Debt Rattle October 6 2015
- This topic has 4 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 6 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
NPC US Geological Survey fire, F Street NW, Washington DC 1913 • In America, It’s Expensive To Be Poor (Economist) • Morgan Stanley Predicts Up To A 2
[See the full post at: Debt Rattle October 6 2015]“It’s not just rhino’s. We kill across the board.”
Much too true; and far too unrecognized. My friends who are professional ecologists argue about which is the greatest danger to H. sapiens- climate change, or the loss of biodiversity. Climate gets the most attention, but the loss of other species is truly at least as dangerous; and we don’t recognize it.
And the Multinationals are now actively promoting the idea that wildlife is tremendously healthy and resilient – since not all of the evacuated area around Chernobyl is a scorched desert- https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34414914 Hugely misleading, and very intentionally so.
Greenpa,
I’ll vote for ocean acidification, which makes the argument that we shouldn’t cut carbon emissions because the climate isn’t warming superfluous.No large corporation is American or French or any other nationality. The location of their incorporation a fluke of history. Corporations are becoming sovereign essentially. They still have to go through the motions of being subservient to law and states. This is ending as they write the laws, TPP, and politicians are owned by them. This is the arrow of history and the opponent of we alt thinkers. Will the arrow fall short short. Sure but when is the issue.
Nature is absolutely resilient, and will be around millennia after we’re gone. So is the reason to support nature and biodiversity wholly abstract, or do we support it because it’s human-centric? If it’s wholly abstract, you’re not going to get much traction in selling it, but I think–as with all things–humans only care about “Nature” because they feel it is necessary, good, and safe for humans and human-kind, whereas wiping out “Nature” (i.e. biodiversity) makes humans less happy, healthy, resilient, and less likely to survive, long-term. You can see a variety of arguments, but I think you’ll find the anti-nature/development people argue their “Progress” is good for mankind, and the pro-nature/anti-development people say Nature is good for mankind. That is, both are making human-centric arguments. I’d argue that’s good because humans will care about it and you can get some traction in action.
As for why it would work, basically it’s fundamental that nets are more resilient than ropes: a system or ecosystem with 3 major species is far less resilient, far more likely to be wiped out with a single mistake, and experiences far more wild and deadly boom and busts than an ecosystem with 100,000 species. The arctic boom-bust of rabbits vs wolves compared to the steady-state of the Amazon is the classic example, and described in principle by Lovelock in “Gaia.” Clearly, more resilience, more options, less booms and busts are superior for human purposes. More genetic material also means more options for drugs, materials, food, or developing domesticated plants or animals, and so on. Not the only reason, but a smart one for humans, individually or en masse.
Another benefit is also overlooked: the enormous dollar value of goods and services provided by nature for free. Natural lighting, water purification by rivers and air purification and oxygenation by plants and weather, self-fertilization of fields, self-growing wood and other materials. As with Bastiat’s candlemakers, this is precisely why these natural processes are so hated and need to be destroyed, because they inevitably cut into profit potential. All nature must be monetized and tollgated to insure maximum gain; that is, to force someone to pay for what used to be free, something our modern world specializes in. Child care, bottled water, air purifiers, raspberries, everything. To pay for swimming, walking, eating, for talking, for lying down anywhere on earth: this is the true end of the profit motive.
Luckily, the two are not contradictory: humans have more than proved their capacity to increase life and diversity wherever they go and whenever they wish to. Just visit the depths of a virgin forest, which is a desert of biodiversity compared to the marginal lands humans make by cutting a hole in it. This is true of deserts as well where humans tend and diversify water sources, create them, maximize them. It’s not humans but the recent and anomalous pressure of a perverse profit motive, to commodity and monetize existence, that rewards destruction and punishes abundance with death.
Am I hyperbolic? Look what the discovery of the abundance of oil did to the people of Sudan, or the abundance of land and resources did for the Native Americans. If you create abundance, vultures will come to steal it from you. We have to know this. But we also have to know it’s not “Humans” or “Humankind,” or even “Human Nature” that is the problem. It’s a very specific system we have created of monetary reward and punishment, based on false feedback and unsustainable exponential curves. Mathematically it will end itself without our having to do anything about it, and Nature will carry on as if it never was, and in the blink of the geological eye, biodiversity and Nature is completely restored. We humans ain’t that big, guys, or important. Know your place.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.