10 Counts of Earth Rape
Posted by wastedenergy on March 20, 2010
Should you be one of those who feels any degree of harm to nature is acceptable lest it provide at least some marginal benefit to humans, the following images might serve as a warning of what happens when that idea is taken to its logical conclusion. Below the fold are some of what you might call “graphic images.” In other words, they convey the depth of madness of a civilization enthralled of its own power and unchained from the hinges of ancient wisdom. Each photograph is labeled with the activity and location to the best information available.
De-beaked hen, Iowa
Spokane tribe uranium mine Superfund site, Washington
Hydraulic fracturing drilling fluid residue liner and runoff, Texas
Eutrophic runoff, Lower Mississippi River
Illegal trash dump, Pittsburgh
Illegal forest clearing, Montana
Deceased albatross chick, Midway Island, Alaska
Exurban development, Everglades
11-megaton nuclear detonation, Bikini Atoll, 1954; in the 55+ years since the test, the island’s corals have yet to fully recover, and some species are believed extinct.
Monsanto research campus, St. Louis, Missouri
E. A. Blair said
Dude
Quit it with the pics. A picture is worth a thousand words – so write the words.
And earth rape? is a guy sticking his dick in a tree?
c’mon.
you can do better than that
Regards
E.A. Blair.
wastedenergy said
You know, there are words there too…and we don’t always have time to write essays every day! In any event, if the images themselves here don’t do enough to convey something about the way we’re living, I’m not quite sure what to say. But, fear not, we won’t be burning any books around here…
E.A. Blair said
Sorry for being so dismissive – I had a hardcore debate on facebook last night – fun but infuriating.
I will now dissect each image, one by one.
De-beaked hen, Iowa
A chicken, not the earth – If they had their beaks, they would kill each other, and we would not be able to eat them.
Spokane tribe uranium mine Superfund site, Washington
It may be a superfund site, but it is still beatuiful.
Have you seen Edward Burtynsky’s work from the eighties? simply stunning.
http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/
Click on the mines page.
Hydraulic fracturing drilling fluid residue liner and runoff, Texas
They have a liner, they are at least trying – give a guy a break why don’t you.
Eutrophic runoff, Lower Mississippi River
Again, beautiful – but I guess you are saying it is terrible.
Illegal trash dump, Pittsburgh
I don’t know if this counts as rape, maybe domestic battery.
Easily cleaned up in an hour by some overpaid civic workers.
Illegal forest clearing, Montana
If there are laws against it, they should be enforced.
As well, that would all grow back.
Deceased albatross chick, Midway Island, Alaska
First case of rape I have seen – that sucks. Ocean pollution is the most underplayed environmental problem today.
Ranks far above global warming Mr. GOre.
Of course it is one that private ownership would help to fix – it is know as the “tragedy of the commons”.
Exurban development, Everglades
Again kind of Beautiful in a way, but it will probably all be back to swamp in 100 years – just need a few good hurricanes and a 4″ sea level rise.
11-megaton nuclear detonation, Bikini Atoll, 1954; in the 55+ years since the test, the island’s corals have yet to fully recover, and some species are believed extinct.
The awesome power of humanity – harnessing the power of the sun. And Nuclear generated energy will someday replace fossil fuels, if the environ”mentalists” get their way.
Interesting fact:
A total of (by official count) 1,054 nuclear tests and two nuclear attacks were conducted, with over 100 of them taking place at sites in the Pacific Ocean, over 900 of them at the Nevada Test Site, and ten on miscellaneous sites in the United States (Alaska, Colorado, Mississippi, and New Mexico).[7] Until November 1962, the vast majority of the U.S. tests were atmospheric (that is, above-ground); after the acceptance of the Partial Test Ban Treaty all testing was regulated underground, in order to prevent the dispersion of nuclear fallout.
So over a thousand tests, most above ground, and we are all still here – who would have thunk it?
As for the extinct species – probably 99% of the specieces that have existed on this earth are now extinct. A few nixed by some nukes is no big deal.
Mother nature is a bitch.
Monsanto research campus, St. Louis, Missouri
Just a sign, with some words. Not particularly inspiring.
