2009 Lamborghini Gallardo LP560 Spyder

"All this matters because economists thought, wrote, and prescribed as if nature did not."
J. R. McNeill, Something New Under the Sun. (ISBN-10: 0393321835)

"Global Warming is nonsense. Greenhouse gases mean growth, far as I can see.
The Earth is one big resource, to exploit and consume, for the grand old party."
L. J. Furman, Sunbathing In Siberia (click here)

Economics, according to Daly and Farley, in Ecological Economics, ISBN 1-55963-312-3, is “the science of allocation of scarce resources among alternative ends,” or  “what we want and what we have to give up to get it.”  Since the Great Depression it has been about growth. Neo-Classical Economists measure the health of an economy by the growth of Gross Domestic Product, GDP, the sum of the goods an services produced in the market.

Ecological Economists think that the purpose of the economy is not simply to maximize and keep increasing the value of goods and services that are passed around. According to Costanza, “The purpose of the economy should be to provide for the sustainable well-being of people.” Ecological Economics distinguishes growth from development. Growth, an increase in throughput, can waste resources. Development, a qualitative change for the better, results in realization of potential. Ecological Economists distinguish between costs and benefits, and subtract costs.  Rather than the Gross Domestic Product, GDP, Ecological Economists focus on the Genuine Progress Indicator, GPI, and distinguish economic goods from what Donella Meadows calls “economic bads.”
Suppose I buy a $200,000 Lombarghini.  I pick up a friend, take her to dinner, drink some expensive wine, crash the car, wind up in the hospital. There I'm met by an insurance adjuster who values the wreck that was my car, a cop who gives me a ticket for drunk driving and arrests me for vehicular homicide. I also meet my soon-to-be-ex-wife's legal counsel, my own legal counsel, and various doctors, nurses, and other highly trained medical personnel. I have stimulated the economy.  However, rather than create wealth, I have destroyed some wealth and reallocated some of my wealth to various other parties. The new car is now in the junkyard, the girl's new clothes and jewelry are destroyed. She is deceased. I am harmed. The redistribution of resources is Pareto inefficient.  A neoclassical economist will say “You've increased GDP! You've stimulated the economy!” An ecological economist will say “You have created negative growth. The highest potential of the resources transformed into the car, clothes, and jewelry were not realized.  The girl's potential was not realized. Your highest potential is not realized in paying large legal fees in a divorce and in fighting charges of drunk driving and vehicular homicide.”

Consider Iraq, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.  The failed nuclear power plants at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island cost Hundreds of Millions of Dollars to build and Billions of dollars to manage. Yet they produce no power. They are Pareto inefficient.  They continue to contribute to the GDP because societies have to allocate resources to manage the mess. These are “economic bads.”  Similarly, the war in Iraq. The economic costs are estimated to over One Trillion Dollars. Whie some people made a lot of money, many others died or suffered grievous injuries. Rather than stimulate the economy, this was a drain of capital. These events detract from society's well being.

Suppose a parent stays home from work for a few years to raise small children. The DGP is diminished by the unrealized value of that person's professional labor. Even if the parent is a professional child care giver; because he or she is not payed to care for his or her own children, the GDP is diminished.  If the parent hires a day care provider and goes to work, caring for other children, GDP is increased.  This is illogical.  The net effect is the same – the child is cared for. In fact, the long term effect may be better if the parent provides day care because the parent loves the child and can provide better care.  This is an example of social capital, which is not measured by GDP, demonstrating that GDP is a flawed metric.

NeoClassical Economics focuses on what is believed to be efficient allocation of resources. Ecological Economics looks at the economy within the context of human ecology.  Ecological Economists suggest that there is a finite limit to growth, and that we must address inequitable distribution of goods, services, and resources.  They say we must look at human capital, natural capital, social capital, as well as built or produced capital and financial capital. NeoClassical Economists don't value natural capital or social capital. Stay-at-home parents caring for their children, or people caring for elderly relatives, do not contribute to the GNP.  Lakes, fish, forests, coal deposits, are simply resources to be consumed.

A basic tenet of NeoClassical Economics holds that people are rational, that we always want what's good for us. This is proven to be a fallacy daily – every time anyone eats a doughnut, smokes a cigarette, or eats a meal in which the nutritional value of the food is offset by the salt, fat, grease, and sugar.  The fallacy is also dramatized in just about every episode of Star Trek, the original series, when Captain Kirk does something brilliant but intuitive, a puzzled Mr. Spock says “I don't understand; your solution was illogical, yet it worked” and Dr. McCoy says “You would understand if your were human.” The point driven home is that we humans are not rational when it comes to making decisions and solving problems. We can use logic, but more often than not we use logic to rationalize a decision made emotionally.

