Environment Disadvantage -4wkj-ndi

Market expansion destroys biodiversity- empirics prove

Ostfeld and Keesing 13 (Richard S Ostfeld, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, NY, USA, Felicia Keesing, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, USA, Elsevier Encyclopedia of Biodiversity, “Biodiversity and Human Health” http://ac.els-cdn.com.turing.library.northwestern.edu/B9780123847195003324/3-s2.0-B9780123847195003324-main.pdf?_tid=e3f0ac3e-f33b-11e2-8ded-00000aab0f02&acdnat=1374545112_3c915724869f82f0aad33f3288a1e075)The organization of economic activity into more-or-less private markets is, by and large, a phenomenon that began several hundred years ago in the West and has expanded worldwide in more recent decades (while the world's major economies have increasingly been organized along market lines, virtually all remain “mixed” economies, in which economic activity is apportioned in varying degrees between private and public sectors). (For an interesting perspective on changes in social views concerning private self-interest over the centuries, see Heilbroner, 1999.) BC The scale of economic activity neither tracks exactly the degradation of the environment in general nor the decline in biodiversity. Technological improvements may result in the production of both more valuable and less environmentally damaging goods. The empirical fact is, however, that biodiversity has declined with the appearance and expansion of modern market economies. It is easy to link the causes of biodiversity loss with the hallmarks of economic growth. Overharvesting results when growing demands for fish, timber, and other biological resources interact with emerging technologies for their extraction and exploitation. Modern market economies are not conducive to the types of social norms and local institutions that have, in many cases, led to sustainable resource extraction from common-pool resources in small-scale preindustrial communities (e.g., Ostrom, 1990). International trade and travel are leading causes of the introduction of exotic diseases, pests, and predators that have eliminated native populations, particularly in isolated habitats. (It is worth noting, however, that prehistoric human migrations also had devastating effects on native biota. Paleontological evidence suggests that the extinction of American megafauna were at least suspiciously contemporary with the migration of humans across the Bering land bridge, even if experts disagree as to the culpability of humans. The extinction of Pacific island fauna, such as the giant Moa of New Zealand, has been more definitively linked to the arrival of Polynesian voyagers and, in some instances more importantly, the rats and pigs they brought with them.) In the early nineteenth century, William Blake wrote that the industrial revolution had brought “dark satanic mills,” to “England's green and pleasant land,” and by the end of the twentieth century the industrial air and water pollution that had transformed landscapes in the worlds' wealthier nations was also to be found, often in greater quantities and concentrations, in less-developed countries. Perhaps most importantly, the sheer scale of human activity has resulted in the destruction of natural habitats to provide more area for industry, residences, and agriculture