If you could give me a further explanation as to how this sign is raping the earth, it would be appreciated.
Best Regards
E.A. Blair.
E.A. Blair said
mistake…
And Nuclear generated energy will someday replace fossil fuels, if the environ”mentalists” get their way.
I mean if they don’t get their way…
wastedenergy said
Might as well go back through point by point. I suppose the point is well taken that the word “rape” is stretched sometimes and might should be reserved for just the worst cases – some are perhaps better described as “earth battery” or even simply “earth ignorance,” but in any event, I think the point is not to be lost that we don’t always behave like perfect rational consumers and from time to time we do actually commit acts quite egregious. What is most notable about the images may be the ways in which they demonstrate ourselves acting against our OWN interests, and how we may fail to perceive those interests or the ways in which we harm them when in the thralls of our own power or caught up in a mass consumerist movement (think Christian revivals of the 19th century). Milgram, etc., provide plenty of examples from the experimental field of humans acting against their own self-interested, or a very closely identified related interest, like bodily integrity of someone sitting across from you.
So that said, I will go through and explain what I “meant” by each of the images.
1. The de-beaked hen represents dehumanization. She reminds us of the part of humanity that each of us has had to (or at least been asked to) destroy each time we feed and renew ourselves, where we are asked to either not care about the fate of a creature linked to us integrally, bodily, and whose pain we can plainly identify and see, insisting it feels no pain or pleasure and thereby denying those things tou ourselves; or else we are asked to sacrifice our own integrity, made to feel as if we are doing wrong when we do what is best for ourselves, told we are thoughtless and even murderers for the simple fact that we have bothered to consider the role of being an omnnivore and consider what is beste for personal health. A vegan diet is not for everyone, but neither is an outright refusal to see or accept what their is of ourselves in the world. The statement “if they had their beaks, they would kill each other” demonstrates only that we now see these creatures themselves as savages; we have raised them well, have we not? They only peck at each other so violently when we try to stop them from being actual living creatures and put them in such close quarters that they make each other sick whether they become ill-tempered or not.
2. The uranium mine represents ignorance. Failure to consider history and blind optimism and allegiance to ideology to which so many people subscribe themselves, failing to consider the consequences. Inability to reconcile present wants and desires with the knowledge that all things must be made from something else. The present economy’s failure to consider, let alone consider paying for, the many past and future wrongs that must be committed against the earth and its people in order to achieve those wants. The passing of the hot potato to the next generation: “eh, we don’t wanna deal with it.” In short, the entire logic of nuclear power – paradise today at the future’s expense, and damn the consequences. Unfortunately, the environmentalists today have become some of the biggest advocates of this “clean,” by which we mean “ethnically cleansed” energy source, which means we’re probably all doomed to some horrific irradiated scenario at some point in the near future. It may be beautiful, but let’s face it, you sure as hell ain’t going anywhere near there, are you? “First they came for the Spokane, and I was not Spokane, so I did not speak out…”
3. The fracking fluid represents half-measures. Sure they have a liner, how much good do you see it doing? “Hey, at least they tried,” we have spoken regarding the specific subject of just how much good “trying” really does in the end, have we not? They should have said “We’ll do our best” instead, but when asked, I am not sure if they really could claim they did so. Most of the nastiness from that fluid isn’t from what leaches into the groundwater, anyway, it’s from what evaporates into the air right off the pond there and into the neighbors’ houses. Not to mention that fuel switching from “dirtier” fuels to gas is a half-measure in itself so much of the time – a matter of price tag or peace of mind more than anything else, as building new coal plants is expensive if you plan to actually meet the air permit. But we all could stand to remind ourselves sometimes that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and that some of our “solutions” tend to smell a lot worse than we give them credit for.
4. The runoff represents procrastination. A problem that wasn’t a problem at all – hell, it was part of the solution – until we let it pile up just a little too high, and now whaddaya know but the dike has broken lose and all this shit has just floated out into the water.
