Re: Biodiversity

[Kevin Geiger <geiger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 12 Oct 1995, Chris M. Sciabarra wrote:
(snip)
>       Also, I was struck by a recent cover story on "Siberia" in TIME
> magazine, showing that if we have legitimate worries about market
> solutions to environmental problems, the non-market record with such
> problems is far more devastating.  The destruction of biodiversity in
> Siberia by Soviet authorities who created a vast toxic waste dump of
> nuclear materials and sulfur deposits is well documented.  There's got to
> be a better way.
>
>                                       - Chris
I am not certain it is that simple.  I think you need more support
to your assertion that the "non-market record with such problems is far more
devastating."  Granted there were some major problems in the former USSR
and its satellite republics but there are some major non-market
environmental laws in the US that have been very successful, like the
Wilderness Act of 64.  If this non-market approach was not initiated the
market would have gobbled up the public resources as you and others
maintain (correctly) it has done on Forest and BLM lands.  A market response
in 1964 would have had a "far more devastating" impact because wilderness land
would never have been set up under a market principle.  The free market
environmentalism paradigm fails to adequately "value" wilderness land.  I have
heard your Dr. Terry Anderson explain that people need to be charged for
the USE of public lands:  Forest, BLM and Wilderness.  But since so few
people use wilderness land the price would be outrageously high.  The result
under a strictly free market principle would be to get rid of the land since it
not only fails to make money but, in fact, costs money.  This is
just not acceptable and most Americans would agree because wilderness
land (areas that cannot be developed) are important.  A recent
survey of areas located near federal wilderness land documented that 81% of the
respondents thought wilderness was important for their area from the
standpoint of solitude, open space and the people it attracts.  (Bates et
al, _Searching Out the Headwaters_ 1995 pg. 77)  It is also true
that people who never have stepped foot onto wilderness land
consider wilderness important for its existence value.
Wilderness, to a vast majority of Americans, is not something that needs to
pass a free market test.  It has already passed a far more rigorous test in the
minds of people throughout the country.

To address your concerns in the USSR, many of the problems can be explained
through the context of the Cold War.  Consider that the USSR was involved in a
"war" with the more developed and advanced Western capitalist nations
that had more economic power.  Rapid industrialization, not the form of
development, caused the majority of the environmental problems you are
referencing.  For the USSR environmental degradation was a consequence of the
USSR's perceived need to industrialize fast in order to survive against
its Western rivals.

Don't get me wrong.  I believe the USSR did some competing itself with
the West.   The infamous shoe banging incident at the UN does indicate that
competition was a two way street.  The USSR played a game
that it could cut corners in environmental quality to industrialize fast and
beat the West.  We know they were wrong, but the blame should not be laid only
on one side.  The West did its share to push the USSR into rapid
industrialization out of fear as well as visions of a worldwide Socialist
system.

Yes, there *is* always a better way but some things just don't need the
tinkering of mankind's perverse hands.

Kevin Geiger

"Man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to
let alone."

-Henry David Thoreau-


     --- from list marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---

     ------------------