UPDATE: 10 ways capitalists get rich destroying our oceans MarketWatch - 12:04 AM ET By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Yes, many capitalists are getting rich off the high seas, a vast reservoir of wealth holding 95% of the planets water, spanning 70% of the Earths surface. Often called the last frontier, a return to Americas 18th century Wild West. its virtually unregulated, a new free market where capitalists roam like pirates, plundering wealth and treating our oceans as a freebie gold mine and trash dump. Bad news for seven billion people living on the planet. And by 2050 well be adding three billion more people. We already know we cant feed 10 billion. Now were polluting their water. Wont be enough clean water for all to drink, triggering wars. Yes, bad news getting worse: As Alan Sielen of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography warns in the Foreign Affairs journal: Over the last several decades, human activities have so altered the basic chemistry of the seas that they are now experiencing evolution in reverse: a return to the barren primeval waters of hundreds of millions of years ago. Capitalism is turning back evolutionary clock a billion years Evolution in reverse? Yes, planet Earth is regressing eons to an earlier primitive era. Unregulated free-market competition on the high seas is turning back the evolutionary clock. That doesnt bother todays short-term-thinking capitalists. But it should. Because, ironically, shifting evolution into reverse will also self-destruct the very global economy that capitalism needs for future growth. Todays capitalists see another three billion people as the new customers needed to expand free markets globally. But in the process they are also cutting their own throats, unaware theyre pushing a hidden self-destruct button lodged in their brains. Nature designed all systems with these built-in termination buttons. Deny it all you want, but humans have our entrances and exits, as Shakespeare said. We all do. Same with economic systems: Yales Immanuel Wallerstein sees capitalism at the end of its 500-year cycle. Solar systems last for billions of years. Someday, as our sun cools, Earth could go the way of Mars. And the sun will eventually exit in a blazing supernova. Grabbing short-term profits, leaving long-term losses to the public Capitalists deny their role in their endgame, dismiss the long economic cycle. Thats natural. Capitalist brains are designed to focus on the short term, profits, high frequencies, microseconds, day-end closing prices, quarterly earnings, annual bonuses. Rarely longer. Myopia is the built-in self-destruct trigger for capitalists, their society, the human race, our planets water. Cant blame them, the capitalists brain isnt designed to think long-term. Why? Capitalists see a new world like the Wild West. No lawmen, just free-market competitors, free to do whatever they want, whenever, unregulated, uncontrolled, no restraints, skimming, mining, plundering the wealth of the high seas, free to use, misuse and abuse vast oceans of water at no real cost. Here are 10 ways capitalists are pocketing their short-term profits, leaving long-term losses for the public to pay: 1. Pollution creating new oceanic garbage dump Sielens imagery is powerful: The oceans problems start with pollution, the most visible forms of which are the catastrophic spills from offshore oil and gas drilling or from tanker accidents. But that pollution pales in comparison to the much less spectacular waste that finds its way to the seas through rivers, pipes, runoff, and the air ... trash, plastic bags, bottles, cans washing into coastal waters or discarded by ships ... drifts out to sea ... forms epic gyres of floating waste covering hundreds of miles. 2. Destruction of marine life costs jobs and more The prospect of vanishing whales, polar bears, bluefin tuna, sea turtles, and wild coasts should be worrying enough on its own, warns Sielen. But the disruption of entire ecosystems threatens our very survival, since it is the healthy functioning of these diverse systems that sustains life on earth. Destruction on this level has massive consequences, and costs humans dearly in terms of food, jobs, health, and quality of life. 3. Toxic chemicals polluting our waters It gets far worse: The most dangerous pollutants are chemicals poisoning the oceans with toxins, says Sielen. They travel great distances, accumulate in marine life, and move up the food chain. Mercury from burning coal rains down on the oceans, rivers, and lakes. Each year hundreds of new untested industrial chemicals build up slowly in the tissues of fish and shellfish, get passed to larger creatures and humans causing death, disease, and abnormalities, adversely affecting development of the brain, the neurologic system, and the reproductive system in humans. 