5. The illegal dump represents thoughtlessness. The idea that it is fine to ignore the consequences of consumption and waste when one is plainly reponsible. It’s someone else’s job, right? Someone else will take care of it. The stuff always goes into someone else’s backyard, right, so maybe one of these days someone will propose that the best solution for “environmental justice” is for us each just to keep a trash dump right in our own backyards. Just pile the stuff up for a few weeks and we’ll all see how that goes! It’s not like history can’t give us the examples we need anyway (Naples, summer 2008). This one right here is for everyone who ever put something into a recycling bin and thought it disappeared!
6. The illegal forest clearing represents shortsightedness. What could be more illustrative of the concept than heavy clearing on a hillside (which has a nasty tendency to make the trees you DON’T cut down fall too). Probably should be enforcing the laws, eh? Yeah, I will agree with you there, they probably should be.
7. The dead albatross represents brutality, which is probably why it is the image of rape that resonated most with you. It is, after all, the one that strikes the most directly at the consciousness, most directly offends the sensibilities, when we tell ourselves “we’re doing a good enough job of things. I think we’ll manage to pull through in the end.” It is images like these that make us ultimately question whether such beliefs are founded on solid principles. Our capacity to be brutal to ourselves and others, and then to become willfully ignorant of the consequences of our acts, speaks volumes about the depths to which we our capable of sinking. Hence why this particular image forms a very compelling centerpiece to the entire gallery.
8. The exurban development on top of the Everglades represents avarice: the “greed is good” society wrought large and very much in charge. True enough, a good hurricane could probably the whole thing out in one fell swoop, but in this case I wasn’t really so much worried about the people. Here we have an example of an ecosystem that is actually NOT resilient: once developed, even if the development is eventually torn down and nature allowed to take its course, the wetland system that builds back up will contain a much smaller number of species, a smaller number of niches, a lower level of complexity, and even a smaller overall amount of biomass than what was in place initially. Not every ecosystem is like that; sometimes they can and do recover. Sometimes there are so many mosquitos in a place because there are some areas humans probably really weren’t meant to go at all, or at least not meant to live. There are actually plenty of other places to go in Florida, and no reason at all to be stepping on toes here, a lot of which are at least supposed to be protected toes. Besides, a lot of it isn’t even for people’s homes, it’s for big (subsidized) sugar plantations.
9. Bikini represents erasure – the consequence of avarice, or in this case hubris, described immediately above here in #8. What is hubris, is it splitting the atom? You and I would probably agree that is not where the line lies, but what about in splitting the atom, then claiming we can control it perfectly and without creating at least the risk of great harm to ourselves, let alone our neighbors on this planet? I do not share your confidence in the ability of nuclear power to meaningful resolve the energy crisis; let those who wish to try try, but we should keep a careful accounting of all the energy wasted in getting the project off the ground in the first place, not to mention eventually getting it back into the ground. It might not be a bad idea to build some water turbines in the meantime, just in case that whole thing doesn’t quite pan out the way some expect. In any event, erasure is the idea that once certain things are lost – a species, a form of cultural knowledge, an island ecosystem niche – they can be lost forever. You know it is fallacious to say a species loss is not a tragedy just because there happens to also be a background (irrelevant) rate of species loss ongoing as well.
10. Monsanto, speaking of hubris, represents hubris itself. Do I really need to get into all the ways these guys try to write their names larger than the gods?
Rebuttal to BBF « Vox Veritas Vita said
[...] 10 counts of Earth Rape [...]
E. A. Blair said
Again you make many misguided statements.
Here I rebut your rebuttal
Enjoy.
Since when is humanity not associated with killing? Maybe if you have lived in a city all your life, and have soft hands from typing on a keyboard all day, instead of doing some honest labour in the field.
In fact if you check out the latest post at http://wittenburgchurchdoor.wordpress.com/ You’ll see someone who thinks humans are unique in their capacity to kill – sounds like he thinks it is very much part of out character.
All life destroys something else in order to exist – it sounds like you are in favour of Voluntary Human extinction.
Maybe we could kill off all the carnivores as well. Just let those herbivores do their thing without having to fear being eaten alive.
A vegan diet certainly isn’t for me, but maybe I’ll try it sometime – I have a few pounds I want to lose.
Animals are savages – they live in an amoral world.
