Such a difficult time for being an ecologist. Governments across the world are taking the neoliberal way of doing economics and saying "communists" at any other solution beneficial to the climate and people, being almost impossible to see the intrinsic value of nature, and only focusing on economic profit. But fk it we need to keep fighting for nature and our survival. Such a informative video thanks!
Not a nature finance bro but I do work in nature and have a rudimentary understanding of finance… the main issue I can see with assigning monetary value to something that is in a spiralling net negative state is the potential for ‘shorting’ Trading in the loss instead of the gain, which given the current outlook, would actually be the more profitable option. That trends quite nicely with a pump and dump scheme- assign value, artificially inflate value then short the stock on the way down. Sounds like a sneaky way to squeeze more capital out of development and the seemingly inevitable industrialisation of green spaces… I’m with you on the indigenous knowledge stuff- it’s the only real thing with any true value and best of all it can’t be measured in gold
I will never stop being both shocked and disappointed at the fact that the only way to get the ruling class to do anything good is promising them that the magic imaginary economy number continues to go up
The first time I can across the idea of credits was when applying for an envrionmental science job with US Fish and Wildlife Service. I studied the idea to be prepared for the interview and I immediately saw many issues. Credits excuse and allow destruction for "desirable forms" of ecocological resotoration and in no way is it balanced. Also many times companies can buy credits to restore land that isn,t even near the damaged site. It also does nothing to protect old growth forests and ancient ecosystems. Finally the biggest issue I saw was it likely encouraged fragmenting of envrionments, and if I learned anything about island biogeography that is harming more than helping.
Very interesting topic. The credit scheme is one of those things that, on the surface, sounds like a good idea, but if you dig a little deeper, as you did in this video, you see there are many potential pitfalls and flaws. Thanks for another great video!
I learn more from your 10-minute videos than from my teachers' 2-hour lectures where they mostly mumble about and guilt trip us for not knowing stuff they are the ones supposed to teach us
Thank you for this video. While I'm sure many in the natural capital space genuinely believe they are doing the right thing, it seems clear that the commodification of nature is the last place we should be looking for answers to the ecological crisis. Despite the relentless and thoroughly unscientific attempts to blame all our problems on population growth anybody should be able to see that the endless expansion of markets and the oppressive power of the state is the main driver of the ecological crisis. How else do you explain the fact that countries with enormous and growing populations in the developing world still account for such a low share of emissions and resource consumption. We need to stop pursuing GDP growth for its own sake and start focusing on meeting human needs and the needs of our planet. Community projects like those mentioned in this video are the solution and have been for millenia.
Thank you, I am so tired of hearing people say that it's immigrants and the population is to high and other bs whilst deliberately going out of their way to be worse for the environment
I completely agree with you but in this world there are people who only think about mere profit. There should be many, many people who think like you. Good ! Keep it up! 👏👏💪
Thank you for articlulating some thoughts that I've also been having recently, some lectures in college have been about putting monetary value on the amount of work done by natural systems and it really doesn't feel right. So hard to see these scientists even talking about it. The bottom line is capitalism is profit motivated and the profit motive is incompatible with the natural world and any motives that seek to benefit it. I talked to some of these lecturers about it and they said that they have to use a language that the companies and governments understand because they just don't listen otherwise. Very sad situation but i think they see it as a mitigation attempt rather than an overall solution.
My issue with this topic is that it makes me so angry/depressed that I find it hard to see the solutions, I'd need a long sit down after making a video about this. I like the community idea, BNG etc, strike me as exceptionally short-sighted in terms of underlooked elements of biodiversity, whereas community investment will transcend generations. There is an interesting book, "Legacy" by Prof Dieter Helm which is free online and contains some interesting ideas for sustainable economy, which I think is a necessary step in order to reach sustainable biodiversity.
I agree, it is depressing - especially when it's all I see when I'm doomscrolling on LinkedIn! Thank you for the recommendation, I'll have a look at it.
One thing that annoys me a lot is that a lot of people in Ecology jobs were big shot finance people whod already made a bunch of money before they just fell into Ecology basically like yeah sure Hugo i really relate to your story while having barely enough to eat. Fighting tooth and nail to exist whilst they put buckets under the leaks rather than turning off the tap of a problem people like that caused in the first place.
My part is planting native species along roadsides, abandoned lots, anywhere I can while growing natives and food plants that build long term agroforestry systems. I teach others how to in my local area and sell plants to pay bills while bills still exist.
I agree with pretty much all your thoughts, A couple of questions I'd pose: 1. How can we get more of these community projects going? 2. Are we better off with or without the eco credits system. Certainly it seems like it is a policy that would need to be heavily regulated to avoid exploitation Also curious if you have any sources on how they even attempt to quantify bio diversity, seems like quite an open term
1. I’m not sure about elsewhere, but if you live in the UK, we actually have so many community projects that need more people engaging with them. For one of my jobs I outreach with climate community groups and I’ve visited many doing really exciting stuff - community agriculture, community energy, etc - they just need funding and most of all, people from the community to become actively involved. So I’d say to start by looking at what’s near you and get involved. 2. I think as I said in the video, the credit system is probably the fastest way to try and ‘rewild’ under our current economic system, so if we were stuck in it, we probably would need it… but I think it’s more important people instead look towards building a more communalist system and thus letting communities own and manage their own land rather than buying it up and selling/trading credits. 3. The main company I looked at did advertise its own framework for how it measured biodiversity, I don’t really want to disclose the specific companies/people talked about in the video though. I think most of these credit companies will probably have their own method of quantifying biodiversity!
