From: amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Population
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Organization: [via International Space University]
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU
Distribution: sci
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 18:09:02 GMT

> And Ed, you helped them. Not because you didn't like birds but
> because you bought into the whole "Environmentalists are killing
> us!" lie. That 'all` environmentalists want only to stifle the
> economy. That business is in business to create jobs. Wake up! They
> are there for money and if they're allowed, some would smash the
> last tree on the planet to get a clean shot at the last tiger.
> How are your interests being served by your stance? I need to
> understand just what you're after. Are they paying you or do you 

> just hate people who don't think just like you?
> 


I wonder if you realize just how easy and how much fun it is to wind  
up the politically correct. I don't think anyone on this net really  
wants to wipe out ecosystems. But I think there is a great deal of  
disagreement on the degree to which this is an actual threat and the  
means of dealing with the problem if it must be dealt with.

There are environmentalists who are quite capitalist in outlook and  
think that the only way to save the environment is to put a price tag  
on it and sell it. People take care of valuable property. They only  
trash what came for nothing or what belongs to someone else.

And what sort of dialogue are you starting? You are castigating  
businessmen in ways that a far, far worse than anything anyone has  
said about environmentalists. I will admit there are businessmen who  
don't give a damn. Do you admit there are environmentalists who also  
don't give a damn? Should I ask if you are being paid or do you just  
hate people who don't think like you? Debate if you will, but start  
off with the assumption that lots of us do NOT agree with you and  
will probably NEVER agree with you. If I acted like this in Belfast  
I'd not have any friends at all. Most of my musician friends are died  
in the wool socialist if not communist. I'm an equally adamant  
libertarian. We get along by respecting each others opinions, even  
when we do not agree.


> You've closed your mind to ideas because you didn't like what
> someone, somewhere said or caused to happen. "You
> environmentalists", what, are they not people? Why must you label
> people? So you can exclude or dismiss them? Some are nuts, some are
> great, most are just concerned enough to try to make a difference.
> But you put words into all their mouths and then flame them all.
> Not constructive, Ed.
> 


Well you are looking awfully closed yourself. You seem to be starting  
from the premise that you ARE right. If you calm down enough, you  
might find that people will work to protect the environment. I  
regularly gave to an environmental group that went out and worked  
with businessmen to save parcels of land, got large corporate  
donations to protect larger chunks (Nature Conservancy). They do  
quite well because they are sensitive to issues outside of their own,  
and they do not approach environmentalism from an ideological defined  
position. Get off the high horse about all us nasty capitalists and  
you might find some of us will help voluntarily. Just DONT try to get  
the legislature to threaten us into "volunteering" though. 


> I propose that if we buck the vested interests and use our brains 

> we can have jobs, trees, owls and much much more. Perhaps these
> folks who used to chop trees could build space hardware? How about  
> tree "planters"?
> 


The persons chopping trees come in several flavors. There are those  
who have their own lands and are tree farmers. Their continued  
existance depends on the quality of their stewardship. They treat  
trees as a renewable resource, which they are.

There are those who cut on public lands, ie the commons. They have no  
interest in conservation because what they don't cut, someone else  
will... And since they leave after the cutting is done, they have no  
responsibility for the long term. Solve that problem by making those  
lands either privately owned by the lumber companies, or taking them  
out of production altogther by giving them to Audobon, Nature  
Conservancy or the Sierra Club.

Then there are the Japanese businesses that bribe third world  
politicians and bureaucrats into giving them access to giant tracts  
of forest for a fraction of their true worth. They basically clear  
cut and run... If they owned the land they'd also have a stake. Or  
better yet, if the third world governments vested ownership in local  
corporations and let them handle the selling, they'd probably wring  
better deals out of the cutting. Not to mention they'd have an  
interest in the long term. The 10 or 20 years you mention is only the  
case for forests which are unowned and thus unmanaged.

Show me a raped forest and I'll show you a government bureaucracy  
behind it.

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