As far as I can tell, they are living – otherwise they wouldn’t be pecking at each other – dead things don’t do too much.
So what ideology do you subscribe yourself to? Or are you somehow above all of this messy business of living? An urban monk – doling out wisdom?
Uranium represents our intelligence, and our ingenuity.
Speaking of people being blinded by their optimism and ideology, and it’s negative consequences on the world – from Ray Harvey’s article – “Nuclear waste doesn’t exists”
http://rayharvey.org/index.php/2010/02/nuclear-waste-doesnt-exist/
You seem to think we live in a world where “Zero Footprint” is possible, or even desireable. I’ll tell them they should quit it with their “half-measures” They should stop pretending, and just pour the waste directly into kindergartens – that is what they are doing just by burning the oil they retrieve. I think we should all go back to being agrarians with a life expectancy of 32.7 yrs.
You should write the company and tell them of your concerns –
4. The runoff represents procrastination. A problem that wasn’t a problem at all – hell, it was part of the solution – until we let it pile up just a little too high, and now whaddaya know but the dike has broken lose and all this shit has just floated out into the water.
And what are the consequences of this “shit”. Is it major? Will the area that has shit in it recover within a year or two? Or has it been damaged permanently?
I think it is hubris to think that humans could even begin to damage this world to a point where life could not exist in it.
We need to have the long view of history – like the next 100 000 years.
Yes, one person was thoughtless and selfish, but what they did id a crime, and they will be fined if they are caught. Otherwise it will take about an hour to clean up this mess.
As for Naples 2008 – are you talking about a garbage strike? We have had two of those since I have lived in Toronto, and it had more to do with a labour dispute than thoughtlessness.
But maybe you don’t like the right to strike.
Is that amount of clearing considered “heavy”? Did you measure it? Are you sure this is an illegal forestry operation – you can see all the problems with simply posting a picture – it may be worth a thousand words – but which ones?
As for this cut in particular, is an illegal cutting operation in which they cut a few trees, and leave the others better or worse than a legal clear-cutting operation that denudes an entire hillside in British Columbia, and can be seen from space?
Tell me what you think.
Actually as far as I am concerned it is the “only” compelling image.
As for pulling through, I think we’ll do just fine – we have survived much worse.
As has for that matter, life on earth – humanity is just a blip.
Funny that you quoted “Gordon Geckko” – I almost called my post “Try it you’ll Like it” – “greed is good”.
So if the ecosystem is not resilient it will not survive – we agree on that – what is wrong with an ecosystem that won’t survive? Given that 99% of the species that have lived on this planet are now extinct, it is safe to say that pretty much every ecosystem hasn’t survived. By the way, humans had nothing to do with that.
Here we see the problem in seeing an “ecosystem” as a static system, in which any variation from the “norm” is considered bad – especially if it is humans disturbing it. If it is “nature” doing it, would we intervene?
I think you should spend your time inventorying all of the unique species that live around active volcanoes, and then weighing whether or not it would be cost effective to come up with a way to stop volcanoes from erupting to save those unique species.
We have been letting volcanoes get away with far too much for far too long – it is about time they learned their place in this world.
Holy Christ, stop trying to save the world!!! I have a cross in my backyard, would you like to be nailed to it this Easter?
EVERYTHING is eventually lost forever – it is known as death – quit trying to stop it.
Of course some environmentalists would accuse humanity of trying to live for ever, separate ourselves from nature – so which is it?
Each individual will eventually die – each unique species will pass on. In fact species are changing all the time – why are we trying to stop everything from changing – what are we so afraid of?
If a species evolves, is that considered the death of the species it once was? Please elaborate on this point.
Culture is not static, neither is Language – Cultures and Languages that do not change die out.
English, for example, has changed radically over the last 500 years – is old English now a “dead” language? Is that a bad thing?
You could always join a group of historical re-enactors and pretend to be Shakespeare – attempting to revive that golden age, now passed on.
It sounds like you would like to be an ethnographer for the entire world, freezing everyone in place so we can catalogue it for posterity, and then what? Make a value based judgement on which cultures are worthy of preservation? Or are all cultures created equal, and we should spend as much as possible to stop everything now – before it is too late?