America has the Chesapeake Bay Act, which does the same credit thing but with stormwater runoff. It does indeed allow big companies to bulldoze land for construction and then pay other big companies to do "stream restoration" ... I should add though: that Act also forbids construction inside the 100 year floodplain, which is huge, and allows wildlife corridors to be created by following streams.
we have the same damn issue in the climate space, often referred to as "climate tech" by the tech bros and finance bros that are coming into the space for financial profit and not to actually reduce the overall CO2e/output of whatever industry. Your point on the loophole of diversity credits is also relevant on carbon credits as there's a massive issue with the fact that current DAC tech produces more carbon than captured due to fossil fuel primary electric sources, and they also are deeply inefficient compared to traditional (natural) processes, but you can't capitalize natural processes. The only thing I would critique is that we are BECAUSE OF nature. We would not exist as humans, mammals, or creatures without nature; whether that's clean air, clean water, clean soil, and clean energy to move through our daily lives.
I don't think that your alternatives are actually alternatives. Not that they aren't good projects or beneficial to society but rather that they are social responses to the problem we're facing rather than economic ones. I think social responses will be more effective and beneficial than economic ones but they aren't mutually exclusive. In fact what I see as an ideal outcome from a credit system is some of the funds being distributed to the community initiatives regardless of who 'sells' the credit. Much like how carbon is an externality that has been becoming an increased focus and a price attached to it (to account for the obvious social cost) I think it's good that biodiversity considerations are a good thing to force industry to have to pay attention to. The reason why carbon credits could have a negative impact on biodiversity is precisely because one externality is being measured and indirectly taxed and the other isn't. Measuring it however presents a challenge, I immediately thought the same thing you did about fudging the system but at the other end of the loop, if a landowner knew that an area was going to be measured soon, they are incentivized to reduce biodiversity ahead of time. But there are ways to plan for and mitigate this like fines or even better, asset forfeiture (but you need the political will for this). Ultimately these credit systems are just an overly complicated tax on whatever the undesired outcome is. Much like cap and trade vs a carbon tax, having something is better than nothing and it gives you additional funding sources for the social programs that are very much so needed.
While you offer an interesting perspective and I can see the merits in tinkering with economic incentives and redistributing the money raised, I think you are missing the point. Yes, community initiatives are a social solution but that doesn't mean they are exclusively social in nature. With confederation and horizontal mass organising its possible to transform small scale projects like these into an entirely new economic system based around common ownership, degrowth and cooperation. Markets like those you are describing have to be continually regulated and legislated into existence by the state just to deal with the negative externalities that capitalism creates. An economic system that simply is not based on infinite growth and the profit motive gets at the root of these problems and side steps the complex issues you are describing, representing a real alternative to the current system.
I have just binged most of your content, bravo 🎉 excellent stuff, well researched, worded and I think you might be in a spot of bother… your sooo going to get more views on your videos. 🎉🎉🎉
Good video, though I think it's a little misguided. Most people, including most here, don't actually want a different result, regardless of what they say. They want it cheaper. The result we're getting is technology. What we're using rn to share these ideas and optionions. To turn solarpunk quickly as a society, we have to give that up. We have to give a LOT of things up, and people don't actually want that. What we want is to avoid the environmental cost. We want to keep doing the same things, and do it for free. It's not even about "the newist iPhone" or the "fastest cars"; it's about phones, cars, and energy usage as a whole. If we really wanted that change rn, we would all stop using any non-carbon negative technology, as well as any that causes the horrible mining practices that are also wrecking the planet. We 100% could, and if we did the companies would be forced to change quickly, but we never will. If we are not willing to convert the system to solarpunk, then we need to start building solarpunk within the system. Hence the "punk" part, because if everyone agreed with the movement, it would already have happened. This means using the system to start instigating this change, which you, Andrewism, and some others are doing a great job at starting! I need to get my own act together and help out too. (Mental health issues are valid, just need them out of my way) The thing is we need strategy. Avoiding the finance world while trying to change it only works to prop up those that agree with you to inaction. Meanwhile those that disagree have the marketing strategy to enact their will. We need to embrace both, as the divisiveness only ensures ineffectiveness. We have to learn the skills to make the change we want to see, and take action.
I think people are tired of bashing their heads against the wall of capitalism, and are trying to use capitalism. It won't work, but I get the reasoning.
I sometimes sit thinking about this whole thing, then I get sad about the distopian reality of capitalism, and then remember the atrocities of Communism like Mao sparow campaign, and then while contemplating this mess, I look at anarchism.. and then it clicks; that we will be f*cked if we trust ALL of humanity to do its thing with no higher power to watch it, especially with the age of weapons of mass destruction.