The framework of Ecological Economics is relevant for business if only because valued humans are more productive, In Reframing Organizations, Bolman and Deal (Wiley, 2008. ISBN 978-0-7879-8798-5) compare McWane Steel and Nucor Corp. McWane doesn't value human capital, has higher turnover, higher accident rates, and lower profits than Nucor.

Neoclassical Economists talk about Pareto Efficient resource allocation, i.e. one in which at least one person is better off and no one is worse off.  It is not “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer” but “someone gets richer and no one gets poorer.”  Ecological Economics says “efficient allocation of resources is not most important:. “If your ship is loaded efficiently, but overloaded and sinks, you've lost your cargo.

John Maynard Keynes is said to have rebutted Adam Smith's laissez faire approach with the non-sequitor“In the long run we are all dead.” Meaning, he suggests, since we are alive today and likely to be alive tomorrow, we should act to rectify problems with the economy (and improve happiness). This also suggests that the framework of Ecological Economics is relevant for individual business. Neo-Classical Economics considers human capital only in the context of how much a business has to pay for competent workers, as the means by which to generate control over additional resources, to get more produced capital and financial capital. Human capital, in the context of Neo-Classical Economics, can and should be disposed of when it has outlived its usefullness. Ecological Economics considers enhanced natural capital, human capital and social capital as the ends for which financial capital, produced capital, human capital, and natural capital are managed. Neo-Classical Economics  discounts the future while Ecological Economics  takes a long term view.  If we were truly logical “H. economicus,” then everyone who could reasonably expect to live more than a few days, or who had loved ones with the reasonable expectation of continued life or a continued business enterprise, would take a long term view.

President Obama

Washington, DC, Nov. 7, 2009, 11:00 PM. The U. S. House of Representatives passed a health care bill that appears to profoundly change the system.

According to President Obama, (click here or  here)

Comprehensive health care reform can no longer wait. Rapidly escalating health care costs are crushing family, business, and government budgets. Employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have doubled in the last 9 years, .... This forces families to sit around the kitchen table to make impossible choices between paying rent or paying health premiums. ... The United States spent approximately $2.2 trillion on health care in 2007, or $7,421 per person – nearly twice the average of other developed nations. Americans spend more on health care than on housing or food. If rapid health cost growth persists, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that by 2025, one out of every four dollars in our national economy will be tied up in the health system. This growing burden will limit other investments and priorities that are needed to grow our economy. Rising health care costs also affect our economic competitiveness in the global economy, as American companies compete against companies in other countries that have dramatically lower health care costs.

According to Rush Holt, D, NJ-12, (click here or here)

Rep. Rush Holt, D, NJ-12

This bill would provide secure and stable health coverage regardless of whether you change jobs or are between jobs, ensure Americans will never be denied care if they get sick, and extend coverage to those not well served by the current system.

This is a historic vote and the furthest we have come toward providing affordable and quality health coverage to all Americans.

Once this bill becomes law, it immediately would eliminate cases where insurance benefits run out because of an expensive illness, would allow young adults to remain on their parents’ insurance through age 26, and would shrink the Medicare prescription doughnut hole.

The bill would strengthen and extend existing programs.  For example, those who have health insurance through their employers would benefit from caps on yearly out of pocket costs.  Under the legislation, Medicare would be intact, only better – recipients would benefit from free preventive care and better primary care.  Clickhere to read more about what the bill would do for you.

Reform would preserve the relationship between families and their doctors and shift to a focus on healthy outcomes and rewarding physicians for treating the whole patient.

In an e-mail to supporters, Rush Holt, D, NJ-12 said,

Rep. Rush Holt, Ph.D.

I just now voted for the Affordable Health Care for America Act. I want you to know about this development and what the bill means for you. This bill would provide secure and stable health coverage regardless of whether you change jobs or are between jobs, ensure Americans will never be denied care if they get sick, and extend coverage to those not well served by the current system.

This is a historic vote and the furthest we have come toward providing affordable and quality health coverage to all Americans.

Once this bill becomes law, it immediately would eliminate cases where insurance benefits run out because of an expensive illness, would allow young adults to remain on their parents’ insurance through age 26, and would shrink the Medicare prescription doughnut hole.

The bill would strengthen and extend existing programs.  For example, those who have health insurance through their employers would benefit from caps on yearly out of pocket costs.  Under the legislation, Medicare would be intact, only better – recipients would benefit from free preventive care and better primary care.  Clickhere to read more about what the bill would do for you.

Reform would preserve the relationship between families and their doctors and shift to a focus on healthy outcomes and rewarding physicians for treating the whole patient.

It would do all these things without adding to the deficit, while it would hold down costs for families in the future.

