Ecology: Dave's Opinion
I have been reading a lot of books on ecology and the environment lately. Most of this reading was prompted by a pair of books called Ishmael and The Story of B, both written by Daniel Quinn. But I would say that an author by the name of Paul Hawken --and particularly his 1993 book entitled The Ecology of Commerce-- has had a far greater impact on my thinking regarding environmental problems and potential solutions. While Quinn excels at interpreting myth and literature (including the Bible) in the context of our present-day problems, Hawken, a successful businessman, has a good grasp of real-world issues, including a variety of interesting ideas that are being experimented with in industry and government throughout the world, and how we might make use of these in order to begin solving the serious environmental problems we are facing.
The most important lesson I have learned from Hawkin is that it is pointless to cast blame on logging companies, developers, and other supposed villains in the struggle to protect biological and cultural diversity. Like all human beings, these folks are merely doing what is in their best interest. One logging company knows that if they don't clear-cut a certain area, another company will. And one strip-mining outfit knows that if they don't displace Hopi and Navajo Indians from their homes in order to extract uranium, another company will. In light of this, the answer would seem to be to create incentives to preserve undeveloped land or, at least, to recognize that there are many disincentives to conservation built into our current system.
I remember once reading that the Ottomans placed a per-tree tax on farms in the countries they occupied. What do you suppose would happen as a result of such a law? People would cut down their trees, of course. And that is evidently what did happen, leading to a barren landscape throughout much of the Holy Land and other parts of the Middle East in our day.
Here in the US, something similar is going on. It's not practical to own undeveloped property, because you pay property taxes on it from year to year and don't reap any financial incentives. Developing it is the only way to make it pay off for you. For instance, forests and farmland in proximity to large cities are becoming quite rare because the people who own these lands can make fortunes by selling their land to developers who then cover them with wall-to-wall townhouses. It generally isn't what's best for the region, contributing as it does to a whole host of growing urban problems, but it certainly serves the interest of both the former owner and the developer. (Although, in certain cases, it seems likely that the farmers who own the land are forced to sell by the increase in the taxable value of their property which eventually prices them out of the market).
Once of the ideas Hawkin touts is green taxes. The idea comes from a couple of German economists, I believe, but I don't recall their names. It is based on the notion that certain real-world costs are not accounted for in our supposed "free-market" economy, and it involves shifting our work-based income tax to one based on three vital components of production:
1- Consumption of Natural Resources
2- Production of Chemical, Nuclear, and other Waste products
3- The amount of Energy used in production
Think of how many man hours are lost each year as the tax season descends upon us and accountants are hired to sift through reams of paperwork in search of potential tax breaks. Imagine if all the time and ingenuity now spent in devising creative ways to trim dollars off a personal or business tax bill were instead thrown into the task of cutting the amount of energy needed to produce a certain number of goods and cutting down on the waste produced as a result. A system devised on these principles would rapidly give any country adopting it a substantial competitive edge over other countries because it would help its people to maximize the number of goods produced in relation to the amount of raw material and energy needed to produce them.
It is widely believed that taxes on a given behavior tend to discourage that behavior. So why on earth do we tax work and sales, the two activities that most benefit the economy? In my view, a tax which directly targetted the consumption of natural resources and energy would make much more sense because it would encourage us to do our buying and selling in ways that minimize the depletion of these resources.
This is merely one small aspect of what Hawken discusses in this book, however, so you really should read it or, at least, about it. Here's a link to a review of the book written by Scott London, a radio talk show host.
How would such a shift in thinking address the disappearance of wilderness and other undeveloped lands, you might ask? I envision a progressive property tax scheme which would reward those who preserve their forests, wetlands, and other endangered areas by paying them money each year (a negative property tax, in effect), while those who develop their land (or own developed properties) would pay an annual property tax determined by the type of "improvements" situated upon those properties. Those who own and maintain historic properties in traditional towns like my new place of residence, Marshall Michigan, might also get refunds instead of tax bills. Traditional farmers might pay a relatively small tax while huge agro-business corporations would pay at a much higher rate. Owners of office space and residential areas (including private home-owners) would pay at a rate similar to what they pay now. Industrial zones would pay at a higher rate while miners (including federal or state government entities) would, perhaps, pay the highest rate.
Keep in mind that this isn't so drastically different than the situation we have in most states now where all land-owners pay a property tax. This would merely re-distribute the tax in a way that would encourage using land in ways that are more beneficial to human society as a whole. I include mention of historic properties, because I believe that the proper place for humans to live is in the traditional towns and cities that sprang up when our ancestors settled this continent during previous centuries. Suburban sprawl is a disease which creates many problems for the current generation and which future generations will pay a high price to reverse.
Of course, these higher property taxes on industry and suburban living would be what would finance the pay-outs to the owners of wilderness and other undeveloped tracts. This would, of course, anger some industrialists. But the more intelligent among them would quickly figure out that the more wilderness land they owned, the more they could offset this annual tax bill, causing them to buy up many acres of such land as "sponsors" in the cause of biological diversity. Owners of developed land who wished to let it revert to its natural state would receive gradually increasing tax breaks as the process progressed until, finally, they would be receiving money from the government instead of paying it. (Of course, these credits would never be as high for previously developed land as for genuine wilderness so as to highly encourage the preservation of any and all wilderness that still exists). And, of course, industrialists could pass their costs on to us, the consumers. This is only fair since our consumption is what drives production.
I believe all mankind would come out winners in such a scenario. Human beings have shown time and time again that they can do more with less, and it's often been in times of crisis (ie. when resources have been severely limited) that the most amazing feats of ingenuity have been conceived. Look at how quickly we were able to develop low-mileage automobiles during the energy crisis in the 1970s, for example. A visit to Japan or Europe would open the eyes of the average American to the many possibilities which exist for living in a more realistic and less consumption-oriented fashion.
Anyway, I'm still sort of working on this page, so if it doesn't seem as well written as it could be, I'll try to improve on it. Meanwhile, if you are interested in reading some interesting environment-related articles and book reviews by others, please check out my Ecology page. And drop me a line to let me know your opinion on some of these issues: forgetfuljones@oocities.com
-David Harris, December 1999 (revised in Nov. 2000 and again in June 2001)
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