She's not saying they are something to be worried about. They are just an outgrowth of our capitalist economic system. The system itself needs to be reorganised to return power to the people and put communities back in the driving seat.
If you want to know why finance exists look up the calculation problem and the local knowledge problem. Your comparison to the british cobra policy doesnt work since the incentive in both cases are fundamentally different - one is targeting a buyback of dead animal corpses, the other targets the production of environmental damage in the first place. You couldnt "set a forest on fire" and then get money for repairing it, since both of these actions will at most cancel each other out in this proposed system and most likely create a loss for whoever it is attempting it. Besides, pollution is a problem of industrial society in general, it is not unique to one economic system, so changing the economic system wont automatically solve the issue.
She mentioned the cobra effect as an example of perverse incentives in market systems. There are many others and to avoid them the state has to continually regulate markets in a game of cat and mouse. The calculation problem and the problem of local knowledge you mentioned affects the current capitalist system just as badly as the centralised planned economies of the previous century. The best way to avoid it is to transition to a post-capitalist economic system where knowledge is shared across municipal confederations and networks of cooperatives, not suppressed by private enterprises. You are talking about a form of ecological tax but that's not how the biodiversity credit schemes described in the video are actually implemented in the UK. There are two types of credit here, voluntary credits and offset credits. Offset credits are based around assessing the biodiversity of the land and where it is improved and legally secured for 30 years the result can be quantified and sold to developers attempting to comply with biodiversity net gain legislation. There is no direct tax on biodiversity loss, just a requirement that on paper your new development must have a net positive effect. Voluntary credits are similar and function primarily as a way for companies to finance rewilding for PR purposes. As they are voluntary and are not backed by legislation there is really no enforcement and companies typically spend as little as possible. Both types of credit struggle to quantify the complex and dynamic nature of real ecosystems. Neither type addresses the negative externalities of development and land use so they can easily be gamed. Proposed taxes like you are describing seem like a better solution but there are already better alternatives like the community projects mentioned in the video. Where communities control their land directly they can actually focus on meeting their needs and the needs of our planet rather than following the profit motive and the perverse incentives of the market. Capitalism and the hierarchies that enable it really are the root cause of our ecological crisis and pointing a finger at the state capitalist systems of the previous century does nothing to disprove this. There really are alternatives to the current system that centre human and ecological needs and we don't need to deindustrialise or depopulate the planet to achieve them.
@@DownTheStream liberal economies dont suffer from the calculation and local knowledge problem the same way as centrally planned ones. simply sharing knowledge sounds like a nice idea and all, but that doesnt answer the problem that not all relevant knowledge can be centralized. a functional economy needs a large number of independent organizations to make use of this, we call those things businesses in our current system. Im not from the UK and cant really comment on UK specific policies. If one system fails at doing a good job that is no grounds for dismissing the idea as a whole. Especially if the comparison is a fictional "post capitalist" system that nobody is able to define properly. As for "just giving communities control over the land", that is not actually a solution, is it? There are a lot of people who will look at an area of forest and view it as a missed opportunity for a parking lot or a mall or whatever. I dont see how this actually provides a solution for the problem.
@@vliedtke We aren't talking about a fictional system. Rojava in Northern Syria is already built on this model and there have been countless experiments throughout history of communities taking control of the land and using it to meet their needs. The CNT/FAI ran large areas around Catalonia during the Spanish Civil war and were able to collectivise entire industries. During the Ukrainian war of independence the Makhnovshchina was widely successful before being crushed by the red army. The Zapatistas control large swathes of the Chiapas region of Mexico today and indigenous people have a direct say in the local economy and how they protect the land. Liberal market economies really aren't as efficent as they claim and cause an enormous amount of environmental destruction for the sake of profit accumulation. Yes they are improvement on feudalism and offer more consumer choice than centrally planned economies but they are hardly the only option. If the community as a whole is involved in decision making and controls society from the bottom up they are going to focus on meeting their collective needs, not building random malls that nobody is using. Our capitalist economy requires infinite growth for its own sake and so instead of resources being allocated efficently to where they are needed we actually see the opposite with the planet paying the price and consumers being brainwashed with artificial desires just to increase consumer spending. Confederated municipalities and cooperatives really can share knowledge incredibly efficently not to even mention the potential of using systems theory and machine learning to do cybernetic centralised planning like a modern version of Project Cybersyn. In a truely post-captialist post-scarcity world the idea of economics breaks down, with abundant resources there really is nothing to economise as even the Austrian economists pointed out.
I disagree with the thought that market capitalism is inherently at fault here. Things like renewable energy are only being successful because of investment, which is largely driven by the promises of future profit. If we just say no to any profit driven directives, then there’s no reason for a great many, probably most, people to care. I care, you care, presumably most people watching this care, but a great many people, particularly those in power, only care about money. If we get rid of any money incentive, rewilding, renewables, and pretty much anything else will significantly decrease. It might be possible in theory to restore nature without profit incentives, but it won’t work quickly, and is only in theory. Arguing against capitalism in general will only harm biodiversity (look at literally any socialist or communist country).