Increased trade causes Biodiversity loss

NPG 12(M. Lenzen, D. Moran, K. Kanemoto, B. Foran, L. Lobefaro & A. Geschke, Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is a publisher of high impact scientific and medical information in print and online. NPG publishes journals, online databases, and services across the life, physical, chemical and applied sciences and clinical medicine, “International trade drives biodiversity threats in developing nations”, http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v486/n7401/pdf/nature11145.pdf)> BC Human activities are causing Earth’s sixth major extinction event1—an accelerating decline of the world’s stocks of biological diversity at rates 100 to 1,000 times pre-human levels2. Historically, low-impact intrusion into species habitats arose from local demands for food, fuel and living space3. However, in today’s increasingly globalized economy, international trade chains accelerate habitat degradation far removed from the place of consumption. Although adverse effects of economic prosperity and economic inequality have been confirmed4, 5, the importance of international trade as a driver of threats to species is poorly understood. Here we show that a significant number of species are threatened as a result of international trade along complex routes, and that, in particular, consumers in developed countries cause threats to species through their demand of commodities that are ultimately produced in developing countries. We linked 25,000 Animalia species threat records from the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List to more than 15,000 commodities produced in 187 countries and evaluated more than 5 billion supply chains in terms of their biodiversity impacts. Excluding invasive species, we found that 30% of global species threats are due to international trade. In many developed countries, the consumption of imported coffee, tea, sugar, textiles, fish and other manufactured items causes a biodiversity footprint that is larger abroad than at home. Our results emphasize the importance of examining biodiversity loss as a global systemic phenomenon, instead of looking at the degrading or polluting producers in isolation. We anticipate that our findings will facilitate better regulation, sustainable supply-chain certification and consumer product labelling. Many studies have linked export-intensive industries with biodiversity threats, for example, coffee growing in Mexico6 and Latin America7, soya8 and beef9 production in Brazil, forestry10 and fishing11 in Papua New Guinea, palm oil plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia12, and ornamental fish catching in Vietnam13, to name but a few. However, such studies are neither systematic nor comprehensive in their coverage of international trade. They also do not link exports to consuming countries, and miss threats more difficult to connect to specific exports, such as agricultural and industrial pollution. Our approach provides a comprehensive view of the commercial causes of biodiversity threats. Using information from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List on threat causes, we associated threatened species with implicated commodities; for example, Ateles geoffroyi (spider monkey) is endangered and threatened by habitat loss linked to coffee and cocoa plantations in Mexico and Central America. Using a high-resolution global trade input–output table, we traced the implicated commodities from the country of their production, often through several intermediate trade and transformation steps, to the country of final consumption (Methods). This is the first time, to our knowledge, that the important role of international trade and foreign consumption as a driver of threats to species has been comprehensively quantified. We calculated the net trade balances of 187 countries (Supplementary Information section 1) in terms of implicated commodities (Supplementary Information section 2). Countries that export more implicated commodities than they import are net biodiversity exporters, and importers vice versa. A striking division exists between the world’s top ten net exporters and net importers of biodiversity (Fig. 1 and Supplementary Information section 3). Developed countries tend to be relatively minor net exporters, but major net importers of implicated commodities. This is probably due to environmental policies that effectively protect remaining domestic species and that force impacting industries to locate elsewhere. Among the net importers a total of 44% of their biodiversity footprint is linked to imports produced outside their boundaries. In stark contrast, developing countries find themselves degrading habitat and threatening biodiversity for the sake of producing exports. Top net importers and exporters of biodiversity threats. In importer countries marked with an asterisk, the biodiversity footprint rests more abroad then domestically; that is, more species are threatened by implicated imports than are threatened by domestic production. Next Examining exporters and importers in unison shows that primarily the USA, the European Union and Japan are the main final destinations of biodiversity-implicated commodities. Coffee, a top-ranking commodity, is threatening species in Mexico, Colombia and Indonesia. Agriculture also affects habitat in Papua New Guinea (where coffee, cocoa, palm oil and coconut growing are linked to nine critically endangered species including the northern glider, Petaurus abidi, the black-spotted cuscus, Spilocuscus rufoniger, and the eastern long-beaked echidna, Zaglossus bartoni), Malaysia (the main export products are palm oil, rubber and cocoa; 135 species are affected by agriculture) and Indonesia (the main crops are rubber, coffee, cocoa and palm oil, affecting 294 species including Panthera tigris, the Sumatran serow, Capricornis sumatraensis, and Sir David’s long-beaked echidna, Zaglossus attenboroughi). Fishing and forestry industries cause biodiversity loss directly through excessive and illegal resource use and indirectly through bycatch and habitat loss. Such impacts occur not only in developing countries such as the Philippines (affecting 420 species, 28 of which are critically endangered) and Thailand (affecting 352 species, 28 critically) but also in the United States (affecting 450 species, 63 critically). Biological resource use is not the only threat. In China, pollution is responsible for one-fifth (304 out of 1,526) of all threats. Consumers in the United States and Japan are the largest beneficiaries of these trade flows. Finally, most species on the Red List suffer several different threats. For example, the vulnerable round whipray, Himantura pastinacoides, is under threat in Indonesia owing to chemical pollution and loss of its native mangrove habitat to shrimp aquaculture, logging and coastal development. Flow map of threats to species caused by exports from Malaysia (reds) and imports into Germany (blues). Note that the lines directly link the producing countries, where threats are recorded, and final consumer countries. Supply-chain links in intermediate countries are accounted for but not explicitly visualized. An interactive version is available at http://www.worldmrio.com/biodivmap/. Our findings clearly show that local threats to species are driven by economic activity and consumer demand across the world. Consequently, policy aimed at reducing local threats to species should be designed from a global perspective, taking into account not just the local producers who directly degrade and destroy habitat but also the consumers who benefit from the degradation and destruction. Allocating responsibility between producers and consumers is not straightforward, even as an academic exercise. Producers exert the impacts and control production methods, but consumer choice and demand drives production, so that responsibility may lie with both camps, and may hence have to be shared between them14. Notwithstanding its theoretical challenges, the consumer responsibility principle is now receiving ample attention in the climate change debate. Its political relevance is demonstrated by China’s official stance that final consumer countries should be held accountable for the greenhouse gases emitted during the production of China’s export goods14. To inform this debate, countries’ carbon footprints are now being calculated using global multi-region input–output models15.

EE Causes Environmental Destruction

Boom 12 (Brian M. Boom, “Biodiversity without Borders: Advancing U.S.-Cuba Cooperation through

Environmental Research,” Science & Diplomacy, Vol. 1, No. 3 (September 2012*).

http://www.sciencediplomacy.org/article/2012/biodiversity-without-borders.)>BC Cuba and the United States thus share much biodiversity—ranging from varied populations of organisms to diverse aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. The living components of this shared environment are dynamically impacted, sometimes unpredictably so, by natural or man-made environmental disasters. Nature does not respect political boundaries nor do such potential disasters as oil spills, toxic releases, hurricanes, and tropical storms. Such events provide the sine qua non for greater bilateral cooperation. There is essentially no intergovernmental environmentalinteraction between the United States and Cuba. The shared biodiversity of these countries, and in some cases that of other nations in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico regions, suffers as a result Man-made environmental disasters, such as oil and natural gas leaks, can likewise be of shared concern to the Cuban and U.S. governments. The Gulf of Mexico is a rich source of oil and gas and will remain so for decades to come. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)Cuba also has plans for new oil and gas platforms off its northerncoast.4 Given the near- and long-term implications of gas, oil, and chemical dispersants on the Gulf of Mexico’s biodiversity, it is imperative for the economic and ecological wellbeing of both Cuba and the United States that exploration is pursued with enhanced safeguards to avoid the mistakes of past disasters, such as the dramatic explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. While Cuba and the United States are signatories to several international protocols for cooperation on containment of oil spills, there is scant cooperation between them on this front—although there were at least some low-level meetings between the countries after the Deepwater Horizon blowout.5Given the potential of currents in the Gulf ofMexico to disperse spills from off the coast of one country to the waters and shores of the other, there were ongoing concerns about the possible reach of the disaster. However, with increased drilling in the area, including deep wells, more than luck will be needed to avert future disasters. Even if oil and gas leaks or spills are restricted to Cuban or U.S. waters, the negative environmental impacts can be important regionally. The two nations’ shared marine ecosystem is the foundation for the mid Atlantic and Gulf Stream fisheries. Many important commercial and sport fish species breed and feed in Cuban waters. So destruction of Cuban mangroves and coral reefs will impact stocks of species such as snapper, grouper, and tuna, along with myriad other animals, plants, and microbes that spend different parts of their life cycles in the territorial waters of eachcountry.6 Given that urgent environmental problems can ariserapidly and harm the economic and ecological health of the United States and Cuba, it is imperative that there should be a mechanism for rapid, joint response to these shared threats.A complex mosaic of coral reefs, seagrass beds, and mangroves knit together the marine and coastal ecosystems. These ecosystems are threatened increasingly by habitat modification, the impact of tourism, overexploitation of marine fishes and other commercial seafood resources, the ramifications of climate change and rising sea levels, and pollution from land-based sources (e.g., unsustainable agricultural and forestry practices) and ocean-based sources (e.g., cruise ship waste). Increasing tourism especially threatens coral reefs. Despite some positive measures taken by the cruise industry in recent years, more cruise ships in the region still mean greater potential stresses to the marine and coastal environments. In addition to these and other shared ecosystems, many marine and terrestrial species are shared by Cuba and the United States. Examples include migratory, invasive, endangered, and disease vector species. Both urgent natural and man-made problems, such as hurricanes and oil spills, as well as more gradual, less dramatic threats, such as habitat modification and pollution, threaten the native biodiversity shared by Cuba and the United States.

