Why the Pope Should Promote the Taxation of Nature's Destruction & Not Just its Love
The Pope has come out with a wonderful statement about why we should love nature and George Monbiot writes an excellent article in the Guardian today looking into this and sophistry around why people destroy nature for perceived personal gain, ignoring the damage we are doing.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/16/pope-encyclical-value-of-living-world?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=dlvr.it#comment-53954061
This is a perfect Example of the 'Tragedy of the Privates' as I like to call it, why individuals making individual decisions alway make the choice to do things that destroy nature and abuse land for short term finacial gain, and the perverse incentives the system of private ownership of nature's gifts to us ensure's their abuse & destruction.
The economic forces pushing us to destroy nature and land is pervasive throughout the world and forms the very basis of our financial, banking & political systems. Its contumacious virtues extolled in our corporate media and enshrined in legal systems and pushed to ever greater heights of absurdity by trade treaties such as the The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership TTIP.
But the issue, as Monbiot alludes, should not be about how to make people value nature more than their bank accounts, as many will never do that, it is for the green movement to push policies that align people's bank balances with saving nature. To this end land use and environmental damage needs to become the basis of our taxation system and not productive work that causes little damage to others and our environment. Land Value Taxes, monopoly taxes and externality taxes like a carbon tax could all achieve a titanic shift in how we use nature and allow its restoration in an economy that protects peoples wealth and wellbeing and shares all efficiently and equitably. Land Value Taxes will instantly allow us to rewild our marginal land and see the complex ecology return and provide us with a secure future for our children by combating the calamitous consequences of climate change and the loss of our biodiversity and the ecosystem services we depend on.
This will also have the effect of increasing the value of labour and doing more to reduce poverty, than any other form of income redistribution as well explained by many economists such as Stiglitz or classical economists like Henry George, Adam Smith or even briefly by Karl Marx. This is because it makes the earth, and its destruction, a treasury for all and allows no elite to monopolise it, sucking the wealth out of the rest of humanity. The green movement needs to recognise this more than the need to stimulate wonder and mystical enchantment in the intrinsic value of our natural world and revel in its gestalt, which often has little effect apart from making people feel warm and fuzzy. Such an economic system would turn us all into rabid 'greenies' irrespective of wonder or love - but we have to ask the question why the green movement cannot push these policies: I blogged on this issue some time ago - Zen & the art of Land Value Tax: http://renegadeecologist.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/zen-and-art-of-land-value-tax.html For an indepth analysis of the Pope's encyclical read this excellent article on Progress.org by Fred Foldvery: http://www.progress.org/the-pope-on-climate-change?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Weekly+Progressorg&utm_content=Weekly+Progressorg+CID_9b5e66bc89df0f9b1f88cadd807be4bf&utm_source=Email+marketing+software&utm_term=The+Pope+on+Climate+Change
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/16/pope-encyclical-value-of-living-world?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=dlvr.it#comment-53954061
This is a perfect Example of the 'Tragedy of the Privates' as I like to call it, why individuals making individual decisions alway make the choice to do things that destroy nature and abuse land for short term finacial gain, and the perverse incentives the system of private ownership of nature's gifts to us ensure's their abuse & destruction.
The economic forces pushing us to destroy nature and land is pervasive throughout the world and forms the very basis of our financial, banking & political systems. Its contumacious virtues extolled in our corporate media and enshrined in legal systems and pushed to ever greater heights of absurdity by trade treaties such as the The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership TTIP.
But the issue, as Monbiot alludes, should not be about how to make people value nature more than their bank accounts, as many will never do that, it is for the green movement to push policies that align people's bank balances with saving nature. To this end land use and environmental damage needs to become the basis of our taxation system and not productive work that causes little damage to others and our environment. Land Value Taxes, monopoly taxes and externality taxes like a carbon tax could all achieve a titanic shift in how we use nature and allow its restoration in an economy that protects peoples wealth and wellbeing and shares all efficiently and equitably. Land Value Taxes will instantly allow us to rewild our marginal land and see the complex ecology return and provide us with a secure future for our children by combating the calamitous consequences of climate change and the loss of our biodiversity and the ecosystem services we depend on.
This will also have the effect of increasing the value of labour and doing more to reduce poverty, than any other form of income redistribution as well explained by many economists such as Stiglitz or classical economists like Henry George, Adam Smith or even briefly by Karl Marx. This is because it makes the earth, and its destruction, a treasury for all and allows no elite to monopolise it, sucking the wealth out of the rest of humanity. The green movement needs to recognise this more than the need to stimulate wonder and mystical enchantment in the intrinsic value of our natural world and revel in its gestalt, which often has little effect apart from making people feel warm and fuzzy. Such an economic system would turn us all into rabid 'greenies' irrespective of wonder or love - but we have to ask the question why the green movement cannot push these policies: I blogged on this issue some time ago - Zen & the art of Land Value Tax: http://renegadeecologist.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/zen-and-art-of-land-value-tax.html For an indepth analysis of the Pope's encyclical read this excellent article on Progress.org by Fred Foldvery: http://www.progress.org/the-pope-on-climate-change?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Weekly+Progressorg&utm_content=Weekly+Progressorg+CID_9b5e66bc89df0f9b1f88cadd807be4bf&utm_source=Email+marketing+software&utm_term=The+Pope+on+Climate+Change
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