Your last point is a good one. People started paying attention to the environment in Japan after four major incidents of people getting fked up by industrial pollution.
I guess people will only start caring when we literally run out of fish or Alaska melts.
Re:How to Steal a River
by dredmorbius on Sunday March 05, 2017 @09:19AM
(#13796066)
I'm strongly inclined to agree with the accounting-problem element of this, though correcting how economics views costs, value, and price (three distinct elements) would help tremendously as well.
The drawing down of natural capital is simply not accounted for, despite the fact that early models of value (Smith, Boehm-Bawerk, Marshall) were consistent, if not outright encouraging of this.
If oil companies (or the holders of lands from which it was withdrawn) had to account for the 100 million years plus of formation time in their accounting, the economics (or rather, finances) would change markedly.
TL;DR: IMHO, Conservation is an accounting problem, adding externalities to the ledger, making local tax payers aware they're getting screwed.
I volunteered for a wetlands conservation group, about 10 years during the 90s.
Wetlands, riparian areas, bogs, marshes, etc are habitat for birds, fish, their predators. They slow down the water during storms. They clean the water. Etc, Etc.
We might have slowed down some development, in one county that had somewhat better governance than its neighbors. But habitat destruction continues. Ditto flooding. And the fisheries we were trying to protect were later proposed for endangered species status (all but gone).
One signature achievement was creating birding trails, partially funded by state tourism bureau, to better rake in those sweet eco-tourism dollars. (~$140m/yr during the late 90s.)
People will be surprised that Bush Sr signed the first federal wetlands protection legislation. Lots of optimism during the Clinton years. Then Bush The Lesser happened. And after a decade, we just kinda ran out of steam. Today, I honestly don't know who's working this issue locally.
---
I have one more point to add. It's notable that the "environmental movement" was born in Southern California, where the residents could see the destruction and consequences occur in real-time vs spread-out over generations.