Integrating economics energy and the environment.

They are one and the same.

Currency is a representation of value. Time and energy have value. Matter has value. Time and energy spent making matter more suitable to our needs adds value to the matter.

We harvest matter from the environment to use to our ends. We sustain ourselves by reaping the Earth. We are compelled to groom for status. We are compelled to learn for culture and status and self-preservation. We are compelled to believe that 'I'm me and I'm special.' because if we were just the same as everyone else, then the brutal things that happen to them could happen to me, and that's too scary to function with the knowledge of. We are compelled to believe that there is higher meaning. Hope. Some reason to strive. Because if we don't, we will rapidly be out competed by our more zealous kin, increasing the odds that our tendency to despair is not passed on to future generations.

I argue from the belief that humans do not adequately allow for environmental degradation in the cost of goods produced. I believe that in our own self interest, if for no other reason, humans need to perform an environmental analysis from which to form plans for cohesive global environmental management. We need to know how much of the Earth's surface, how much of the Earth's various systems, need to be preserved for the whole to continue to function to a level that provides us with a liveable ecosystem. We need to decide what standard of 'liveable' we are prepared to settle for, and (barring a tipping point) work to prevent ourselves from falling below that standard. As a planet. As a species.

I'd like world leaders - and individuals in the street - to stop waging wars about whose imaginary friend is stronger than whose. No more bickering over culturally constructed biases, please. We are all stuck on this rock until further notice, and we will live or die together. Sooner rather than later, if we don't grow the hell up and work together.

All resources are finite. I'm certain of that.

Human habitat takes up space. Environmental preservation tracts, too. Agriculture. Mining. Industry. All take up space. Indefinite expansion is not an option. As residential and industrial requirements increase, agricultural land will become more scarce, therefore more valuable. I know that the more a farm is optimised for agriculture under current farming practices, the less ecologically useful it becomes.

I am pertty sure that the following questions have answers. Probably many different answers. How large can cities get before the sprawl impairs the capacity for food production? How much forest can really be cleared before it irreversably impinges on the climate to an extent incompatible with human existence? How closely are we prepared to pack human accommodation together to preserve agricultural tracts and bushland?

Farmland can be intensively and rigorously optimised for efficiency whilst improving it's ecological value, but it takes knowledge, plus the time and energy to make the transition from traditional farming methods to more sustainable ones. Farmers are unlikely to have the resources necessary to make that transition. In fact, they are usually skating so close to the brink that they have no margin for accidental error, let alone to take a risk like adopting non-traditional farming practices.

Waste must be minimised far below levels we see today. Recycling is heavily promoted, but where are the incentives for manufacturers to use less packaging? They may exist, but we need more than token awards. Personally, I'd like to see sanctions brought against manufacturers who over-package, especially for greedy cosmetic reasons designed to make the product look larger to boost sales.

The work that the environment does is not factored into the prices we pay for goods and services. I believe that if it were, and the funds thus raised were chanelled effectively toward mitigating environmental damage, it would go a long way toward preserving our species.

We are reaping the riches of the planet, and squandering it on shipping lettuce from China to Oz. We are using up irreplaceable oils to mass manufacture and ship insanely cheap bizarrely shaped dolls guarranteed to be broken within minutes of being taken out of their thirteen layers of packaging. Making a website promoting the sale of the dolls, or a massage, or a flour mill is paid for somewhere along the line. The money represents energy. Is energy. And energy cannot be made from nothing - Money is energy represented in a readily exchangeable form.

If a CEO is given a million dollar bonus without producing a million dollars worth of efficiency, it does indeed come out of someone elses pocket, not out of 'nowhere'. The producer and/or the consumer has to pay for every layer of middlemen. The middlemen are only really worth what they make the producer or save the consumer. If they do not cover the cost of their own existence, the environment pays.