Will Father Christmas Kill the Planet

Will Father Christmas Kill the Planet

December 06, 2011

I have just finished ordering my son's Christmas presents. The radio-controlled helicopter, built in China, will make him very happy. But what will it cost the planet?

Christmas has become a feast of needless consumption, a fair picture of how quickly and carelessly we are using up the world's natural resources. So how do we stop it? How can I, and everyone else, choose to value something sustainable over a gadget that swallowed so much of the earth in its making?

The answer, I believe, lies in equality and secure future income. Where people can count on a decent living, families tend to be smaller and the pressure on resources eases. Henry George understood this in the 1870s. Having studied the evidence, he concluded that the Malthusian doctrine was fundamentally flawed, and that the rich often leaned on it to excuse poverty, as though nothing could be done about it. Economists since have only confirmed how crude that reading of Malthus really is.

More on Malthus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus

Henry George on population: http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/bolton-hartley_henry-george-on-population.html

Poverty need not always be with us. We can bring population growth to zero and even reverse it. We can each use fewer resources, give everyone a better standard of living through innovation and efficiency, and still protect the planet's biological diversity.

The step required is a simple one: make greed expensive. Tax avarice, and tax the exploitation of natural resources. The private collection of monopoly rent from land and natural resources lies at the heart of the problem. We will only learn to live within the limits of the planet if we share what nature provides and value it properly. That can be achieved by making the rental value of land and natural resources the sole source of government revenue, and then sharing it equally among all.

I sat up until the small hours last night turning a friend's slide show on these issues into the video below.

A very Happy Christmas from the Peter Smith Rewilding.

A very Happy Xmas from the Renegade Ecologist...

Comments

The thoughts behind the Renegade Ecologist

From my 30 years as a nature conservationist I have learned the utter futility of trying to protect nature under our current economic system. But by making some small changes to our taxation system we could make a world fit for our children to inherit full of wildlife & prosperity for all.

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root....
Henry David Thoreau

"In many ways, nature conservation has become just another method of rent extraction by landowners who are trying to hide the fact that modern farmers’ fields are essentially deserts, devoid of wildlife, and the taxpayer must pay ‘rent’ if we want wild animals to occupy ‘their land’."

Peter Smith

Land Value Tax, which is in my opinion the Holy Grail of legislative changes to protect wildlife, is the simplest expression of the Economic theories of Henry George. This theory goes that if we abolish all harmful taxes on our hard work and trade and instead charge a rent for the use of natural resources such as Land we will not waste them or allow private interests to exploit the rest of humanities access to them.

Such a tax would not only stimulate jobs and enterprise but put a value on all of our natural resources and force us to look after them. If it was implemented for agricultural land, where the lower value of perpetually designated wilderness or natural grazing land is reflected in its land value taxation, it would be the surest way to save the wildlife of the UK and for the least cost to the taxpayer”

This would mean hard to farm areas, steep banks, riverbanks, rocky outcrops and areas landowners want to designate a nature reserves, which must be legally binding, could be set aside for wildlife and as such attract no taxation. The result of this would be that unproductive and marginal land would become wildlife havens and receive long term protection for future generation to enjoy. But it would also take away land and monopolies from our plutocrats who own wealth with no obligation to the rest of society, these plutocrats fund both the red and blue (and Yellow) faction of the vested interest or ‘line my friends pocket’ parties that control the legislature in Britain.

This blog is dedicated to teaching those who love nature that there is a simple ‘magic bullet’ that can save the rare wildlife of this country at no cost to the taxpayer. This magic bullet will actually grow our economy and create jobs and help create a better society based on rewarding those who work hard while penalising idol people who make monopolies such as bankers and landowners.

The solution if adopted worldwide would alleviate poverty and starvation and make a significant contribution to preventing war and terrorism.

Follow me on twitter: @peetasmith

Views are my own and don’t reflect the views of Wildwood Trust