pdotb reviewed Value of a Whale by Adrienne Buller
Comprehensive and compelling
5 stars
Buller's book takes the idea of assigning a monetary value to a whale ($2m, apparently) as a jumping-off point to consider how the promise of green capitalism -- that if we just eliminate externalities and assign monetary values to the natural world, everything will be fine -- goes horribly wrong. She carefully demolishes the promise of carbon taxes and carbon offsets, though much of the book goes on to discuss how the greening of asset manager capitalism, especially that espoused by the CEO of Blackrock, doesn't and can never work. The latter part of the book pivots from discussing carbon as the principal problem, to covering the loss of biodiversity and the supposed attempts to prevent this through, you guessed it, markets in conservation credits. Among the many, many great takeaways from the book are the insight that attempting to deal with the environment through markets inevitably means compressing all …
Buller's book takes the idea of assigning a monetary value to a whale ($2m, apparently) as a jumping-off point to consider how the promise of green capitalism -- that if we just eliminate externalities and assign monetary values to the natural world, everything will be fine -- goes horribly wrong. She carefully demolishes the promise of carbon taxes and carbon offsets, though much of the book goes on to discuss how the greening of asset manager capitalism, especially that espoused by the CEO of Blackrock, doesn't and can never work. The latter part of the book pivots from discussing carbon as the principal problem, to covering the loss of biodiversity and the supposed attempts to prevent this through, you guessed it, markets in conservation credits. Among the many, many great takeaways from the book are the insight that attempting to deal with the environment through markets inevitably means compressing all the complexity of the natural world down to a single value (see the value of the whale above), and that so much of green capitalism is an attempt to maintain all the structures of exploitation and power, while claiming to have done something to save the world.
I was inspired to read the book by hearing an interview with Adrienne Buller on Grace Blakeley's 'The World To Win' podcast. Worth a listen to get a taste of what the book is about but, really, you should probably just read it. It's so good.
tribunemag.co.uk/2022/08/89-is-green-capitalism-possible-w-adrienne-buller