This bill is the culmination of one of the most open and deliberative processes in recent memory.  During the past few years, Congressional committees held more than 53 committee hearings, debated and voted on almost 240 amendments, and considered health reform for 167 hours.  We have held thousands of town meetings, read hundreds of thousands of letters, and met with health care experts and patients.  Many of the amendments addressed concerns raised by constituents, such as an amendment I championed to help small businesses pool together to purchase insurance at group rates, an idea brought to me by a Monmouth County small businessman.

When I considered health reform, I talked with patients, seniors, doctors, nurses, small business owners, and others to learn their perspectives.  I received and responded to thousands of letters from Central New Jersey residents.  The stories I have heard highlight the fact that health care reform is about real people who are disserved by the broken insurance system.

For more information and resources about the Affordable Health Care for America Act, including the text of the full bill and a bill summary, please visit my website.  There you can also see my remarks during the debate on the House floor.

After carefully analyzing and reviewing this bill, I believe it will improve the quality of life and the economy of nearly all families and of the nation as a whole. I would not support it if I did not think so. I look forward to working toward completion of meaningful health care reform legislation and sending it to the President for his signature.

Washington, DC, Nov. 7, 11:15 p.m., the House of Representatives voted to pass their health insurance reform bill. Despite countless attempts over nearly a century, no chamber of Congress has ever before passed comprehensive health reform. This is history.

President Obama

According to President Obama:
"... Each "yes" vote was a brave stand, backed up by countless hours of knocking on doors, outreach in town halls and town squares, millions of signatures, and hundreds of thousands of calls. You stood up. You spoke up. And you were heard.

So this is a night to celebrate -- but not to rest. Those who voted for reform deserve our thanks, and the next phase of this fight has already begun.

The final Senate bill hasn't even been released yet, but the insurance companies are already pressing hard for a filibuster to bury it. OFA has built a massive neighborhood-by-neighborhood operation to bring people's voices to Congress, and tonight we saw the results. But the coming days will put our efforts to the ultimate test. Winning will require each of us to give everything we can, starting right now.

Can you donate $25 or whatever you can afford so we can finish this fight?

Tonight's vote brought every American closer to the secure, affordable care we need. But it was also a watershed moment in how change is made.

Even after last year's election, many insider lobbyists and partisan operatives really thought that the old formula of scare tactics, D.C. back-scratching and special-interest money would still be enough to block any idea they didn't like. Now, they're desperate. Because, tonight, you made it crystal clear: the old rules are changing -- and the people will not be ignored.

In the final phases of last year's election, I often reminded folks, "Don't think for a minute that power concedes without a fight," and it's especially true today. But that's okay -- we're not afraid of a fight. And as you continue to prove, when all of us work together, we have what it takes to win.

Please donate to OFA's campaign to win this fight and ensure that real health reform reaches my desk by the end of this year:

https://donate.barackobama.com/History

Let's keep making history,

President Barack Obama

Robert F. Kennedy, in a speech at the University of Kansas, March 18, 1968,  said:

Robert F. Kennedy

"Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product - if we judge the United States of America by that - that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans."

Thinking In Systems, by Donella H. Meadows

As Donella Meadows explains in Thinking In Systems, ISBN: 978-1-60358-055-7, "The GNP lumps together goods and bads. (If there are more car accidents and medical bills and repair bills, the GNP goes up.) It counts only marketed goods and services. (If all parents hired people to bring up their children, the GNP would go up.) ... It measures effort rather than achievement, gross production and consumption rather than efficiency. New light bulbs that give the same light with one-eighth the electricity and that last ten times as long make the GNP go down."

"GNP," Professor Meadows said, "is a measure of throughput - flow of stuff made and purchased in a year - rather than capital stocks, the houses and cars and computers and stereos that are the source of real wealth and real pleasure. It could be argued that the best society would be one in which capital stocks can be maintained with the lowest possible throughput, rather than the highest."

Typhoon Mirinae on 28 October. Speed 98 mph, gusts up to 121 mph. Via NOAA's OSEI program

Alertnet advises Mirinae is likely to hit the Philippines on 30 October.

AlertNet main page.

Further information available at Tropical Storm Risk, [http://tropicalstormrisk.com]

See also:

PHILIPPINES: Flood victims grapple with LeptospirosisPHILIPPINES: Flood victims grapple with Leptospirosis

Additional information/images via Earth Snapshot:

Philippines sends relief teams in path of typhoon Reuters, on Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:02:27 -0700

Emergency and rescue teams were also sent to areas directly in the path of Typhoon Mirinae, including major rice-producing provinces north of Manila, ...

If it is right for the government to distribute flu vaccine, and try to stop smallpox, malaria, other epidemics, then it is right for the government to institute a national health care plan - "Single Payer" or "Medicare for All," or "The Public Option."

Everybody knows this. President Obama knows it, President Bush and Senator McCain knew it. Bush and McCain said "We have a 'National Health Care Plan' - Anyone can go to the emergency room." The problem with this approach is that it's inefficient, illogical and expensive. The emergency room is the best place to reset a broken arm, however, it's simply not the place for treatment if you have diabetes, cancer, or a heart condition. It's the Emergency Room, not the Chronic Illness Clinic. That's why we need "Single Payer," "Medicare for all," or "The Public Option."

