Subject: Re: the other shoe
> The appointment of Gale Norton, should it go through, could fill the
> coffers and reuvenate the environmental movement. Let's hope it also
> helps the environment. This "disgusting political situation" should be
> good for something. Maybe it's an opportunity?
>
> Ever hopeful,
>
> Renee
The best thing to hope for is more high oil and natural gas prices. Despite
the majority of US citizens voting in record numbers for both the Democrats
and the Green Party, the winners are the losers of the popular vote, [the
Re(stumble)cans] who would sell anything for a buck. The first thing they
will sell off of the public patrimony will be the current disputed
wilderness areas with remaining uncut, primary, old growth forests, and
minerally important lands.
High oil prices and natural gas prices will be the downfall of the
Re(stumble)cans who will try to shore up the New Economy Industries with low
interest rates, declare an 'open season' on natural resources in the public
patrimony, etc. High oil prices, increased scarcity and also very
significant competition in the emerging economies of China and India will
blow the steam out of Bush's plans to bolster the 'post-scarcity' economy
that the US is now really just starting to cope with.
The result will be crushing defeat to the Bush administration in any attempt
to revive the US economy. The US economy is not strong enough to withstand
sustained high prices for imported energy. The benefit of high energy prices
for the environment is lower consumption of natural resources. We ecological
economists call this phenomenon 'price rationing'. With high energy prices,
discretionary incomes become lower on average, and the ability to pay for
new large homes is drastically reduced. Because there is a very large
population of wealthy people who are knowledgeable about the environment,
there will be a market premium for 'certified forest products', and other
'green consumer products' such as renewable energy, organic natural foods.
What price rationing does is reduce consumption of expensive items that are
impacting on ecosystems. It is true that many products like Palm Pilots,
Blackberries, DVDs are becoming cheaper, but that is because of innovation
in production.
So in one respect it is not even revelant that the Democrats did not get
elected, in another it is relevant, but perhaps the reality is that it is
better to have the Republicans in for a term, let the public see what
incompetence is capable of. There is no other economy on earth that is more
sensitive to emerging and extreme scarcity of natural resources than the US.
The US imports well over 50 % of the petroleum it consumes each year, and as
much as 50 % of the forest products it consumes. Yet there are somewhere
between 4-5 % of the forests left that are still intact as primary forests
or old growth. Almost all those forests are located in Alaska and in the
western states.
We ecological economists also have a term for the solution to scarcity of
natural resources: "subsititution." Just about anything can be substituted
for scarce natural resources to make homes, etc.
chao,
john foster
|