{"id":220019,"date":"2022-09-26T12:00:52","date_gmt":"2022-09-26T11:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=220019"},"modified":"2025-01-10T15:06:33","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T15:06:33","slug":"privatizing-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/09\/privatizing-nature\/","title":{"rendered":"Privatizing Nature"},"content":{"rendered":"

20 Sep 2022 – <\/em>The financial wizards of Wall Street have devised a new way to profit from Mother Nature. They\u2019ve created a class of stocks called Natural Asset Companies that will control the earth\u2019s resources such as water, wildlife, forests, minerals, and farmland. The project was developed by the Intrinsic Exchange Group in partnership with the New York Stock Exchange, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the investment firm Aberdare Ventures.<\/p>\n

According to the Intrinsic Exchange Group\u2019 website, the purpose of these companies is the \u201cconversion of natural assets into financial capital. \u2026 These assets make life on Earth possible and enjoyable. \u2026 They include biological systems that provide clean air, water, foods, medicines, a stable climate, human health and societal potential. \u2026 The potential of this asset class is immense. Nature\u2019s economy is larger than our current industrial economy and we can tap this store of wealth and productivity.\u201d They estimate the value of the \u201cglobal ecosystem services market\u201d at $125 trillion annually.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Redwoods<\/p><\/div>\n

The Natural Asset Company will either own the land itself or will own the right to use and sell the resources of the land, including recreational access. For example, people could be charged for hiking and fishing on public land.<\/p>\n

The USA will eventually be included, but cash-strapped countries in Latin America are being targeted first. The government of Costa Rica has already expressed interest. The Minister of Environment and Energy, Andrea Meza Murillo, stated the project \u201cwill deepen the economic analysis of giving nature its economic value.\u201d Although this will be a windfall for their elite, it will probably be a disaster for the indigenous people who draw their sustenance from the land.<\/p>\n

The board of governors of the New York Stock Exchange saw such potential for profit that they took the unusual step of becoming a partner in the venture themselves. According to NYSE\u2019s Michael Blaugrund, \u201cOur hope is that owning a Natural Asset Company is going to be a way that an increasingly broad range of investors have the ability to invest in something that\u2019s intrinsically valuable, but, up to this point, was really excluded from the financial markets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Natural Asset Companies are a new way to turn public resources into private profits. They are another step towards what George W. Bush proudly touted as the “Ownership Society” in which everything becomes property.\u00a0 The juggernaut of capitalism is lurching closer to its endstation, where all life is commodified, reduced to money. Nature, including human beings, is being shrunken down to coins — the Bezosification, Gatesification, Muskification of the universe.<\/p>\n

It’s time to overthrow this parasitical system that is grabbing up more and more of the world. Here’s an action plan to build something better: https:\/\/socialism.com<\/a><\/p>\n

________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>William T. Hathaway is a Special Forces combat veteran and an emeritus Fulbright professor of American Studies in Germany. His book<\/em> Radical Peace: People Refusing War<\/a> presents the experiences of war resisters, deserters, and peace activists who are working to change U.S. ‘warrior’ culture. His novel<\/em> Lila, the Revolutionary<\/a><\/strong> is a fable for adults about an eight-year-old girl who sparks a world revolution for social justice.<\/em> Hathaway’s novel of the climate change,<\/em> Wellsprings: A Fable of Consciousness, tells of an old woman and a young man healing nature through techniques of higher consciousness. Chapters are posted HERE<\/a>. His peace novel,<\/em> Summer Snow, is the story of an American soldier falling in love with a Sufi Muslim and learning from her that higher consciousness is more effective than violence. Chapters are posted HERE<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

20 Sep 2022 – The financial wizards of Wall Street have devised a new way to profit from Mother Nature. They\u2019ve created a class of stocks called Natural Asset Companies that will control the earth\u2019s resources such as water, wildlife, forests, minerals, and farmland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":220020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[232,550,519,555,401,562,626,610,391,1200,2198,2060,1213,1557,1160],"class_list":["post-220019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-capitalism","tag-capitalism","tag-corruption","tag-ecology","tag-elites","tag-environment","tag-finance","tag-greed","tag-inequality","tag-nature","tag-natures-rights","tag-post-capitalism","tag-profits","tag-super-rich","tag-wall-street","tag-world-order"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220019"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":284595,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220019\/revisions\/284595"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}