Northern methods applied to the South causes environmental catastrophe

Franko 7 (Patrice M. Franko is the Grossman Professor of Economics, Latin American economic policy, and microeconomics. Dr. Franko is also an adjunct fellow in the CSIS Americas Program. She has served as a consultant for the Office of Inter-American Affairs in the Department of Defense, for the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies at the National Defense University, and for the Office of International Affairs at the National Academy of Sciences. She holds a Ph.D from the University of Notre Dame, http://books.google.com/books?id=0oeMjGEERiIC&pg=PA674&lpg=PA674&dq=economic+development+environment+latin+america&source=bl&ots=sMs9X2kijh&sig=fDOMspltisXAGxlA2IcsbH2UmQU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=zZTqUZDXMMqpqgH-pID4Bw&ved=0CDIQ6AEwATgU#v=onepage&q=environ&f=false <<) .>> IL To asses the bundle of social and environmental capital that one generation should pass on to the next, some environmental economists promote the concept of a safe minimum standard. The safe minimum is seen as a social compact that, in the face of high ecological uncertainty, provides a basis for sustainable growth. Of course, the differing priorities of the industrialized North and the developing South make such a compact on global issue precarious. To a large degree, natural capital or biodiversity finds its home in the South, whereas social capital, including scientific and technical knowledge to preserve natural capital, is large lodged in the North. Different valuations placed on the need to employ natural capital today versus desires to preserve ecological diversity for the future suggest that the North, having only 40 percent of solid waste disposed of in an acceptable manner. Sixty percent lands in open dumps without sanitary controls, breeding disease and promoting surface and groundwater contamination. Ironies abound. If Latin Americans produced as much garbage as those who live in the United States, the result would simply be unbearable.

Capitalist expansion creates environmental destruction

PBS 10 (Public Broadcasting Service, “Cuba: The Accidental Eden

A Brief Environmental History”, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/cuba-the-accidental-eden/a-brief-environmental-history/5830/, MS) The expansion of Cuban commercialism and industry, particularly with the influence of European and American capital, continued to threaten Cuban wildlife populations. Tobacco and more significantly sugar transformed the country from a Spanish shipping port to a major agricultural exporter. As sugar demand rose, habitat was destroyed for farming. Today, farmers still compete with wildlife for use of the land. At the same time, heavy industrial development polluted Cuban air, land, and water.¶ Cuba’s 1959 revolution set the country on a path apart from other post-colonial nations.¶ Although revolutionary Cuba instituted policies around agriculture, industry, forests, and water, like most states in the 1960s, its moderate environmental efforts had mixed results. Focusing more heavily on agriculture rather than heavy industry probably did more to save Cuban wildlife in the ‘60s and ‘70s than did any environmentally conscious policies.¶ While global capitalism continued on a general course of thoughtless environmental destruction, the U.S. embargo against Cuba, including a travel ban, freed the country from its most salient environmental threat while putting the nation under great economic strain. Cuba traded and underwent forms of “development,” but in many ways avoided the developments of late century American capitalism. While both “capitalism” and “communism” ultimately undervalued natural resources, American executive and legislative dispositions helped nurture the blossoming of Cuban wildlife.¶

Oil drilling causes marine degradation

Rose 9 (Mary Annette Rose Ed.D. is an assistant profefsor in the Department of Technology at Ball State University, Muncie, IN. “The Environmental Impacts of Offshore Oil Drilling,” Februrary 2009, www2.tec.ilstu.edu/students/tec_304/Rose%20Oil%20Drilling.pdf) There are known detrimental impacts upon the marine environment for all phases of offshore E&P (Patin, 1999). While natural seepages contribute more hydrocarbons to the marine environment by volume, the quick influx and concentration of oil during a spill makes them especially harmful to localized marine organisms and communities. Plants and animals that become coated in oil perish from mechanical smothering, birds die from hypothermia as their feathers lose their waterproofing, turtles die after ingesting oil-coated food, and animals become disoriented and exhibit other behavior changes after breathing volatile organic compounds. When emitted into the marine environment, oil, produced water, and drilling muds may adversely impact an entire population by disrupting its food chain and reproductive cycle. Marine estuaries are especially susceptible, as hydrocarbons and other toxins tend to persist in the sediments where eggs and young often begin life. However, the severity and effects of oil exposure vary by concentration, season, and life stage. The oil spill from the Ixtoc 1 blowout threatened a rare nesting site of the Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle, an endangered species. Field and laboratory data on the nests of turtle eggs found a significant decrease in survival of hatchlings, and some hatchlings had developmental deformities (Milton, Lutz & Shigenaka, 2003).

