Add the world’s oceans to the list of growing casualties as mankind continues to behave as if everything is in infinite quantities forever. 

An article in today’s Economist entitled “A Sea of Troubles,” touches only the very tip of an enormous problem that is on the verge of exploding in everyone’s face.  “Some scientists believe that coral reefs, home to a quarter of all marine species, may virtually disappear within a few decades. That would be the end of the rainforests of the seas,” the article states. 

Polluting the oceans will wreak havoc, that is certain, but how far along we’ve gone down this hill is not known precisely and that concerns scientist even more.  Maybe our time of pain from this huge part of the globe is nearer than we imagine.

“Many also fear that some changes are reaching thresholds after which further changes may accelerate uncontrollably. No one fully understands why the cod have not returned to the Grand Banks off Canada, even after 16 years of no fishing. No one quite knows why glaciers and ice shelves are melting so fast, or how a meltwater lake on the Greenland ice sheet covering six square kilometres could drain away in 24 hours, as it did in 2006. Such unexpected events make scientists nervous,” the article states.

Meanwhile one of humankind’s healthiest source of protein is being mindlessly wiped out.

In Lester Brown’s Plan B 3.0, the list is disheartening:

• 90%  of the large fish in the oceans has disappeared over the past 50 years.
• The 500 year old Cod fishery of Canada failed in the early 1990s and other Cod fisheries are in collapse elsewhere.
• The large Bluefish Tuna have been cut by a staggering 94%.
• Caspian Sea sturgeon, fell from 27,700 tons in 1977 to 461 tons in 2000.
• The Cheasapeake Bay yielded more than 35 million lbs of oysters 50 years ago, but now produces barely 1 million lbs.

Even efforts to stem the destruction are meeting with limited success because by the time the decline becomes severe, it’s too late to regenerate the fishery.

Unfortunately, there’s little evidence the danger we face is recognized much, if at all, by the general public.

If the past is prologue, humans won’t act defensively to ward off danger.  Disasters will happen, destroying entire populations as nature takes its revenge on our selfishness.

The following is a comment Beezer made to a post in Economist’s View entitled ”Was Risk Misperceived, Misrepresented, or Misallocated?”  As with many of the post/comment threads at this blog, the discussion is informative and thought provoking.

Beezer says:

The priorities should be:
1) Take care of labor first. Pay, working conditions, health care for all. Labor shall NOT be the lowest common denominator in a business plan. If you can’t do this, you can’t be in business. Nor can you sell your products in our country if you’re a foreign corporation that pays poverty wages to labor, or a domestic corporation who owns facilities overseas where labor is abused.
2) Restore Depression regulations separating banks with depositor money versus investment banks, and restore market restrictions regarding leverage and transparency. Leverage should, in all efforts, be limited by law and such laws shall be ruthlessly enforced. Whether you’re General Electric, a totally private company, or someone looking to buy a home, leverage limits will apply.
3) Capitalism is great. It’s Capitalists who bear watching. Tax rates on income shall be steeply progressive. If you’re a smart con and you spot a moronic group of directors who will pay you $115 million over 5 years, most of that pay will be be confiscated by taxation. Eliminate stock options as a form of pay. You want some stock, buy it.
4) Short term capital gains shall be taxed at a minimum of 50%. All mortgages shall contain a 3 year prepayment penalty.
5) Utilize basic, broad based taxes, including value added taxes. Tax internet commerce. If you sell you get taxed. No free rides, no tilted playing fields when it comes to taxation. If the guy on Main Street has to pay a tax, so should the digital guy.
6) Make it a law that the federal government design and publish long term goals in areas that the free market won’t address–such as infrastructure programs.

All the above will limit risk taking as well as much of the “churn” capitalism creates under the guise of “creative destruction.”

Our European allies are moving forward towards sustainable economies, and some of the ways they are doing so bear copying.

Their current theme is 20-20-20 by 2020.  EU countries want to by 2020: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20%; save 20% on energy consumption through better efficiencies; and meet 20% of its energy needs with renewable energy.

You can read a summary of the program here.

We should have similar packaging and marketing for our necessary move to a sustainable future.  Beezer has often said that Barak Obama’s greatest strength may be his powers of persuasion and encouragement.  Because he needs the support of the average citizen means he needs to have information distributed widely that is easily understood and thoroughly believable.

While a growing number of our population is beginning to understand the meaning of finite resources and the importance of creating sustainable economies, the numbers are insufficient to create a “bottom up” surge of support for action.  Without this type of support, our ability as a nation to make effective changes will be impossible.  We will fail if planners believe they can accomplish this massive effort from “the top down.”

There’s an old saw in political campaigns that the candidate who always plays on his or her “home field,” will win.  In other words, he who frames the discussion’s parameters will dominate the discussion.  Such an effort to “frame the discussion” is being made by the European Union, and a similar, coordinated effort is needed here.  

But framing is not enough by itself.  Specific action has to be made clear.  People are skeptical of government in general, and Washington in particular.  They’re not going to coalesce into a political power base for sustainability unless they know the details.  Broad goals are important, no question.  But specifics are what trigger action.  And it’s action we need.

In the very big picture, labor wage and benefit supports could be the key component to eventual global economic recovery.   Real wages and benefits, both in the developed countries and in the emerging countries, have stagnated and that needs to be reversed in order to have economic recovery.

In China, according to a Bloomberg report, as a percent of GDP China’s consumption spending has decreased from 45% to 35% since 1993.  In a related Reuters report, China’s growing unease with the income disparity is outlined.  In contrast, China’s focus on infrastructure and export manufacturing, has left China with a massive overhang of material.