Maybe we should isolate certain cultures so they can take their own course – you know, primitive cultures in which murder is the primary cause of death, women die in childbirth, and half the children die before the age of five? Sounds worth preserving to me – all that suffering – but who are we to judge? Oh yes – we are the “west”. We judge the entire world by our standards, and expect the world to live up to those standards.
What if these primitive cultures die out on their own? Should we intervene to save them?
Hmmmm maybe it is better that they die out rather than be corrupted by “western” culture – the root of all evil in this world.
But wait – what if, by artificially isolating them, the westerners caused them to die out??? What then? Which is the greater evil?
I would like to know what you think.
As for fallacious – I’ll avoid the oral sex joke – I am saying that species loss isn’t tragic – otherwise our entire world would be so tragic that I can’t imagine that any of us would want to live in it.
And if a few extra species go the way of the dodo, so be it. And don’t quote me that ridiculous number of 40 000/year number- that was pulled out of some Malthusian’s ass.
By the way, has anybody ever tried to stud how many “new” species are being created each year? It must be happening – that would be a study I would be interested in reading.
Death is nothing new – new life being created by definition is – I like the new, not the old.
Yes
I believe in improving our lives through science.
You like you laptop computer, clean running water and electric lights don’t you?
Best Regards
M. Luther
wastedenergy said
I’ll be back for this one! Have other things that need taking care of this morning
wastedenergy said
So, I’ve come to the impression that you may want to read less about what happened in the 1960′s from people who wrote about it after the fact, and more of a combination of legitimate history of that decade (maybe from people who lived through it and learned something from it) as well as some of the history that has taken place since then, particularly regarding decolonization of the third world and people’s movements where they have actually met with success. Colonization: it happened, learn it, love it. Life even continued afterwards, for some. It was and is still today probably the #1 factor that has corrupted our beloved capitalism and used it to replace so many other living systems that were also successful, and makes it so much less perfect than so many seem to think, particularly those lucky enough to be born into relative wealth and with a face pale enough to pass for white and who have, in general, spent only very small portions of their lives facing adversity (I just described myself, by the way, in case it wasn’t obvious). This post is supposed to be about reminding ourselves that capitalism can only sustain itself if it exists in harmony with natural systems, rather than as a system of imperialism that it has all too often been. You’re a fan of Orwell, so I’m sure you can appreciate that “all animals in a capitalist system have their interests served equally, but some are served far more equally than others.” And if you liked this post, I’d bet this one here will really get your goat: http://wastedenergy.net/2010/03/25/were-in-deep-pschitt/
On to more specific matters now.
On dehumanization:
Of course humanity kills. As usual, degree, context, and scale are things that matter – far more than we often give them credit for. Killing a chicken so your family can eat for a night is not the issue at hand here; the issue at hand is an entire SYSTEM (they do exist sometimes, for reals) designed to de-chickenize the chicken. The motivating principle behind the industrial agricultural system is “how can we pervert life just enough that it can still survive when twisted to fit into the box of mass production to serve a single species?” And of course, confirming our belief that we are separate from and superior to natureIs it really just a coincidence that the same society that debeaks birds in order to better raise them en masse is also willing to tell your daughter she needs the state’s permission to have an abortion (even if the fetus was put there by a rapist)?
I’m fine with killing birds and find them plenty tasty (just not for every meal). The real problem is when you start to see the bird just as meat and not as also all the other things a bird is – kind of like how that invisible hand of capitalism also has a nasty tendency to squeeze people into nothing but soulless corporate drones who go home and get drunk on TV, or even alcohol, every night. Just a sacrifice we all gotta make, I suppose? And I have nothing against vegans either, and if I find myself packing on a few too many pounds at some point, or just need to save some money, it’s a shift I could probably adjust to, at least over some period of time. Eventually the body asks for what it wants though, and sometimes it just wants some really high quality protein, not to mention Vitamin B12.