Every new offshore drilling operation threatens critical species in the ocean environment

Gravitz 9 (Michael Gravitz, Oceans Advocate for Environment America Statement at the Department of Interior Hearing On Offshore Ocean Energy Development in Atlantic City, New Jersey, April 6, 2009, pg. http://tinyurl.com/cxkzanz)

3. When deciding whether to approve seismic testing or exploration and production off the east coast, your department needs to balance the safety of those special areas against the potential for damage from oil drilling. The only way to adequately assess the balance would be for your department (with the participation of NOAA and possibly the National Academy of Science) to do a comprehensive census of those special places and analyze possible impacts on them from drilling.¶ 1. The Ocean: More Like A Diverse Forest Than A Desert¶ Many people look at the ocean and see it as a pretty, shiny surface. They may imagine a few fish swimming below the surface and a plain featureless bottom. This is not an accurate picture of the ocean in most places. Unless the bottom is sandy and continually disturbed by wind, wave or current the bottom of the ocean is filled with communities of diverse creatures. Depending on depth, penetration of light, type of bottom (i.e., muddy, sandy, pebbles, boulders) and other factors, the ocean’s floor is teaming with diverse communities of plants, invertebrates, shellfish, crustaceans and fish. Numerous kinds of fish live on the bottom. Other fish swim above the bottom in the water column at different levels. Thousands of types of phytoplankton, zooplankton and larvae at the base of most food chains ‘float’ around. Marine mammals, sea turtles and sea birds spend most of their time at or near the surface of the ocean. ¶ All of these creatures are sensitive to the impacts of oil and pollution from oil and gas drilling; some are more sensitive than others. But none are immune to the short or long term effects of oil. ¶ With this as background, it is important to recognize the special places in the ocean that are unique, especially sensitive to pollution or those that are especially productive. These include: submarine canyons cutting across the continental shelf; deep water coral gardens; plateaus where the floor of the ocean rises and becomes unusually productive because deeper nutrient rich waters come closer to the warmer temperatures and light of the surface; migratory pathways for marine mammals and sea turtles; and areas where fish aggregate to spawn or where larval stages of animals are concentrated. Finally, the margins of the ocean: beaches, bays and marshes are often unusually sensitive to oil pollution.¶ 2. Special Places in the Atlantic Ocean Deserving of Protection ¶ Based on the Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) and a crude measure of marine productivity that your own department uses, the New England, Mid Atlantic and South Atlantic planning areas are all very environmentally sensitive and highly productive. The South Atlantic planning area and Mid Atlantic have the first and third most environmentally sensitive coastlines, respectively, of all 22 MMS planning areas. New England comes in at #11. The South Atlantic and Mid Atlantic are ranked first and second respectively in terms of primary productivity among all the planning areas with North Atlantic being #12. ¶ There are 14 submarine canyons between Massachusetts and Virginia that slice through the continental shelf (See attached list). Submarine canyons, some with a mouth as wide as eight to ten miles and 30-40 miles long, are important because they shelter unusual species, provide hard bottoms and sidewalls for creatures to attach to or burrow in, provide nursery areas for many commercially important fish and bring nutrients from the deep ocean up to more shallow waters. Sea life in these canyons is unusually diverse which is why drilling in or near submarine canyons with their risk from spills and chronic pollution from production would be a very bad idea.¶ There are a number of important underwater plateaus and reefs off the eastern seaboard which serve as fish baskets, places of unusual marine productivity where very high populations of fish reproduce and grow. Often these are called ‘banks’ or ‘reefs’ with names like Georges Bank, Stellwagen Bank, Gray’s Reef or Occulina Bank. Some of these areas of the ocean are shallow enough to allow sunlight to penetrate to the seafloor and nutrients from the deeper ocean feed a richer abundance of life. These banks and reefs sometimes offer the only hard substrate for creatures to attach in a wide area. . Drilling in biological hot spots like these and jeopardizing productive commercial and recreational fisheries would make no sense.¶ Like on land, certain areas of the ocean support migration corridors for fish, marine mammals, sea turtles and sea birds. For much of the Mid Atlantic there is a coastal corridor extending out 20 miles from shore in which endangered marine mammals like the northern right whale, various sea turtles and migratory fish travel. For example, the last 350 northern right whales on earth travel each year from the Georgia-Florida border where they give birth and nurse their calves to an area off Cape Cod where they spend the summer feeding. Loggerheads, leatherback and Kemp’s ridley turtles all use this corridor at various times of the year.¶ Another corridor, farther offshore at the edge of the continental shelf break and slope provides food for various endangered sea turtles and other kinds of whales and dolphins. Whales and dolphins are typically migratory and each is only seasonally present but taken together the area is important year round to these marine mammals. ¶ There are four more hotspots of marine diversity and unusual productivity off the Mid Atlantic caused by ocean currents, type of bottom, [and] submarine canyons and other special characteristics. These include: the coastal waters off North Carolina near and south of Cape Hatteras, the mouth of the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays and off New York harbor. Coastal waters and sandy bottoms off New Jersey support a large and economically important clam and scallop industry.

