An editorial in the journal, Nature, highlights the issue of compensation for loss of ecosystem services when accidents occur such as the April 22nd explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The article cites ecological economist Robert Costanza at the University of Vermont in Burlington that the outpouring of oil into the gulf from the burst well-head has already cost an estimated a $34-billion to $670-billion for the loss of ecosystem services. The article reports the suggestion by Costanza that oil and mining companies pay an up-front ‘assurance’ bond’ to cover the cost of damages in the event of accident or disaster. In the case of BP, Costanza has suggested that the company would have had to pay a bond in the order of $50 billion to get permission to drill in the Gulf.
June 2010 Archives
I enjoy reading predictions. It’s interesting to read what people have predicted in the past and compare them against the present. Take Thomas Malthus for example, the Anglican parson who, in 1798, at the beginning of UK's industrial revolution, predicted that human population growth would be checked by famine, pestilence and disease. The increase in population is limited by the means of subsistence, he argued (Malthus T.R. 1798. An essay on the principle of population).
More recently, Donella and Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers and William Behrens III published Limits to Growth in 1972. They predicted that by continuing on the path of business as usual, the world could not support present rates of growth for more than a few decades; that even with the most optimistic development of new technologies, resource limits and limits to the planet's capacity to absorb wastes would sooner or later come into play and reverse the population growth.
The explosion of the BP oil rig Deepwater Horizon is only the most media noticeable of the environmental destruction due ot our thirst for oil. In the Niger River delta of Nigeria, more oil is spilled by the Royal Dutch Shell oil operations every year than the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Because the BP spill threatens the beaches and fishing grounds of US citizens, it is a world-wide story. The same destruction of habitat and livelihoods in Nigeria goes un-noticed.
Largely unnoticed, also, is the destruction of lands in northern Alberta, Canada, as a consequence of extracting tar sands, and the damage to Arctic tundra in Alaska and Canada's north from the extraction of oil and gas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_M3B8h_KSk&feature=related
Transition towns is a grassroots movement of individuals and community groups that encourages action at the local and regional level to future-proof our towns and cities by reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. It is a positive response to the doom and gloom scenarios of post-peak oil and global warming. It encourages individuals to work with others co-operatively to develop the life skills and activities that will help us to live well in a post-carbon world.
These two video clips give an introduction. The first is by Jo Duffs as a member of the Sustainable Hawkes Bay Trust and the second is by Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition movement.
