The authors stress important and neglected points about potentially adverse effects on sustainability from organic farming. Nevertheless I have some comments here: http://wp.me/p3yx1u-9N.
This proposal has four issues: 1. the additional tax only makes sense if the existing taxes are inefficiently low; 2. Is this idea not already implemented in the various cap-and-trade agreements? 3. what stops producers from transferring the tax onto consumers? 4. Who is the real polluter? I discuss these questions here: http://wp.me/p3yx1u-9I.
Thank you for these nice insights. An article with similar ideas has been written by Sian Sullivan on http://www.greeneconomycoalition.org/, entitled "Should nature have to prove its value?". A discussion on why nature gets more and more monetarized can be found here http://wp.me/p3yx1u-4A.
Overall I am missing the point that nowadays a price tends to get put on nature in order to efficiently internalize externalities. How is one supposed to be able to know the value of nature if one does not place a price on it?
China is starting that war on subsidies now, or at least trying to rescue its failing solar giants, see http://grist.org/news/china-plans-a-major-solar-spree/#.UeWgL_EHoVQ.twitter and discussions http://wp.me/p3yx1u-48 and http://wp.me/p3yx1u-4y.
The banking system we take for granted is unfixable. The good news is that we no longer need to rely on any private, rent-seeking, socially destabilizing network of banks, at least not the way we have so far.
shows why the current private system is unfixable – and why we don’t need to tolerate it anymore.
Like Vladimir Putin, China's leader is so steeped in a narrative of victimhood and fearful of appearing weak that it is hard to imagine him ever leading China out of the mess he has created. He could well be remembered as the leader who squandered history's most remarkable economic success story.
about the country's increasingly worrisome trajectory, both at home and abroad.
Artificial IdiocyFrank Rumpenhorst/picture alliance via Getty Images