Environmental Regulation under Economic Expansion is impossible- empirics prove

McCarty 4 (Professor James McCarthy earned a B.A. in English and Environmental Studies from Dartmouth College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to joining the Graduate School of Geography in 2011, he was an Assistant and Associate Professor of Geography at Penn State University, “Privatizing conditions of production: trade agreements as neoliberal environmental governance”, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016718503001064) .>> IL The environmental sting in these FTAs is found in the protection from ‘expropriation’ afforded to transnational corporations. Under the FTA, any environmental regulations or resource use consent requirements which affect such a corporation must be ‘reasonable’ – but not as determined by the people of New Zealand or their elected representatives. The reasonableness (or otherwise) is decided by a panel of three arbitrators, one of whom is appointed by the corporation concerned. Any regulations or requirements deemed ‘unreasonable’ would be an ‘expropriation’ under the FTA rules (in other words, what is seen from a neoliberal standpoint as an illegal imposition on private property rights known as ‘regulatory taking’). Compensation is payable for any such ‘expropriation’. This is not just a fear of what might happen. James McCarthy has described how Metalclad Corporation was refused municipal permits for the expansion of a waste disposal facility it had purchased in Guadalcazar, Mexico. The company sought arbitration under the investment protection rules of the North American FTA (NAFTA) and was awarded US$16.7 million on the basis of the arbitration tribunal’s own interpretations of domestic Mexican law. It’s interesting to note that the investment protection provisions of the China-New Zealand FTA (Chapter 11 – Investment) look very much like those in the notorious and ill-fated MAI (IV – Investment Protection). While the MAI attracted huge opposition from anti-globalisation activists, unions, indigenous peoples and greens around the world in the late 1990s, now the bilateral FTAs accumulate around the world with hardly a street protest, and the piecemeal MAI arrives by stealth. The roll-out of neoliberalism The ‘roll-back’ of the state that I’ve described so far is accompanied by the ‘roll-out’ of neoliberalism – the familiar “near worship of … the ‘self regulating market’ … as the mechanism for allocating all goods and services.” This dogma leads to “privatization via putatively market-based schemes” along with a “deeply contradictory endorsement of excludable, private property rights and commodification created and defended by the state” (p.276). Neoliberal ideas about environmental policy are found, for example, in ‘ecosystem markets’ and also in the carbon market, which I focus on here. In current debates on the ways to address global warming, it seems to be assumed that a market system is the only possible mechanism available to regulate CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions. To appreciate the fallacy in this thinking, it is worth noting how the idea of tradeable permits came to be the conventional wisdom of emissions reduction. In Carbon trading: A critical conversation (at p. 51), Larry Lohmann describes how, during the Kyoto meetings in 1997, the Brasilian delegation proposed a system whereby fines were imposed on countries exceeding their emission cap to fund ‘clean energy’ developments in the South. This proposal was accepted in principle by the ‘G-77 plus China’ group of developing nations. However, after a few days of intensive negotiations, ‘fines’ had become ‘prices’ and a ‘judicial system’ had become a ‘market’, in line with what the US wanted. The dominance of US power, the desire of other nations to keep the US on board, and the pressure applied by corporations drove the agenda in this direction throughout. As most readers will realise, all this is deeply ironic because the US has never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, having formally withdrawn from it in 2001. Nevertheless, the attachment to the idea of an emission permit/trading system remains, promoted (by governments, political parties, policy wonks, international agencies and even many NGOs too) as the best way to tackle climate change – regardless of the accumulating evidence to the contrary.

Market expansion causes environmental degradation: global implications

Dasgupta 2 (Sir Partha Dasgupta is the Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom; Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge; and Professorial Research Fellow at the University of Manchester “Economic Development, Environmental Degradation, and the Persistence of Deprivation in Poor Countries”, November 2002).>> IL That Nature is a part of our productive base may appear a commonplace, but scratch an economist and you are likely to find someone who regards the natural environment as a mere luxury. For it is even today commonly thought that, to quote an editorial in the UK’s The Independent (4 December 1999), "... (economic) growth is good for the environment because countries need to put poverty behind them in order to care"; or, to quote The Economist (4 December, 1999: 17), "... trade improves the environment, because it raises incomes, and the richer people are, the more willing they are to devote resources to cleaning up their living space." These passages reflect a detached view, observed from Olympian heights. The viewpoint encourages even economic egalitarians to justify the use of GNP as a measure of human wellbeing in poor countries: since the environment is a luxury, why should one care if it depreciates 5 For a study of indices that reflect human well-being over time, and for conditions under which genuine investment is an ideal index of improvements in well-being over time, see Partha Dasgupta and Karl-Göran Mäler, "Net National Product, Wealth, and Social Well-Being", Environment and Development Economics , 2000, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 69-93; Partha Dasgupta, Human Well-Being and the Natural Environment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); and Kenneth J. Arrow, Partha Dasgupta, and Karl-Göran Mäler (1), "Evaluating Projects and Assessing Sustainable Development in Imperfect Economies", forthcoming, Environmental and Resource Economics , 2003, and (2) "The Genuine Savings Criterion and the Value of Population", forthcoming, Economic Theory , 2003. 3 during the early stages of economic development? 6 Closer to home, however, matters look different. For Nature offers us a multitude of ecosystem services, which include maintaining a genetic library, preserving and regenerating soil, fixing nitrogen and carbon, recycling nutrients, controlling floods, filtering pollutants, assimilating waste, pollinating crops, operating the hydrological cycle, and maintaining the gaseous composition of the atmosphere. A number of these services filter into a global context (e.g., the atmosphere as a sink for pollutants), many are spatially localized. 7 Spatially localized natural assets are of the utmost importance to the world’s poor. When wetlands, inland and coastal fisheries, woodlands, ponds and lakes, and grazing fields are damaged (say, owing to agricultural encroachment or urban extensions or the construction of large dams), traditional dwellers suffer. For them - and they are among the poorest in society there are frequently no alternative source of livelihood. In contrast, for rich eco-tourists or importers of primary products there is something else, often somewhere else, which means that there are alternatives. The range between a need and a luxury is enormous and context-ridden. Macroeconomic reasoning glosses over the heterogeneity of Earth’s resources and the diverse uses to which they are put - by people residing at the site and by those elsewhere. National income accounts reflect this reasoning by failing to record a wide array of our transactions with Nature. The reason why changes in the size and composition of natural capital are in large measure missing from national accounts is that Nature’s services most often do not come with a price tag. The reason for that is that property rights to natural capital are often very difficult 6 The view’s origin can be traced to the World Bank’s World Development Report 1992 . For an assessment of the empirical findings that led to the view, see Kenneth J. Arrow, Bert Bolin, Robert Costanza, Partha Dasgupta, Carl Folke, Crawford S. Holling, Bengt-Owe Jansson, Simon A. Levin, Karl-Göran Mäler, Charles Perrings, and David Pimentel, "Economic Growth, Carrying Capacity, and the Environment", Science , 1995, vol. 268, pp.520-1; and the commentaries on the note in invited symposia in Ecological Economics , 1995, vol. 15, no. 1; Ecological Applications , 1996, vol. 6, no. 1; and Environment and Development Economics , 1996, vol. 1, no. 1. See also the special issue of Environment and Development Economics , 1997, vol. 2, no. 4. In the text that follows I focus on a different set of weaknesses in the view than are identified in the Arrow et al . note. 7 For the economics of ecosystem services, see my book, The Control of Resources (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982). A modern classic on the science of ecosystem services is Gretchen Daily, ed., Nature’s Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1997). 4 to establish, let alone enforce. And the reason for that is that natural capital is frequently mobile. At the broadest level soil, water, and the atmosphere (which are capital assets themselves) are media that enable capital assets to connect among themselves and flourish, meaning that a disturbance to any one asset can be expected to reverberate on many others at distances away, sometimes at far distances. Under current practice though the consequences of the connectedness of natural capital can easily go unnoted in economic transactions. 8 It can then be that those who destroy mangroves in order to create shrimp farms, or cut down forests in the uplands of watersheds to export timber, are not required to compensate fishermen dependent on the mangroves, or farmers and fishermen in the lowlands whose fields and fisheries are protected by the upland forests. Economic development in the guise of growth in per capita GNP can come in tandem with a decline in the wealth of some of the poorest members of society.

