Nature, culture, politics

What is the value of fairy shrimp to us?

The environmental problematic

• Environmental damage at all levels

• Uncertainty about costs & consequences

• Commitment to market economy

• Low or no valuation of ecological resources

• Inefficient use of resources & ecological “space”

• Reluctance to expend funds

• Reluctance to cooperate w/ other countries

Nature has shaped human societies

• Kaplan’s “geopolitics”—geoculture?

• Spatial organization• Modes & relations of

production• Human migrations across

continental spaces• Exchange & trade• Rise & decline

Human culture has shaped nature

• Agricultural transformation

• Massive deforestation• Soil erosion• Dams, rivers, lakes• Battlefields• Cities & suburbs• Highways• Carbonization• Even UCSC is “Second

Nature”

How should we treat nature?

How does nature relate to us (humans)?

Profit is a critical motivating factor in the functioning of capitalism

Without the possibility of profit and accumulation, individuals will not strive to produce more than needed for subsistence—and there would be little innovation and only limited production—or, so goes the common argument… And this requires property

Classically speaking, nature is regarded as a bundle of resources to be exploited for profit

Depending on who “owns” the resource, rents and royalties may be paid, but profit is only realized through use in goods that can be sold in markets

For the most part, nature is treated as essentially “free” and there is no inherent penalty to its

degradation, depletion or destruction

Except that, if we destroy it, we also destroy our civilization and ourselves (Apocalypse)

The “value” of something depends on a price established by supply and

demand

Since nature has no obvious “price,” how can value be established?

It is argued that people take “greater care” of things & resources are utilized more carefully if they

own them

If one wishes to save a stand of redwoods, one is free to do so. But the return on cutting may exceed that from ecotourism

• Story of cows & commons (Garrett Hardin, 1968)

• People naturally selfish & self-interested

• Free public goods are overused

• Unrestrained, people will deplete natural resources

• People will protect that which they own

• But open access commons cannot be privatized

• Hence, “mutual restraint mutually agreed upon”

This is sometimes explained by the “tragedy of the commons”

• A commons is a shared resource that is socially-organized and managed to the benefit of participant-users

• The traditional commons is a resource to which a community of users had regulated access

• A common-property resource (CPR) is limited to a specified group

• An open-access resource allows unregulated use (“first come, first served”) & tends toward “crowding”

• A “public good” can be open access (highways) or a CPR (national parks)

What, exactly, is a “commons?”

The move to privatization of commons, intended to regulate use, also facilitates commodification,

exploitation and accumulationAnd it tends to ignore that which lacks economic “value”

Much of human social life is rooted in “commons”

• Language• Civil behavior• Manners• Roads & traffic• Knowledge• Education• Social relations• Families &

households

Is “tragedy of the commons” an accurate parable?

Perhaps we need to put a concrete value on the environment

Whether & how to “value” nature is a political question

• Individual decision on value may lead to destruction

• Social decision regarded as infringement on freedom

• Different people may hold different values of nature

• Resource, inspirational, recreation, ecological

• Collective action difficult to motivate, e.g. climate change

• But what if failure to act results in very high costs?

• Success may require bribes, payoffs, etc.

This political struggle is repeated over and over

• In the U.S., across a broad range of public & private goods & spaces

• Internationally, in the climate change meetings (Cancun, mid-December)

• In proposals to nationalize & privatize fisheries

• Efforts to redirect California water to Delta & fish

• Even is so-called resource wars across the world

• So, what is to be done?