I can see where you're coming from - it is true that the scale and speed of things like renewable energy, or biodiversity restoration, are being successful under this system because of investment. However, I don't think it's true that the majortiy of people 'wouldn't care' about restoring biodiversity or producing renewable energy if a profit-driven motive was to vanish. After all, all humans want energy, and a regular supply of it, and all humans want to eat and exist in beautiful places that are good for their mental and physical health and that aren't in uncomfortable climatic conditions - all of this requires the production of renewable energy (to stop fossil fuel derived climate change) and the restoration of biodiversity. There is currently a gap in education - perhaps a lot of people don't understand the link between fossil fuels, climate change, and reduced quality of life, and thus wouldn't care at the moment about renewable energy, but this is once again just a reflection of the failing of the capitalist system. I visit a lot of community climate groups for my job, and there is a growing and rising excitement and energy towards building community-owned renewable energy. After all, why wouldn't anyway want to be in charge of their own energy-producing assets, especially in the current cost of living crisis in the UK where national energy and heating prices are so expesnive for the majority of people? Which countries are you thinking of when you talk about 'socialist or communist countries'? If you look at Rojava, which is a communalist area of Syria, the people there have no state (they govern themselves) and meet their needs and desires themselves whilst undertaking mass ecosystem restoration. I have enough faith in humans that, were states and profit to vanish, we'd want to build ourselves lives that were engaging, safe, loving, healthy, and comfortable for all of us. This inherently includes restoring nature - whether for food production, recreational spaces, spiritual/physical/mental health, or just to fulfil our biophilia.
I've never seen some being so confidently wrong. The current ecological crisis is a biproduct of capitalism and you can't fix it by doing more capitalism.
@sawyersprott I believe Alana reacted really thoroughly to your stance, so I just wanted to add a few points. First and foremost, our current "green" transition is far too slow to combat the climate crisis, even for the EU, which is investing a lot of energy and resources in the green new deal, which is half promises and half broken contracts. In fact, renewable energy is not replacing fossil fuels but is being added to the energy mix, even though renewables are becoming increasingly affordable, owing to government subsidies rather than capital investment. The approach described in the video of assigning monetary value to nature is a strategy that aims to alleviate the issue of externalities; However, it is based on a paradox: the ecosystem does not rely on the economic, but rather the reverse; ecological reality generates society, and society generates the economy, but we live in an economicentric world, and the only way of thinking about economics is mainstream economics (the other economic school of tought are relevant mostly in academia but completely ignored in policy making), so assigning monetary value to nature is counterproductive to profit making, because capitalism requires cheap natural resources to tune a profit. If we use a so called world ecology analysis, because capitalism requires cheap nature and cheap labour to properly function (cheap nature not only consist of natural resources but also indigenous people are part of cheap nature), It cannot account for the weelbeing of nature and society, is intrinsically exploitative by design and It cannot break free from it's state of perpetual decay.
Capitalist powers that profit from crimes against the ecosystem (think fossil fuel giants, auto industry, concrete, mining (basically every heavy industry)) spent lots of money (billions) lobbying governments around the world to avoid climate reforms, they also have spent lots of money funding anti-green news outlets to peddle disinformation and propaganda about the climate emergency. This is a fundamentally capitalist problem, they choose greed and profit over peoples quality of life.
Did you even watch the video? She never suggested nation states as a solution to our ecological crisis and in fact suggested the opposite; grassroots community initiatives. In any case the USSR or CCP would more accurately be labeled as state capitalist so they hardly serve as a good counter argument. Communism is a stateless, classless and moneyless society so it seems a bit ridiculous to suggest these states 'practiced it' just so we don't have to consider alternatives to our current economic system.
@@DownTheStream So her idea of a working society is an utopia that has not even proven to exist? By this logic we can just jump and call it heaven. Closest thing to it are tribes, and yet tribes also exchange stuff and have markets.
@@josepheridu3322 No there are in fact multiple societies that are structured from the bottom up today such as the Zapatistas in Mexico and Rojava in Northern Syria. Hardly an impossible utopia. These groups are well known for their ecological values and protection of the land
@@DownTheStream Kinda of interesting you uze Zapatistas, which use gun ownership to keep power, while the Western Left today often opposes people owning guns and defending themselves.
@@josepheridu3322 I think there is quite a large gap between community self defense and aggressively marketing guns to paranoid individuals to prop up the American firearms industry and its powerful lobbying groups.
Such a difficult time for being an ecologist. Governments across the world are taking the neoliberal way of doing economics and saying "communists" at any other solution beneficial to the climate and people, being almost impossible to see the intrinsic value of nature, and only focusing on economic profit. But fk it we need to keep fighting for nature and our survival. Such a informative video thanks!
Thank you for watching!
Not a nature finance bro but I do work in nature and have a rudimentary understanding of finance… the main issue I can see with assigning monetary value to something that is in a spiralling net negative state is the potential for ‘shorting’
Trading in the loss instead of the gain, which given the current outlook, would actually be the more profitable option.
That trends quite nicely with a pump and dump scheme- assign value, artificially inflate value then short the stock on the way down.
