Externalities are not profitable in the long run, anyway. We are selling the future into the present, calling it GDP.

This is why I start to foam arround the mouth when discussing the concept of "Externalities":

'It refers to costs imposed by businesses that are not paid for by those businesses. For instance, industrial processes can put pollutants in the air that increase public health costs, but the public, not the polluting businesses, picks up the tab. In this way, businesses privatize profits and publicize costs.'

 

Something wrong with the picture?

 

From: None of the world's top industries would be profitable if they paid for the natural capital they use by David Roberts.

"("Natural capital" refers to ecological materials and services like, say, clean water or a stable atmosphere; "unpriced" means that businesses don't pay to consume them.)"

 

Lets delve a bit further with another quote (and another one inside it):
"None of the world's top industrial sectors would be profitable if they were paying their full freight. None!

That amounts to an entire global industrial system built on sleight of hand. As legendary environmentalist Paul Hawken put it, "We are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it GDP.""

"To see what I mean, check out a recent report [PDF] done by environmental consultancy Trucost on behalf of The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) program sponsored by United Nations Environmental Program"

 

Another nice post is the one that makes your bristles tingle: Stop trying to save the planet, says 'urban ranger' Jenny Price <link>.
I think this is the single most smart and realistic assertment I've read the whole week:

"Price, who calls herself a "lapsed wilderness-loving environmentalist," doesn't think we should stop caring about how sustainable our consumption is, but she does believe that we need to inhabit nature instead of trying to save it. We need to think a lot more about people, she says, and about creating communities and providing food and jobs both sustainably and equitably. In short, we need to deal with the real world."

It also says below:
This interview is part of the Generation Anthropocene project, in which Stanford students partake in an inter-generational dialogue with scholars about living in an age when humans have become a major force shaping our world.