Dismantling Free Markets Won't Solve Biodiversity Threat | Hacker News Reader

Dismantling Free Markets Won't Solve Biodiversity Threat

humanprogress.org

18 pointsshubhamjain17 comments

"What is this garbage?"

...reads the About Us section

Ah, an arm of the Cato Institute, that makes sense.

Seriously, we have a lot of very immediate work to attend to with regards to our environment. Our vital ecosystems are literally under assault from many of our current ways of living. That we have not had a watershed moment of ecosystem collapse yet is frankly astonishing, but be assured, it is coming, and be assured that there are powers-that-be that have the most to gain from suppressing open dialogue about this. The people funding this type of editorial are among those who will be least affected by the dire impact that the destruction of the natural world will have on all peoples' ability to live happy, prosperous lives. For them, only their personal wealth (read, happiness) is at stake, and as far as that goes, their perspicacity ends at their next quarterly report.

Our shared home beseeches you: Don't fall for it.

I guess he doesn't think the international ban on commercial whaling that led to the recovery of the humpback whale counts as disturbing free markets. How odd he makes no mention of the 50+ year IWC ban, or perhaps not.

Written by Matt Ridley, who sits out by Rees Mogg at the extreme end of political spectrum. He was famously Chairman of Northern Rock during which time, in 2007, it became the only British bank in a century and a half to have a run on the bank. It had to be nationalised out from under him. He was extensively criticised in the parliamentary investigation into the bank's failure. Yet he keeps on arguing for almost no regulation (on anything).

Also owns the land on which one of the few remaining UK coal mines sits. He still claims climate change will not be damaging, we should carry on using fossil fuels and not seek to decarbonise. I am sure these are entirely unconnected beliefs.

Markets aren't "free" in the sense that you mean if they are externalizing their costs. They are, in fact, distorted markets in which the cost of goods is pushed into the future.

> The threat to biodiversity is not new,

> not necessarily accelerating

No it's slowing down with a mass extinction of most other life on the planet.

> mostly not caused by economic growth or prosperity

Nope not caused by real estate infringing on nature, not caused by intensive farming methods using pesticides, not caused by the fossil fuel industry, not caused by intensively farming animals.

https://fortune.com/2019/03/06/human-land-use-study/

> nor by climate change

Nope highly adapted animals are very similar to humans and can simply move to areas more conducive to their survival and avoid any impact from climate change.

> won’t be reversed by retreating into organic self-sufficiency.

Look at Chernobyl that proves that in fact it will be exactly. No humans, lots of biodiversity. Lots of humans, very low biodiversity. Low or no economic activity, high biodiversity... etc.

> A favourite nostrum of many environmentalists is that you cannot have infinite growth with finite resources. But this is plain wrong, because economic growth comes from doing more with less. So if I invent a new car engine that gets twice as many miles per gallon, I’ve caused economic growth but we’ll use less fuel. Likewise if I increase the yield of a crop, I need less land and probably less fuel too. This “growth as shrinkage” happens all the time: think how much smaller mobile phones are than they once were.

Ever heard of Jevon's Paradox? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

> it is important to recognize that labor-market, and even some environmental, regulations have become excessive in most developed countries. Free trade curtails some of the excesses because developed countries then have to compete harder against imports from developing nations.

Gary S. Becker, 1993[1]

Getting rid of free market isn't a sufficient condition, but it's a necessary one.

Also, most of the author's argument is like “environmemtalists say fish species are declining everywhere in the world, but that's wrong jellyfishes are thriving!”.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/1993-08-08/nafta-the...

the number of flip, easy-going and "hey by the way, this is yet another notion that everyone has, that is wrong" .. is way past a red-flag indicator on this article. More specific rebuttal TBD, but basically, no.

The author is equating "capitalism" with "free market" with "Western values". These are different and for the most part, unrelated concepts.

Many are surprised to learn that competition and markets are not soley the realm of capitalisms. Co-ops (which are socialism) exist and can compete which each other in the market.

They don't really compete with industry. More like serve a small niche.

Have you ever heard of Mondragon?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

It's more of less a large co-op and, according to Wikipedia:

> It is the tenth-largest Spanish company in terms of asset turnover and the leading business group in the Basque Country.

I hadn’t heard of that. Thanks. Sounds like a nice alternative working arrangement while still maintaining a sane corporate structure. Plus a way better voluntary option that centralizing everything and ruining it with forced gov policies applied to everyone which are usually employed to reach similar goals.

For what it's worth, there are many interesting tidbits sourced from scientific studies in this article:

"they found that organic dairy farms cause at least 30% more soil loss, and take up twice as much land, as conventional dairy farming for the same amount of milk produced, for example."

We shouldn't forget the macro-level environmental benefits of non-organic GMO factory farming.

Since it's unlikely that we can double or triple the amount of land dedicated to agriculture, the effective result of more organic farming would be higher prices for food and consequently less consumption of animal products.

It's hard to tell whether or not the claims are credible or not as he links to no sources for any of the figures. Given the article's author I'd want to validate any such claims.

I would exercise caution as this is linked to the CATO institute. I find their method of inquiry and reporting to be disingenuous.

They are sourced, the researchers and universities behind each of the figures are named and it is easy to look them up. Are hyperlinks necessary? The findings are published in journals, not on websites.

Journals publish on the web, albeit often behind a hard paywall. When one doesn't mention the the journal it appears in, the year or title of the study, and it doesn't appear in the list of many papers associated with the professor at Wikipedia a simple link would assist. You have to wonder if the choice not to link is obfuscatory, especially when several other discussions in the article are very carefully cherry picked - not mentioning a global ban on whaling for instance.

Besides, it is the web, it is only courtesy to the reader link and cite. I think less of mainstream media who don't link to source or cherry pick. So I am certainly going to think less of someone who claims to be a scientist who doesn't bother, and question their motives just as strongly.

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