This text refers to question.
It is one of the most pressing questions of our time: what is the relationship between financial and environmental meltdown? Are the two crises the same thing, needing to be dealt with together? Or do we, as even some business leaders suggest, have to fix the environment before we can fix the economy? A slew of books, ebooks, pamphlets and journals are tackling this thorny question.
You might expect a strong “yes” from the greens to fixing the environment ahead of the economy. And in The Environmental Debt: The hidden costs of a changing global economy, long-time Greenpeace activist Amy Larkin does make a cogent argument for this. The high costs of coping with extreme weather, pollution and declining resources are, she says, catching up with capitalism. Our carefree attitude to the “externalities” of wealth generation has run up an environmental debt that is loading unsustainable financial debt on us all.
But environmentalists are not the only ones making the link. In Wall Street and the City, there is similar talk that the worst fears of environmentalists are coming to pass. As shortages of natural resources push up prices, a looming resource crunch is manifested in market meltdown.
Paul Donovan and Julie Hudson, economists for the Swiss bank UBS, agree. They argue that “there is a second credit crunch”, an environmental one. By ransacking global resources and enfeebling ecosystems, the authors say, we are drawing down environmental credit as surely as reckless spending on a credit card draws down financial credit. The two crunches have “a symbiotic relationship”, they argue: “The party has to stop.”
The synergies between financial and environmental crunches may be complex, but at root, many economists argue that reckless consumption, driven by easy credit, helped fuel financial crisis. Environmentalists agree that the same consumer binge drove up environmental debt.
It is one of the most pressing questions of our time: what is the relationship between financial and environmental meltdown? Are the two crises the same thing, needing to be dealt with together? Or do we, as even some business leaders suggest, have to fix the environment before we can fix the economy? A slew of books, ebooks, pamphlets and journals are tackling this thorny question.
You might expect a strong “yes” from the greens to fixing the environment ahead of the economy. And in The Environmental Debt: The hidden costs of a changing global economy, long-time Greenpeace activist Amy Larkin does make a cogent argument for this. The high costs of coping with extreme weather, pollution and declining resources are, she says, catching up with capitalism. Our carefree attitude to the “externalities” of wealth generation has run up an environmental debt that is loading unsustainable financial debt on us all.
But environmentalists are not the only ones making the link. In Wall Street and the City, there is similar talk that the worst fears of environmentalists are coming to pass. As shortages of natural resources push up prices, a looming resource crunch is manifested in market meltdown.
Paul Donovan and Julie Hudson, economists for the Swiss bank UBS, agree. They argue that “there is a second credit crunch”, an environmental one. By ransacking global resources and enfeebling ecosystems, the authors say, we are drawing down environmental credit as surely as reckless spending on a credit card draws down financial credit. The two crunches have “a symbiotic relationship”, they argue: “The party has to stop.”
The synergies between financial and environmental crunches may be complex, but at root, many economists argue that reckless consumption, driven by easy credit, helped fuel financial crisis. Environmentalists agree that the same consumer binge drove up environmental debt.
F. Pearce. What do we fix first – environment or economy? Newscientist. July 8th, 2013 (adapted).
Based on the text, judge if the item below are right ( C ) or wrong (E).
Wall Street and the City experts foresee a complete market breakdown.
Wall Street and the City experts foresee a complete market breakdown.
