Attended a "Round Table" discussion last night a the Centre for Human Ecology in Govan. The central theme was around the relabelling / rebranding of Natural Commons into Natural Capital. Capital refers to that which can be quantified and given a price tag, so ultimately can be bought, sold and off-set. Our "Natural Capital" can then be added to our GDP serving to boost this in these financially austere times.
We heard a talk from Dr Joanna Boehnert who went on to outline the dangers of this mindset, as ultimately a Neo Liberal ploy to qualify the destruction of our Natural Resources.
Although the talk itself was somewhat stilted and read as an academic paper, I did leave feeling inspired and motivated. Firstly as I saw the value of Design Thinking, and Communication design - the important role this has to play in getting complex ideas across simply through image and metaphor.
Secondly, to quote E F Shumacher
"The market…represents only the surface of society and its significance relates to the momentary situation as it exists there and then. There is no probing into the depths of things, into the natural or social facts that lie behind them. In a sense, the market is the institutionalization of individualism and non-responsibility. Neither buyer nor seller is responsible for anything but himself .... To press non-economic values into the framework of the economic calculus, economists use the method of cost/benefit analysis. This is generally thought to be an enlightened and progressive development, as it is at least an attempt to take account of costs and benefits which might otherwise be disregarded altogether. In fact, however, it is a procedure by which the higher is reduced to the level of the lower and the priceless is given a price. It can therefore never serve to clarify the situation and lead to an enlightened decision. All it can do is lead to self-deception or the deception of others; all one has to do to obtain the desired results is to impute suitable values to the immeasurable costs and benefits. The logical absurdity, however, is not the greatest fault of the undertaking: with is worse, and destructive of civilization, is the pretence that everything has a price or, in other words, that money is the highest of all values.
The idea that through communicating environmental benefits in monetary terms is not only operating at the surface level of society but is also a wilful deception of others. This notion has left a mark ! I had been feeling extreme discomfort communicating the financial benefit of turning a light off or hanging your washing out doors, the numbers are insignificant and don't merit consideration. It is disrespectful to the severity of our environmental plight and to the intellect of any sentient being. Honesty and clarity from now on ! Oh ! and awesome Comm Design ... talking of which Dr Joanna Boehner's work can be found at ecolabs.org