We are naive fools to wait for the free market to save us from impending shortages of critical natural resources

“The free market–the invisible hand–will take care of everything.”

I’ve addressed this topic of the free market as alleged panacea several times before.  I’ve referred to this blind faith in the market as unsubstantiated.  I’ve mockingly referred to the common belief in the wisdom of the invisible hand as a belief in the Fouth Person in the Holy Quartet.  Why mock?  Because stark shortages of critically important natural resources loom in every direction.   And yet we’re in denial. You deny the denial?  Then how is it that we tolerate, this year, big U.S. metropolitan areas like Raleigh-Durham and Atlanta had only a few weeks left of their municipal water supplies?  We tolerate that we are drawing down unreplenishable water sources throughout the desert southwest.  Intelligent civilizations don’t deny such dangers.  They consciously deal with their problems.

I’ve just read a well-phrased description of why the modern version of the free market can’t save us from our problems regarding impending shortages of essential natural resources.  The following quote is from a new book available free on-line from Population Connection: PLAN B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, by environmental analyist, Lester R. Brown (2008).

Now with the economy as large as it is, the indirect costs of burning coal—the costs of air pollution, acid rain, devastated ecosystems, and climate change—can exceed the direct costs, those of mining the coal and transporting it to the power plant. As a result of neglecting to account for these indirect costs, the market is undervaluing

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The precise anatomy of the modern Republican brain.

I've spent a lot of time studying Republican political anatomy.   You see, I'm not only an armchair anthropologist, but I'm a social neuro-surgeon (a brand-new expertise, created today).   After careful review of all available relevant data, I have developed a precise chart (click on the thumbnail below) detailing each of…

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Coral reef photo safari at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium

I’m in Chicago with my nine-year old daughter and Shedd Aquarium was an important destination for us.  We spent much of our Aquarium time at the Wild Reef exhibit. 

The coral reefs of the world support about a quarter of our sea life, so they are immensely important, yet humans are destroying them in a wide variety of ways. 

                Shedd at Night.jpg

As important as the reefs are to world ecology, reef life is also stunningly beautiful.  You can see these communities up close at Shedd.  The irony is hard to ignore whenever you can view warm water life in Chicago while it’s bitterly cold outside. 

Shedd Aquarium does a wonderful job displaying its marine life.  It’s difficult to stop taking photos, if you have a digital camera. I took more than 100 photos, then deleted many of them, leaving about a dozen photos I liked.  The challenge is not finding beautiful scenes to photograph.  The Aquarium is full of such opportunities.  The challenges are the low light conditions (no flash photography allowed, for the protection of the animals), combined with the quick movements of some of the creatures.  Note:  I took all of these photos with a Canon A700, a modest consumer-grade digital camera that is about 2-years old.  Also, these photos are only minimally retouched.  Comparable scenes await anyone interested in traveling to Chicago to visit Shedd Aquarium.

Many of the organisms living at a reef look like underwater plants, but they are actually animals.  Those animals include the corals themselves…

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To save the environment – don’t get divorced

Two can live more energy-efficiently than one, according to this article from New Scientist:  “Divorced households are smaller than married households, but consume more land, water, and energy per person than married households,” says Jianguo Liu of Michigan State University in East Lansing, US, who carried out the 12-country analysis with…

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We’re running out of water and oil . . . (yawn).

Today, the following Associated Press article was run on page-19 of my local newspaper (the St. Louis Post-Dispatch):

An epic drought in Georgia threatens the water supply for millions. Florida doesn’t have nearly enough water for its expected population boom. The Great Lakes are shrinking. Upstate New York’s reservoirs have dropped to record lows. And in the West, the Sierra Nevada snowpack is melting faster each year.

Across America, the picture is critically clear — the nation’s freshwater supplies can no longer quench its thirst.

The government projects that at least 36 states will face water shortages within five years because of a combination of rising temperature, drought, population growth, urban sprawl, waste and excess.

“Is it a crisis? If we don’t do some decent water planning, it could be,” said Jack Hoffbuhr, executive director of the American Water Works Association, based in Denver.

Water managers will need to take bold steps to keep taps flowing, including conservation, recycling, desalination and stricter controls on development.

The price tag for ensuring a reliable water supply could be staggering. Experts estimate that just upgrading pipes to handle new supplies could cost the nation $300 billion over 30 years.

“Unfortunately, there’s just not going to be any more cheap water,” said Randy Brown, utilities director for Pompano Beach, Fla.

Truly, this is a major story; our country is running out of a critically important resource.  Combine that lack-of-water news, though with the equally unreported news that the world is running out of …

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