Sounds like a sneaky way to squeeze more capital out of development and the seemingly inevitable industrialisation of green spaces…
I’m with you on the indigenous knowledge stuff- it’s the only real thing with any true value and best of all it can’t be measured in gold
I will never stop being both shocked and disappointed at the fact that the only way to get the ruling class to do anything good is promising them that the magic imaginary economy number continues to go up
this is exactly why WE need to BECOME the ruling class.
The price of the ecosystem is priceless. People who want only numbers are in serious trouble.
Great video. Interesting and under analyzed topic
Thank you so much!
The first time I can across the idea of credits was when applying for an envrionmental science job with US Fish and Wildlife Service. I studied the idea to be prepared for the interview and I immediately saw many issues. Credits excuse and allow destruction for "desirable forms" of ecocological resotoration and in no way is it balanced. Also many times companies can buy credits to restore land that isn,t even near the damaged site. It also does nothing to protect old growth forests and ancient ecosystems. Finally the biggest issue I saw was it likely encouraged fragmenting of envrionments, and if I learned anything about island biogeography that is harming more than helping.
Very interesting topic. The credit scheme is one of those things that, on the surface, sounds like a good idea, but if you dig a little deeper, as you did in this video, you see there are many potential pitfalls and flaws. Thanks for another great video!
Thank you!
I learn more from your 10-minute videos than from my teachers' 2-hour lectures where they mostly mumble about and guilt trip us for not knowing stuff they are the ones supposed to teach us
Thank you aha, what uni do you go to?
the University of Brasília, Brazil
Great to see a video like this getting more views! Commenting again for the algorithm.
Thank you for this video. While I'm sure many in the natural capital space genuinely believe they are doing the right thing, it seems clear that the commodification of nature is the last place we should be looking for answers to the ecological crisis.
Despite the relentless and thoroughly unscientific attempts to blame all our problems on population growth anybody should be able to see that the endless expansion of markets and the oppressive power of the state is the main driver of the ecological crisis.
How else do you explain the fact that countries with enormous and growing populations in the developing world still account for such a low share of emissions and resource consumption. We need to stop pursuing GDP growth for its own sake and start focusing on meeting human needs and the needs of our planet. Community projects like those mentioned in this video are the solution and have been for millenia.
I agree, thank you for your insights!
Thank you, I am so tired of hearing people say that it's immigrants and the population is to high and other bs whilst deliberately going out of their way to be worse for the environment
I completely agree with you but in this world there are people who only think about mere profit.
There should be many, many people who think like you.
Good ! Keep it up! 👏👏💪
Thank you!!!
Thank you for articlulating some thoughts that I've also been having recently, some lectures in college have been about putting monetary value on the amount of work done by natural systems and it really doesn't feel right. So hard to see these scientists even talking about it. The bottom line is capitalism is profit motivated and the profit motive is incompatible with the natural world and any motives that seek to benefit it. I talked to some of these lecturers about it and they said that they have to use a language that the companies and governments understand because they just don't listen otherwise. Very sad situation but i think they see it as a mitigation attempt rather than an overall solution.
My issue with this topic is that it makes me so angry/depressed that I find it hard to see the solutions, I'd need a long sit down after making a video about this. I like the community idea, BNG etc, strike me as exceptionally short-sighted in terms of underlooked elements of biodiversity, whereas community investment will transcend generations. There is an interesting book, "Legacy" by Prof Dieter Helm which is free online and contains some interesting ideas for sustainable economy, which I think is a necessary step in order to reach sustainable biodiversity.
I agree, it is depressing - especially when it's all I see when I'm doomscrolling on LinkedIn! Thank you for the recommendation, I'll have a look at it.
Thank you for making this video and bringing attention to these issues
Thank you for watching!
One thing that annoys me a lot is that a lot of people in Ecology jobs were big shot finance people whod already made a bunch of money before they just fell into Ecology basically like yeah sure Hugo i really relate to your story while having barely enough to eat. Fighting tooth and nail to exist whilst they put buckets under the leaks rather than turning off the tap of a problem people like that caused in the first place.
Iv learned so much. Thanks
Ecology and economy (in an ideal world) should not be considered together. One is clearly so much more important than the other
My part is planting native species along roadsides, abandoned lots, anywhere I can while growing natives and food plants that build long term agroforestry systems. I teach others how to in my local area and sell plants to pay bills while bills still exist.
That sounds amazing! I love the idea of guerilla gardening :)
Omg it's english alice cappelle. Subscribed!!
Ahahaha I love Alice Capelle! Also I’m half French (not to copy her or anything) 😂
I agree with pretty much all your thoughts,
A couple of questions I'd pose:
1. How can we get more of these community projects going?
2. Are we better off with or without the eco credits system. Certainly it seems like it is a policy that would need to be heavily regulated to avoid exploitation
Also curious if you have any sources on how they even attempt to quantify bio diversity, seems like quite an open term
1. I’m not sure about elsewhere, but if you live in the UK, we actually have so many community projects that need more people engaging with them. For one of my jobs I outreach with climate community groups and I’ve visited many doing really exciting stuff - community agriculture, community energy, etc - they just need funding and most of all, people from the community to become actively involved. So I’d say to start by looking at what’s near you and get involved.