Economic development causes resource depletion

Stern et. al. 96 (David I. Stern, “Economic Growth and Environmental Degradation: The Environmental Kuznets Curve and Sustainable Development” Boston University, Massachusetts, Vol. 24, No. 7, pp. 1151-l 160, 1996 Copyright 0 1996) IL

At low levels of development both the quantity and intensity of environmental degradation is limited to the impacts of subsistence economic activity on the resource base and to limited quantities of biodegradable wastes. As economic development accelerates with the intensification of agriculture and other resource extraction and the take off of industrialization, the rate of resource depletion begins to exceed the rates of resource regeneration, and waste generation increases in quantity and toxicity. At higher levels of development, structural change towards information-intensive industries and services, coupled with increased environmental awareness, enforcement of environmental regulations, better technology and higher environmental expenditures, result in leveling off and gradual decline of environmental degradation. (Panayotou, 93).

There is no incentive for environmental protection in Mexico industry

Blackman 10 (Allen Blackman, Bidisha Lahiri, William Pizer, Marisol Rivera Planter, Carlos Mun˜oz Pin˜a,Resources for the Future, 1616 P Street, N.W. Washington DC 20036, USA Department of Economics, Spears School of Business, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA Independent Instituto Nacional de Ecología, Secretaría del Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, Mexico City, Mexico “Voluntary environmental regulation in developing countries: Mexico’s Clean Industry Program”, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 60 (2010) 182–192,http://www.sciencedirect.com.turing.library.northwestern.edu/science/article/pii/S0095069610000781) BC

We have used data on some 114,000 industrial facilities and other businesses in Mexico to evaluate the Clean Industry Program, Mexico’s flagship voluntary regulatory program. The first stage of our analysis focused on identifying the drivers of participation in the program, and the second stage focused on determining whether it improves participants’ environmental performance. To analyze participation, we used a duration model, because it explicitly accounts for the timing of the dependent variable (participation) and the main independent variable of interest (regulatory fines), and because it controls for right censoring. Our results suggest that regulatory fines do motivate participation in the program: a fine roughly triples the probability of participation for three years after it is assessed. Hence, the Clean Industry Program does not simply consist of already-clean plants. Rather, it has attracted dirty plants under pressure from regulators. The analysis also shows that certain types of plants – those that sell their goods in overseas markets and to government suppliers, use imported inputs, are large, and are in certain sectors and states – are more likely to participate. To analyze program impacts, we used the postamnesty incidence of fines as a proxy for plants’ environmental performance and used propensity score matching to control for bias created by self-selection into the program of plants with characteristics likely to affect environmental performance. To control for the lengthy inspection amnesty granted to participating plants, we focused on plants that joined the program in its first nine years. Our analysis indicates that after their inspection amnesty expired, Clean Industry participants were not fined at a substantially lower rate than matched nonparticipants. This suggests that the Clean Industry Program did not have a large, lasting impact on average environmental performance. It is important to reiterate that we used a proxy for environmental performance instead of a direct measure, and we relied on a restricted sample of participants from the program’s first nine years. Nevertheless, we believe our results are credible and shed important light on the environmental benefits of an increasingly popular yet little-studied regulatory policy in developing countries. Our findings raise two questions. The first concerns the relationship between the results from our participation and impact analyses: if Clean Industry Program participants included dirty firms under pressure from regulators, and if program participants obtained certificates attesting that they had remedied all deficiencies identified by a comprehensive independent environmental audit, then why were program graduates not cleaner on average than similar nonparticipants? The most likely explanation is simply that the effect of the Clean Industry Program on graduates’ environmental performance was temporary, not permanent. After receiving their Clean Industry Certificates, at least some plants reverted to pre-participation levels of environmental performance. This explanation is consistent with an evidence that the effect on participants’ environmental performance of U.S. voluntary (climate and energy efficiency) programs was temporary, lasting just two to three years after participation A second question concerns our participation analysis: how could regulatory pressure have driven participation in the Clean Industry Program, if such pressure is reputed to have been relatively weak during our participation study period (1992–2004) [32], [20] and [9]? We believe the explanation has partly to do with PROFEPA’s enforcement strategy. For most of our study period, PROFEPA targeted facilities “at risk” of industrial accidents—i.e., large facilities in particularly dirty sectors [16], [17] and [37]. Our duration analysis shows that these same plants were particularly likely to participate in the Clean Industry Program. Therefore, although PROFEPA monitoring and enforcement may have been weak for the average facility, for targeted sectors, it was less so. The design features of the Clean Industry Program may also explain how even weak regulatory pressure may have spurred participation. The program provides carrots – namely certification and an inspection amnesty – that helped leverage PROFEPA’s enforcement sticks. Finally, we note that the main findings from our participation and impact analyses are broadly consistent with research on voluntary programs in industrialized countries. Like many studies of government led-voluntary programs, we find that dirty firms under pressure from regulators are more likely to participate, and like most such studies, we find that participation does not significantly improve an average environmental performance [26] and [29]. Our findings raise questions about the ability of voluntary programs to help shore up weak mandatory regimes in developing countries.
Oil spills decrease biodiversity on multiple fronts