“China’s steel industry, the world’s largest, is sitting on a stockpile of 63 million metric tons, equivalent to about 13 percent of annual production, and Baosteel Group General Manager He Wenbo said in November that his company was facing the “most difficult” period since it was founded 30 years ago,” according to the Bloomberg report cited above.

On the flip side of China’s situation, Ying to China’s Yang, is the United States economy which has become dominated by consumption and now faces the need to reinvigorate it’s productive economy with a massive infrastructure investment and stimulus.  Concurrently, because of its export success, China has run huge current account surpluses and has become the primary lender to the United States, whose consumers have become overburdened by debt as the US ran current account deficits buying China’s exports. 

Ying and Yang. Two sides to the same coin.  But one problem both face in common: The need to have more wealth flow down to labor.  China can’t boost consumption without Chinese labor being paid more.  At the same time the US needs to shed overall debt which cannot be accomplished without wage increases that allow for debt reduction and some support for consumption.

No matter what each country does going forward (the China/US, Ying Yang relationship is repeated between developing/developed countries worldwide) the overall global production/consumption is going to decrease.  This is a recession, after all, and everything is shrinking.  Imbalances throughout economies are everywhere.  Mis-allocated resources have to be reigned in and re-directed.

Outside of the underlying scarcity of non-sustainable resources, the largest mis-allocation is with labor wages and benefits.  To the degree economies don’t allow wealth to flow down to the bottom of the pyramid, will be the degree and duration of recession.

China wants the US to save more.  The US wants China to boost domestic consumption and spend more.  Neither can be done without a relative improvement in labor wages and benefits.

It would go better for both countries, and for the world economies at large, if they cooperated in this effort.  Pain is inevitable, but cooperation can reduce the severity and duration of the pain.  Pay labor first and foremost.  At this juncture, worry about profits later.

“Competition between modes is often counter-productive, and should be avoided. Governments should stop building highway expansions which compete with rail service, for example. Actually, governments should stop expanding roads, period. Road subsidies should stop. Public transit must be a viable (convenient, comfortable, safe) alternative for a far greater portion of the population than is currently the case.

The aim here is not just to decrease the rate at which fossil fuels are depleted, but rather to decrease overall energy usage such that the entire system can eventually be supported by renewable energy sources. That primarily means electrically-powered vehicles. The obvious exception to “electric propulsion everywhere” is aircraft, which will almost certainly have to rely on liquid fuels. Aircraft, I contend, should be the primary market for biofuels. Note that shifting air service emphasis to medium-to-long-haul only would greatly ease congestion at airports and reduce traffic control requirements.

A transportation system that relies on a “non-renewable” resource is bound for collapse – the only question is whether we adapt in time, not whether we need to adapt.”

This at the end of an interesting blog here.  Look it over.  Hopefully, someone in the Obama administration will–and then maybe forward it to state Transportation officials.  Except for roads and bridges that are in dire need of repair, we really have no business adding to our road infrastructure.

In contrast, we absolutely have to add to and improve upon our rail and related modes of transportation.

Lawrence Summers, a former Treasury Secretary under President Clinton and head of President-elect Obama’s White House National Economic Council, today in the Washington Post outlines a basic approach that provides a “breath of fresh air,” when it comes to America’s future.

Importantly, Summers ends his article pointing out that the new administration isn’t going to just look at short term results, but is going to balance short term needs with efforts also aimed at long term results. 

Summers ends with: “Some argue that instead of attempting to both create jobs and invest in our long-run growth, we should focus exclusively on short-term policies that generate consumer spending. But that approach led to some of the challenges we face today — and it is that approach that we must reject if we are going to strengthen our middle class and our economy over the long run. Far from being an excuse for inaction or delay, the magnitude of the work ahead is all the more reason to begin that work.”

Compare this statement with what we’ve experienced the past 8 years.  This is a dramatic improvement in approach and basic attitude.  This is a positive approach.  The previous economic philosophy espoused the ”creative destruction,” of unregulated free markets.  We certainly got a lot of the “destruction”.  Now is  time for the “creative.”

 Our basic problems, the underlying first cause of our future, remains the same recession or no: Our economy needs to be transformed and made sustainable. When all the smoke clears this remains our longterm mission.

Everyone re-visit Lester Brown’s “Plan B 3.0″ for a quick update on where we really stand.

Summers, obviously speaking for Obama, shows that the new administration is well aware of our underlying weaknesses, and aware that addressing them cannot wait any longer.  Government will have to lead the way, and at the same time, “nudge” the private market to participate and bring its “creativity” to the program.

“In this crisis, doing too little poses a greater threat than doing too much. Any sound economic strategy in the current context must be directed at both creating the jobs that Americans need and doing the work that our economy requires. Any plan geared toward only one of these objectives would be dangerously deficient. Failure to create enough jobs in the short term would put the prospect of recovery at risk. Failure to start undertaking necessary long-term investments would endanger the foundation of our recovery and, ultimately, our children’s prosperity,” Summer writes.

And just to be clear where the administration’s priorities are right now, he writes: “The Obama plan represents not new public works but, rather, investments that will work for the American public. Investments to build the classrooms, laboratories and libraries our children need to meet 21st-century educational challenges. Investments to help reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil by spurring renewable energy initiatives (many of which are on hold because of the credit crunch). Investments to put millions of Americans back to work rebuilding our roads, bridges and public transit systems. Investments to modernize our health-care system, which is necessary to improve care in the short term and key to driving down costs across the board. ”

Finally, an effort to address America’s longterm weaknesses.  It will work, particularly if Obama continues to direct his skills of persuasion, of encouragement, to the American public.