2. I think as I said in the video, the credit system is probably the fastest way to try and ‘rewild’ under our current economic system, so if we were stuck in it, we probably would need it… but I think it’s more important people instead look towards building a more communalist system and thus letting communities own and manage their own land rather than buying it up and selling/trading credits.
3. The main company I looked at did advertise its own framework for how it measured biodiversity, I don’t really want to disclose the specific companies/people talked about in the video though. I think most of these credit companies will probably have their own method of quantifying biodiversity!
America has the Chesapeake Bay Act, which does the same credit thing but with stormwater runoff. It does indeed allow big companies to bulldoze land for construction and then pay other big companies to do "stream restoration"
... I should add though: that Act also forbids construction inside the 100 year floodplain, which is huge, and allows wildlife corridors to be created by following streams.
That’s really interesting, I hadn’t heard of that before!
we have the same damn issue in the climate space, often referred to as "climate tech" by the tech bros and finance bros that are coming into the space for financial profit and not to actually reduce the overall CO2e/output of whatever industry. Your point on the loophole of diversity credits is also relevant on carbon credits as there's a massive issue with the fact that current DAC tech produces more carbon than captured due to fossil fuel primary electric sources, and they also are deeply inefficient compared to traditional (natural) processes, but you can't capitalize natural processes. The only thing I would critique is that we are BECAUSE OF nature. We would not exist as humans, mammals, or creatures without nature; whether that's clean air, clean water, clean soil, and clean energy to move through our daily lives.
I don't think that your alternatives are actually alternatives. Not that they aren't good projects or beneficial to society but rather that they are social responses to the problem we're facing rather than economic ones. I think social responses will be more effective and beneficial than economic ones but they aren't mutually exclusive. In fact what I see as an ideal outcome from a credit system is some of the funds being distributed to the community initiatives regardless of who 'sells' the credit.
Much like how carbon is an externality that has been becoming an increased focus and a price attached to it (to account for the obvious social cost) I think it's good that biodiversity considerations are a good thing to force industry to have to pay attention to. The reason why carbon credits could have a negative impact on biodiversity is precisely because one externality is being measured and indirectly taxed and the other isn't.
Measuring it however presents a challenge, I immediately thought the same thing you did about fudging the system but at the other end of the loop, if a landowner knew that an area was going to be measured soon, they are incentivized to reduce biodiversity ahead of time. But there are ways to plan for and mitigate this like fines or even better, asset forfeiture (but you need the political will for this).
Ultimately these credit systems are just an overly complicated tax on whatever the undesired outcome is. Much like cap and trade vs a carbon tax, having something is better than nothing and it gives you additional funding sources for the social programs that are very much so needed.
While you offer an interesting perspective and I can see the merits in tinkering with economic incentives and redistributing the money raised, I think you are missing the point.
Yes, community initiatives are a social solution but that doesn't mean they are exclusively social in nature. With confederation and horizontal mass organising its possible to transform small scale projects like these into an entirely new economic system based around common ownership, degrowth and cooperation.
Markets like those you are describing have to be continually regulated and legislated into existence by the state just to deal with the negative externalities that capitalism creates.
An economic system that simply is not based on infinite growth and the profit motive gets at the root of these problems and side steps the complex issues you are describing, representing a real alternative to the current system.
Great video! 🙂👍
you had me with Vars insanity quote. +1 sub
Stonks!
I have just binged most of your content, bravo 🎉 excellent stuff, well researched, worded and I think you might be in a spot of bother… your sooo going to get more views on your videos. 🎉🎉🎉
Aw thank you so much! I hope so 😛
Thank you. I subscribed.
Good video, though I think it's a little misguided. Most people, including most here, don't actually want a different result, regardless of what they say. They want it cheaper.
The result we're getting is technology. What we're using rn to share these ideas and optionions. To turn solarpunk quickly as a society, we have to give that up. We have to give a LOT of things up, and people don't actually want that.
What we want is to avoid the environmental cost. We want to keep doing the same things, and do it for free. It's not even about "the newist iPhone" or the "fastest cars"; it's about phones, cars, and energy usage as a whole.
If we really wanted that change rn, we would all stop using any non-carbon negative technology, as well as any that causes the horrible mining practices that are also wrecking the planet. We 100% could, and if we did the companies would be forced to change quickly, but we never will.
If we are not willing to convert the system to solarpunk, then we need to start building solarpunk within the system. Hence the "punk" part, because if everyone agreed with the movement, it would already have happened.
This means using the system to start instigating this change, which you, Andrewism, and some others are doing a great job at starting! I need to get my own act together and help out too. (Mental health issues are valid, just need them out of my way)
The thing is we need strategy. Avoiding the finance world while trying to change it only works to prop up those that agree with you to inaction. Meanwhile those that disagree have the marketing strategy to enact their will. We need to embrace both, as the divisiveness only ensures ineffectiveness.
We have to learn the skills to make the change we want to see, and take action.
I think people are tired of bashing their heads against the wall of capitalism, and are trying to use capitalism. It won't work, but I get the reasoning.