West 7/14 (Larry West, “How Do Oil Spills Damage the Environment?: Oil spills always harm wildlife, ecosystems and fragile coastal environments,” 7/14/13, http://environment.about.com/od/petroleum/a/oil_spills_and_environment.htm, studied journalism and creative writing at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, and completed the Managerial Excellence program at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. He also taught research and writing courses in continuing education programs at the University of Washington and the University of Alaska.) Oil spills often result in both immediate and long-term environmental damage. Some of the environmental damage caused by an oil spill can last for decades after the spill occurs.

Here are some of the most notable environmental damages typically caused by oil spills:

Oil Spills Damage Beaches, Marshlands and Fragile Marine Ecosystems
Oil spilled by damaged tankers, pipelines or offshore oil rigs coats everything it touches and becomes an unwelcome but long-term part of every ecosystem it enters.

When an oil slick from a large oil spill reaches the beach, the oil coats and clings to every rock and grain of sand. If the oil washes into coastal marshes, mangrove forests or other wetlands, fibrous plants and grasses absorb the oil, which can damage the plants and make the whole area unsuitable as wildlife habitat.

When some of the oil eventually stops floating on the surface of the water and begins to sink into the marine environment, it can have the same kind of damaging effects on fragile underwater ecosystems, killing or contaminating many fish and smaller organisms that are essential links in the global food chain.

Despite massive clean-up efforts following the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, for example, a 2007 study conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that 26, 000 gallons of oil from the Exxon Valdez oil spill was still trapped in the sand along the Alaska shoreline.

Scientists involved in the study determined that this residual oil was declining at a rate of less than 4 percent annually.
Oil Spills Kill Birds

West 7/14 (Larry West, “How Do Oil Spills Damage the Environment?: Oil spills always harm wildlife, ecosystems and fragile coastal environments,” 7/14/13, http://environment.about.com/od/petroleum/a/oil_spills_and_environment.htm, studied journalism and creative writing at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, and completed the Managerial Excellence program at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. He also taught research and writing courses in continuing education programs at the University of Washington and the University of Alaska.)
Oil-covered birds are practically a universal symbol of the environmental damage wreaked by oil spills. Any oil spill in the ocean is a death sentence for sea birds. Some species of shore birds may escape by relocating if they sense the danger in time, but sea birds that swim and dive for their food are sure to be covered in oil. Oil spills also damage nesting grounds, which can have serious long-term effects on entire species. The 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon offshore oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, for example, occurred during prime mating and nesting season for many bird and marine species, and the long-term environmental consequences of that spill won't be known for many years. Oil spills can even disrupt migratory patterns by contaminating areas where migrating birds normally stop.

Even a small amount of oil can be deadly to a bird. By coating the feathers, oil not only makes it impossible for birds to fly but also destroys their natural waterproofing and insulation, leaving them vulnerable to hypothermia or overheating. As the birds frantically try to preen their feathers to restore their natural protections they often swallow some of the oil, which can severely damage their internal organs and lead to death. The Exxon Valdez oil spill killed somewhere between 250,000 and 500,000 seabirds, plus a number of shore birds and bald eagles.

Oil Spills Kill Marine Mammals

West 7/14 (Larry West, “How Do Oil Spills Damage the Environment?: Oil spills always harm wildlife, ecosystems and fragile coastal environments,” 7/14/13, http://environment.about.com/od/petroleum/a/oil_spills_and_environment.htm, studied journalism and creative writing at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, and completed the Managerial Excellence program at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. He also taught research and writing courses in continuing education programs at the University of Washington and the University of Alaska.)
Oil spills frequently kill marine mammals such as whales, dolphins, seals and sea otters. The deadly damage can take several forms. The oil sometimes clogs the blow holes of whales and dolphins, making it impossible for the animals to breathe properly and disrupting their ability to communicate. Oil coats the fur of otters and seals, leaving them vulnerable to hypothermia.

