pay an extortionate level of taxes on just about every thing else!! And what exactly do we have to show for it??

Our governments idea of a solution is to tax us yet further, without putting forth any proposals for improved infrastructure. I live in London, and the city itself is a case in point. Our public transport system is so over crowded, and has for so long been under funded, that it's become an almost impossible task to rectify the situation. Meanwhile, millions of pounds are made each week in congestion charges, and speeding fines, with no feasible explanation of where the money is going.

For us, this is the cost of 'not doing anything', which then in itself requires such dramatic action to rectify, that it would unacceptably interrupt our very existence.

And that's probably the greatest problem we're going to face in the future. Changing behaviour, when it's been successfully ignored or hidden for so long, is an almost impossible task. Governments have gone as far as to systematically discredit figures of authority on the environment for years, so that they too can ignore the problem in their own time. It's only getting the press it has now because there's propoganda to be pedalled in the name of political campaigning. 'Environment' is the new buzz word in politics.

As for surmounting capitalism, I don't think that's even valid contemplation. In many respects, it's not the capitalists who are immediately responsible, it's those in positions of power (politicians!) who have failed us, and the environment we all take for granted. Had policies been put in place when evidence was first indicating the damage being done to our environment, we would not now be faced with the problems created by failure to act.
And we too have failed ourselves, with an attitude of ignorance and dissaffection. MTV was telling us to 'turn off the tap' 20 years ago, but we just let it keep running regardless.

I think one of the biggest mistakes we continue to make, is to assume that we don't have a say in our own lives. And whilst here in the UK it's become increasingly easy to have become dissaffected with politics and politicians, it's also become too easy to not get involved with the very issues that affect the quality of life we should all be entitled to. Capitalism may offer an escape from the pressures of modern living, but it doesn't offer a solution!
Once the masses stop consuming everything that's put on offer, and making a more informed choice about the products and services they consume, then we can realise control over our own environment by the choices we make, not just for ourselves, but for each other. The reason that the high street can sell you that throw away item at a knock down price, and still make vast profit, is that you don't care whether or not it was made by a 12 year old in india!! If you did, then it wouldn't be so, and we wouldn't all be out there every weekend buying up yet more useless product.

As for the direct calculable cost of environmental damage, and the added cost of improving it, that is a question I don't think anyone can answer with any accuarcy. But we do know that if we modify our environment too far beyond it's natural sustainability (if we haven't done already), then no amount of money can save us from ourselves. It may be that continents will yet shift, displacing millions of people, and making neccessary an infrastructural change of unprecedented magnitude. Who knows how much that will cost, and how much further we ourselves will continue to impact upon it.
It may also be that we are now on the crest of a new wave of accountability, even self preservation! Who knows.

Either way, unless you and I do something about our own impact each day, none of this will matter anyway.

Answer 3

Opportunity cost and labor as an asset are really very difficult to adjust in cash value but these things are fact behind our financial statements.. and global warming is the same what the price we'll pay we don't know but it seems that it'll cost us which we can't affoard and its quite different from the economic variable stated in the bigining which we can change in our next financial year but this natural phenomina is difficult to change because of the variables and assortment, even a single one which relates human behaviour, it'll take a generation to come back to the productive track but who knows how much negative attitude is inheritated into future and for how long.. who take responsibility to change human habits.. and if someone, then who'll assess that person.

Answer 4

In the UK it's nothing to do about global warming as we only put 2% carbon monoxide in the air, it's about squeezing the tax payer for money to fill the gap left by selling all our assets to foreign countries. America and China are by far the worse, sort them out first before slamming us.

Answer 5

Due to rising water levels we have to build more houses to replace the ones that got lost to the sea etc.
Yes we do have to take stock of the situation now. I hate this throw away society we have become. My mother used to wash her dishcloths in the washing machine as do I now, not throw em in the bin and buy new ones. Use old pillow cases I say!

Answer 6

meanwhile the capitalists (who believe global warming is happening) are just buying up arctic land instead, for future post-warming development.