"Economic thinking is a mental illness." _David Suzuki
Damn, she's been around for 3 years? This is the first time I've seen her. Suscribed
Your "industry" or your "field"?
Thank you! 💚💚💚
I sometimes sit thinking about this whole thing, then I get sad about the distopian reality of capitalism, and then remember the atrocities of Communism like Mao sparow campaign, and then while contemplating this mess, I look at anarchism.. and then it clicks; that we will be f*cked if we trust ALL of humanity to do its thing with no higher power to watch it, especially with the age of weapons of mass destruction.
Is natural Capital the new generation just making up a new word for "natural resources".
But some ordinary things told me The WEF is nothing to be concerned about
She's not saying they are something to be worried about. They are just an outgrowth of our capitalist economic system. The system itself needs to be reorganised to return power to the people and put communities back in the driving seat.
100
If you want to know why finance exists look up the calculation problem and the local knowledge problem. Your comparison to the british cobra policy doesnt work since the incentive in both cases are fundamentally different - one is targeting a buyback of dead animal corpses, the other targets the production of environmental damage in the first place. You couldnt "set a forest on fire" and then get money for repairing it, since both of these actions will at most cancel each other out in this proposed system and most likely create a loss for whoever it is attempting it.
Besides, pollution is a problem of industrial society in general, it is not unique to one economic system, so changing the economic system wont automatically solve the issue.
She mentioned the cobra effect as an example of perverse incentives in market systems. There are many others and to avoid them the state has to continually regulate markets in a game of cat and mouse.
The calculation problem and the problem of local knowledge you mentioned affects the current capitalist system just as badly as the centralised planned economies of the previous century. The best way to avoid it is to transition to a post-capitalist economic system where knowledge is shared across municipal confederations and networks of cooperatives, not suppressed by private enterprises.
You are talking about a form of ecological tax but that's not how the biodiversity credit schemes described in the video are actually implemented in the UK. There are two types of credit here, voluntary credits and offset credits. Offset credits are based around assessing the biodiversity of the land and where it is improved and legally secured for 30 years the result can be quantified and sold to developers attempting to comply with biodiversity net gain legislation. There is no direct tax on biodiversity loss, just a requirement that on paper your new development must have a net positive effect. Voluntary credits are similar and function primarily as a way for companies to finance rewilding for PR purposes. As they are voluntary and are not backed by legislation there is really no enforcement and companies typically spend as little as possible. Both types of credit struggle to quantify the complex and dynamic nature of real ecosystems. Neither type addresses the negative externalities of development and land use so they can easily be gamed.
Proposed taxes like you are describing seem like a better solution but there are already better alternatives like the community projects mentioned in the video. Where communities control their land directly they can actually focus on meeting their needs and the needs of our planet rather than following the profit motive and the perverse incentives of the market. Capitalism and the hierarchies that enable it really are the root cause of our ecological crisis and pointing a finger at the state capitalist systems of the previous century does nothing to disprove this. There really are alternatives to the current system that centre human and ecological needs and we don't need to deindustrialise or depopulate the planet to achieve them.
@@DownTheStream liberal economies dont suffer from the calculation and local knowledge problem the same way as centrally planned ones. simply sharing knowledge sounds like a nice idea and all, but that doesnt answer the problem that not all relevant knowledge can be centralized. a functional economy needs a large number of independent organizations to make use of this, we call those things businesses in our current system.
Im not from the UK and cant really comment on UK specific policies. If one system fails at doing a good job that is no grounds for dismissing the idea as a whole. Especially if the comparison is a fictional "post capitalist" system that nobody is able to define properly.
As for "just giving communities control over the land", that is not actually a solution, is it?
There are a lot of people who will look at an area of forest and view it as a missed opportunity for a parking lot or a mall or whatever. I dont see how this actually provides a solution for the problem.
@@vliedtke We aren't talking about a fictional system. Rojava in Northern Syria is already built on this model and there have been countless experiments throughout history of communities taking control of the land and using it to meet their needs. The CNT/FAI ran large areas around Catalonia during the Spanish Civil war and were able to collectivise entire industries. During the Ukrainian war of independence the Makhnovshchina was widely successful before being crushed by the red army. The Zapatistas control large swathes of the Chiapas region of Mexico today and indigenous people have a direct say in the local economy and how they protect the land.
Liberal market economies really aren't as efficent as they claim and cause an enormous amount of environmental destruction for the sake of profit accumulation. Yes they are improvement on feudalism and offer more consumer choice than centrally planned economies but they are hardly the only option.
If the community as a whole is involved in decision making and controls society from the bottom up they are going to focus on meeting their collective needs, not building random malls that nobody is using. Our capitalist economy requires infinite growth for its own sake and so instead of resources being allocated efficently to where they are needed we actually see the opposite with the planet paying the price and consumers being brainwashed with artificial desires just to increase consumer spending.
Confederated municipalities and cooperatives really can share knowledge incredibly efficently not to even mention the potential of using systems theory and machine learning to do cybernetic centralised planning like a modern version of Project Cybersyn. In a truely post-captialist post-scarcity world the idea of economics breaks down, with abundant resources there really is nothing to economise as even the Austrian economists pointed out.