Patrick Henry once said "Give me liberty or give me death." Without health care we face bankruptcy or death. Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson,  John Adams, George Washington, Abe Lincoln, all would support Medicare for All.

The Washington Post has this report by Sholnn Freeman on the Northwest Pilots who missed their destination by about 150 miles. The plane was also out of contact (that is, not responding to radio hails for over an hour.  Northwest pilots say they were distracted by laptops. Interestingly, the pilots don't allege fatigue as a factor; they claim

Aviation safety experts described the mishap as "stunning."

Co-pilot Richard Cole of Salem, Ore., told National
Transportation Safety Board investigators that he was giving instructions about monthly crew scheduling procedures to the plane's captain, Timothy Cheney of Gig Harbor, Wash. The NTSB said each pilot used the computers during the discussion. Northwest's merger with Delta Air Lines last year has led to numerous policy changes for pilots.

- snip -

"There is no reason that pilots not impaired by fatigue or other problems should allow themselves to become this distracted," said Bill Voss, president of the nonprofit Flight Safety Foundation. "I think they are probably telling the truth, because you would not have been able to make up a better lie."

WaPo, Northwest pilots say they were distracted by laptops, Sholn Freeman.

Michael Schwirtz reported in the The New York Times of 13 October, the death of Vyacheslav K. Ivankov.

Vyacheslav K. Ivankov, a Russian crime boss who survived tangles with the K.G.B., the F.B.I. and other violent criminals in a bloody career that spanned decades, was laid to rest at a Moscow cemetery. Hundreds attended the funeral.

Mr. Ivankov died on Friday in a Moscow hospital from complications stemming from a gunshot wound he received apparently in an assassination attempt in July. He was 69. His death has set off fears of a mob war in Moscow like those that bloodied the streets of major Russian cities in the 1990s.

For a Departed Mobster, Wreaths and Roses but No Tears.

Photo by Andrei Stenin/Reuters. The coffin of Vyacheslav K. Ivankov carried at Vagankovskoe Cemetery in Moscow.

In Russian Mafia in America: Immigration, Culture, and Crime, James O. Finckenauer and Elin J. Waring hypothesized that "Yaponchick," while a serious criminal, was not the leader of a large, sophisticated criminal organization - but rather portrayed as such by United States government officials and the press.  (Previous citation to Google Books; excerpt published on PBS/FrontLine website linked here).

Finckenauer and Waring aren't likely to have been in a position to have known that Ivankov would be extradited to Russia for murder and then been acquitted; one's general impression of the Russian judicial system is that acquittals don't generally happen when the government wants a conviction.

If Ivankov was sufficiently well-connected that the Russian government was willing to risk losing face being seen conspiring a weak case in order to extradite and then release him, it seems fair to infer that he was, in fact, fairly high up in Russian criminal-political circles.

Here's a picture of New Orleans Ninth Ward flooded by Hurricane Katrina.

New Orleans Ninth Ward Submerged

Asking "Does human activity cause climate change?" is like asking "Does smoking cause cancer?"  Sure there's scientific evidence that smoking causes cancer, but the truth is some smokers don't get cancer, and some cancer patients never smoked. And some people don't believe in science. (But a significant number will get cancer if they smoke.)

Here's a picture of North America at night.

North America at Night

This picture clearly shows major cities and urban areas - created and populated by human activity.  Astounding, beautiful. Not exactly natural - but then again, given that humans, who so huberistically call themselves "Homo sapiens"  are a natural species on this planet, so not exactly unnatural, either.

Satellite photos of mid-Atlantic US and SE Canada before (left) and during (right) the blackout.

This set of images show the northeastern US before and during the blackout of August 14, 2003. The blackout effected about 55 million people from Newark, NJ north to Ottowa Canada, and west to Lansing Michigan.

Empire State Building

The average adult human male or female is less than two meters (m) tall and weighs 60 to 90 kilograms (kg).

(For those of you who are still on the English system, that's under 6 feet and between 132 and 200 pounds. For those on the older English system, that's 9 to 14 stone.)  It may be hard to believe that we can have such a great impact on the planet. But there are 6.7 billion of us.  If the average weight is 75 kg, that's 6.7 Billion people multiplied by 75 kilograms per person, which equals 502.5 Billion kilograms,  or 1105.5 billion pounds or 78.9 Billion stone.   Or just consider New York City.

So the real question, the important questions are:

1. "What systems do we need to create or change to minimize the risks of climate change?
2. How much money and energy can we save, and jobs can we create with conservation?
3. How do quickly and efficiently move to renewable and sustainable energy systems?