Even when marine mammals escape the immediate effects, an oil spill can cause damage by contaminating their food supply. Marine mammals that eat fish or other food that has been exposed to an oil spill may be poisoned by the oil and die or can experience other problems.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill killed thousands of sea otters, hundreds of harbor seals, roughly two dozen killer whales and a dozen or more river otters. Even more troubling in some ways, in the years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill scientists noted higher death rates among sea otters and some other species affected by the oil spill, and stunted growth or other damage among other species.

Oil Spills Kill Fish

West 7/14 (Larry West, “How Do Oil Spills Damage the Environment?: Oil spills always harm wildlife, ecosystems and fragile coastal environments,” 7/14/13, http://environment.about.com/od/petroleum/a/oil_spills_and_environment.htm, studied journalism and creative writing at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, and completed the Managerial Excellence program at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. He also taught research and writing courses in continuing education programs at the University of Washington and the University of Alaska.)Oil spills often take a deadly toll on fish, shellfish and other marine life, particularly if large numbers of fish eggs or larvae are exposed to the oil. The shrimp and oyster fisheries along the Louisiana coast were among the first casualties of the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon offshore oil spill. Similarly, the Exxon Valdez oil spill destroyed billions of salmon and herring eggs. Those fisheries still have not recovered.
Oil Spills Destroy Wildlife Habitat and Breeding Grounds

West 7/14 (Larry West, “How Do Oil Spills Damage the Environment?: Oil spills always harm wildlife, ecosystems and fragile coastal environments,” 7/14/13, http://environment.about.com/od/petroleum/a/oil_spills_and_environment.htm, studied journalism and creative writing at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, and completed the Managerial Excellence program at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. He also taught research and writing courses in continuing education programs at the University of Washington and the University of Alaska.) The long-term damage to various species, and to the habitat and nesting or breeding grounds those species depend upon for their survival, is one of the most far-reaching environmental effects caused by oil spills. Even many species that spend most of their lives at sea—such as various species of sea turtles—must come ashore to nest. Sea turtles can be harmed by oil they encounter in the water or on the beach where they lay their eggs, the eggs can be damaged by the oil and fail to develop properly, and newly hatched young turtles may be oiled as they scurry toward the ocean across an oily beach. Ultimately, the severity of environmental damages caused by a particular oil spill depends on many factors, including the amount of the oil spilled, the type and weight of the oil, the location of the spill, the species of wildlife in the area, the timing or breeding cycles and seasonal migrations, and even the weather at sea during and immediately after the oil spill. But one thing never varies: oil spills are always bad news for the environment.

Many experts say drilling in the Gulf will inevitably cause spills

Mufson 12 (April 19, 2012, Steven Mufson, “Two years after BP oil spill, offshore drilling still poses risks,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/two-years-after-bp-oil-spill-offshore-drilling-still-poses-risks/2012/04/19/gIQAHOkDUT_story.html, Steven Mufson is a staff writer covering energy and other financial news. He has worked at the Post since 1989 and has been its chief economic policy writer, Beijing correspondent, diplomatic correspondent and deputy editor of the weekly Outlook section. Earlier, he spent six years working for The Wall Street Journal in New York, London and Johannesburg and wrote a book about the 1980s uprisings in South Africa’s black townships.)Two years after a blowout on BP’s Macondo well killed 11 men and triggered the largest oil spill in U.S. history, oil companies are again plying the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Forty-one deep-water rigs are in the gulf. The vast majority of them are drilling new holes or working over old ones, while the other behemoths are idle as they await work or repairs. A brand new rig — the South Korean-built Pacific Santa Ana, capable of drilling to a depth of 7.5 miles — is on its way to a Chevron well. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill has surpassed the size of the 1969 Santa Barbara spill and the Exxon Valdez. But three recent incidents in other parts of the world show just how risky and sensitive offshore drilling remains. In the North Sea, French oil giant Total is still battling to regain control of a natural gas well that has been leaking for nearly four weeks. Meanwhile, Brazil has confiscated the passports of 11 Chevron employees and five employees of drilling contractor Transocean as they await trial on criminal charges related to an offshore oil spill there. And in December, about 40,000 barrels of crude oil leaked out of a five-year-old loading line between a floating storage vessel and an oil tanker in a Royal Dutch Shell field off the coast of Nigeria. Many experts say that even with tougher regulations here in the United States, such incidents are inevitable.

Oil spills are inevitable with drilling, and biodiversity loss that spills create leads to a food crisis

Culture Change 10 (April 3, 2010, Culture Change, “No Offshore Oil Drilling: Committee Against Oil Exploration (CAOE),” http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=637&Itemid=1, Culture Change was founded by Sustainable Energy Institute (formerly Fossil Fuels Policy Action), a nonprofit organization.
Some articles are published under Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107) The environmental risk taken by offshore drilling is very topical, made evident by oil spills such as the recent BP oil spill and the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 off the coast of Alaska. In the case of the Exxon Valdez spill up to 250,000 sea birds died, over 2,800 sea otters and thousands of other animals (figures from the BP oil spill are not yet complete), having had a massive impact on the local wildlife and leading to a ban on all offshore drilling in America, until George Bush overturned it in 2008 - the recent oil spill suggests this repeal was a mistake. In this way, offshore drilling destroys ecosystems and fish stocks. These resources are vital for humanity to feed its population, and wasteland like much of the coast of southern USA is of no use until cleaned. There is also a long term effect because the remaining species will have a lower heterozygosity index (the amount of allele variation within a species). This is important because if there is a change in selection pressure, such as a new disease, this could leave the remainder of the species vulnerable as they are less likely to survive because they are less likely to have a dormant allele that becomes advantageous. The potential environmental risk is massive and thus offshore drilling should not be allowed because it can have such an effect on the environment, both in the short term and long term. Offshore drilling could lead to the extinction of various species, and a ban would be a sure way to help preserve biodiversity.