I disagree with the thought that market capitalism is inherently at fault here. Things like renewable energy are only being successful because of investment, which is largely driven by the promises of future profit.
If we just say no to any profit driven directives, then there’s no reason for a great many, probably most, people to care. I care, you care, presumably most people watching this care, but a great many people, particularly those in power, only care about money. If we get rid of any money incentive, rewilding, renewables, and pretty much anything else will significantly decrease.
It might be possible in theory to restore nature without profit incentives, but it won’t work quickly, and is only in theory. Arguing against capitalism in general will only harm biodiversity (look at literally any socialist or communist country).
I can see where you're coming from - it is true that the scale and speed of things like renewable energy, or biodiversity restoration, are being successful under this system because of investment.
However, I don't think it's true that the majortiy of people 'wouldn't care' about restoring biodiversity or producing renewable energy if a profit-driven motive was to vanish. After all, all humans want energy, and a regular supply of it, and all humans want to eat and exist in beautiful places that are good for their mental and physical health and that aren't in uncomfortable climatic conditions - all of this requires the production of renewable energy (to stop fossil fuel derived climate change) and the restoration of biodiversity. There is currently a gap in education - perhaps a lot of people don't understand the link between fossil fuels, climate change, and reduced quality of life, and thus wouldn't care at the moment about renewable energy, but this is once again just a reflection of the failing of the capitalist system. I visit a lot of community climate groups for my job, and there is a growing and rising excitement and energy towards building community-owned renewable energy. After all, why wouldn't anyway want to be in charge of their own energy-producing assets, especially in the current cost of living crisis in the UK where national energy and heating prices are so expesnive for the majority of people?
Which countries are you thinking of when you talk about 'socialist or communist countries'? If you look at Rojava, which is a communalist area of Syria, the people there have no state (they govern themselves) and meet their needs and desires themselves whilst undertaking mass ecosystem restoration.
I have enough faith in humans that, were states and profit to vanish, we'd want to build ourselves lives that were engaging, safe, loving, healthy, and comfortable for all of us. This inherently includes restoring nature - whether for food production, recreational spaces, spiritual/physical/mental health, or just to fulfil our biophilia.
I've never seen some being so confidently wrong. The current ecological crisis is a biproduct of capitalism and you can't fix it by doing more capitalism.
@sawyersprott I believe Alana reacted really thoroughly to your stance, so I just wanted to add a few points. First and foremost, our current "green" transition is far too slow to combat the climate crisis, even for the EU, which is investing a lot of energy and resources in the green new deal, which is half promises and half broken contracts. In fact, renewable energy is not replacing fossil fuels but is being added to the energy mix, even though renewables are becoming increasingly affordable, owing to government subsidies rather than capital investment. The approach described in the video of assigning monetary value to nature is a strategy that aims to alleviate the issue of externalities; However, it is based on a paradox: the ecosystem does not rely on the economic, but rather the reverse; ecological reality generates society, and society generates the economy, but we live in an economicentric world, and the only way of thinking about economics is mainstream economics (the other economic school of tought are relevant mostly in academia but completely ignored in policy making), so assigning monetary value to nature is counterproductive to profit making, because capitalism requires cheap natural resources to tune a profit. If we use a so called world ecology analysis, because capitalism requires cheap nature and cheap labour to properly function (cheap nature not only consist of natural resources but also indigenous people are part of cheap nature), It cannot account for the weelbeing of nature and society, is intrinsically exploitative by design and It cannot break free from it's state of perpetual decay.
Capitalist powers that profit from crimes against the ecosystem (think fossil fuel giants, auto industry, concrete, mining (basically every heavy industry)) spent lots of money (billions) lobbying governments around the world to avoid climate reforms, they also have spent lots of money funding anti-green news outlets to peddle disinformation and propaganda about the climate emergency.
This is a fundamentally capitalist problem, they choose greed and profit over peoples quality of life.
Capitalism lets goo
IDK. Communist Soviets and Chinese were terrible for the environments even when they actually practiced communism.
Did you even watch the video? She never suggested nation states as a solution to our ecological crisis and in fact suggested the opposite; grassroots community initiatives.
In any case the USSR or CCP would more accurately be labeled as state capitalist so they hardly serve as a good counter argument.
Communism is a stateless, classless and moneyless society so it seems a bit ridiculous to suggest these states 'practiced it' just so we don't have to consider alternatives to our current economic system.
@@DownTheStream So her idea of a working society is an utopia that has not even proven to exist? By this logic we can just jump and call it heaven. Closest thing to it are tribes, and yet tribes also exchange stuff and have markets.
@@josepheridu3322 No there are in fact multiple societies that are structured from the bottom up today such as the Zapatistas in Mexico and Rojava in Northern Syria. Hardly an impossible utopia. These groups are well known for their ecological values and protection of the land
@@DownTheStream Kinda of interesting you uze Zapatistas, which use gun ownership to keep power, while the Western Left today often opposes people owning guns and defending themselves.
@@josepheridu3322 I think there is quite a large gap between community self defense and aggressively marketing guns to paranoid individuals to prop up the American firearms industry and its powerful lobbying groups.