4. Deadly fertilizers are polluting oceans Add to this disaster scenario fertilizers, which are now rising at excessive levels causing havoc on the natural environment, an explosive growth of algae, decomposition, a loss of oxygen needed to support complex marine life. This trend is creating dead zones devoid of the ocean life that have more than quadrupled in a decade. 5. Humans are eating too many fish World population was less than 3 billion in 1950, 6 billion in 2000. Projected at 10 billion in 2050. Sielen warns: Humans are simply killing and eating too many fish, with fish supplies falling dramatically. Tuna, swordfish, halibut, flounder populations dropped 90% since 1950. Human appetite has nearly wiped those populations out. 6. Fish supplies disappear, demand is increasing And demand keeps growing as supplies are rapidly dwindling. Exploding prices add to the demand: This year, a 489-pound bluefin tuna sold for $1.7 million making it profitable to employ airplanes and helicopters to scan the ocean for the fish that remain; against such technologies, marine animals dont stand a chance. Small fish like sardines, anchovy, herring, are also disappearing, meaning less food for bigger fish up the food chain. 7. Destructive, wasteful fishing methods Unfortunately, modern industrial fishing fleets drag lines with thousands of hooks miles behind a vessel, with nets thousands of feet below the seas surface. Untargeted seals, turtles, dolphins, whales, albatross get entangled, killing millions of tons each year. Some of the most destructive fisheries discard 80% to 90%. In the Gulf of Mexico, for every pound of shrimp ... over three pounds of marine life is thrown away. 8. Destroying marine habitats kills future growth Another factor destroying our oceans: The destruction of the habitats that have allowed spectacular marine life to thrive for millennia, says Sielen. And yet capitalism continues the wholesale destruction of deep-ocean habitats ... submerged mountain chains called seamounts, some higher than Mt Rainier. They are homes to a rich variety of marine life. Yet, industrial trawlers bulldoze their way destroying deep cold-water corals, some older than the California redwoods. 9. Acid buildup in oceans weakens marine life The buildup of acid in ocean waters, warns Sielen reduces the availability of calcium carbonate, a key building block for the skeletons and shells of corals, plankton, shellfish, and many other marine organisms that need it to grow and also to guard against predators. 10. Our planet Earth is in hot water Echoing findings by 2,000 scientists in the recent Fifth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Sielen says scientists predict climate change will drive the planets temperature up by between 4 and 7 degrees Fahrenheit over the course of this century causing hotter oceans ... rising sea levels ... stronger storms as the life cycles of plants and animals are upended, changing migration patterns, causing other serious disruptions ... surface waters mixing less with cooler, deeper waters, reducing phytoplankton population, the foundation of the oceans food chain. The recent Warsaw Agreement on Climate Change, like earlier United Nations accords in Kyoto and Copenhagen, exposes how capitalist power-players control governmental decision-makers, prompting Sielens final warning: So long as pollution, overfishing, and ocean acidification remain concerns only for scientists ... little will change ... Diplomats and national security experts, who understand the potential for conflict in an overheated world, should realize that climate change might soon become a matter of war and peace ... Business leaders should understand better than most the direct links between healthy seas and healthy economies ... And government officials, who are entrusted with the publics well-being, must surely see the importance of clean air, land, and water. The world faces a choice, warns Sielen: We do not have to return to an oceanic Stone Age. But can we summon the political will and moral courage to restore the seas to health before it is too late? The consequences are catastrophic ... the risks enormous ... odds very long ... fuse short ... yet the denial may be too overwhelming. More Paul B. Farrell warnings on climate change: The 10 dumbest things climate-change deniers say New climate war: Billionaires vs. Big Oil Warning: 100-year climate disasters every 100 days -Paul B. Farrell; 415-439-6400; AskNewswires@dowjones (END) Dow Jones Newswires December 04, 2013 00:04 ET (05:04 GMT) Copyright (c) 2013 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Dec 2013 09:27:22 +0000
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