On nuclear power:
Uranium doesn’t represent intelligence. Uranium is an element and doesn’t represent anything other than the idea of energy embodied as matter. Intelligence represents itself and needs no other representative. In other words, we don’t need to split atoms just to prove we can, especially once we’ve already proven it to ourselves. We’ve proven we can harness the power of fission if we so desire, and what has it gotten us? Toxic sites that remain uninhabitable to this day? A few hundred thousand dead here and there (remember, I’m American, and to this day we remain the only country ever to actually use nuclear weapons against another country)? I would not think you would be one to argue on behalf of state institutions designed to promote our collective “security” by creating threats and justifying institutions and technology with the intention of eradicating those threats. Am I giving you too much credit?
As to the viability of nuclear power itself, we could get into a very long discussion about it if you like. Again, I would hope you’ve done your homework. I have to the best of my ability, and I am not impressed with the history of this industry from what I have seen. I am certainly willing to give credit where it is due and recognize that there has been improvement and is room for more, just as there is room for improvement in coal (you can actually make it a fair bit cleaner with air pollution control equipment, just as long as you don’t try to gasify the stuff or engage in other pie-in-the-sky schemes while ignoring water quality issues, etc.) And there are certainly those who have done it better than the U.S. But some of the schemes coming out of the pipeline today reek of either massive risk or money sink. Take the proposal to build two new reactors in Georgia. You know that nuclear plants are the number one water consumers in the energy sector, right? I hear that sector uses a lot of water in general too, I dunno, maybe this is an area you could read up on and then correct me if I’m wrong? Three Mile Island also isn’t the only plant that has fallen apart or sprung leaks, nor are the Spokane the only American Indian nation to have vast swaths of their land ruined by uranium mines. Hopefully we can keep it so the Japanese remain the only people nuclear bombed as an “official” act of war. I hear these things cost a pretty penny these days, too, especially the newfangled “efficient” variety. Should the construction of these plants be subsidized by ratepayers before the plant has been completed, over the objections of state Public Service Commissions? Should the payments and very likely risk of cost overruns be guaranteed by taxpayer subsidies?
The nuclear waste hot potato (if it doesn’t exist, I’m sure you would be fine with just putting decommissioned plants directly in your front yard, no?) is not the only unanswered question when it comes to the “nuclear option.”
On fracking:
You seem to have mistaken me for a “zero footprint” environmentalist; you should know better. You know, they could always just put in a little bit better liner, something a little thicker, something that doesn’t break in so many places, maybe even something you fix when it does break. The reason they don’t is they don’t have to do so; as long as a few people are making bank off their mineral rights and the gas and profits keep flowing, does it really matter if some kerosene fumes settle in the Joneses’ house?
I’m pretty sure there are people in Texas who ARE writing not just to this company, by the way, but also to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which I think might be just a little bit more willing to put its foot down and step on some polluters’ toes than the internal corporate review board. You know, I’m not even against drilling for gas or against all hydraulic fracturing; what I’m against is taking off and sprinting for glory so fast that we don’t even bother to check whether our shoes are tied first. Build a better liner; I’m sure there are folks in the landfill business who could show you how.
On runoff:
Yes, I am pretty sure that the eutrophication of our waters is, in the words of Joe Biden, a pretty “big f’in deal,” but we might want to check with the folks out fishing off the coast of Florida or the crawdad hunters in the Mississippi delta. Sure, there are still plenty of fish out there, but it’s usually not a very good sign when they are all of the same type, or when every one of them moves out of your neighborhood for something more hospitable. I’m pretty sure tourists don’t enjoy swimming in algae blooms either, so it will probably have other effects on the economy besides just the fishing industry. Isn’t it annoying when all the best beaches keep getting further and further away? Well, at least they are doing better than New Jersey, I suppose; they don’t have hepatitis-laced syringes washing up on their beaches, at least not yet – that we’ve noticed.
Don’t confuse pollution with the end of the world; just because the latter is not the issue, that does not mean the former doesn’t matter.
On forest clearing:
“What’s wrong with this picture” is what I identified in the previous post – broad patches of clearing on a hillside that promotes erosion and the collapse of the rest of the forest, sometimes the entire hillside. It is highly unlikely that Montana or the U.S. Forest Service would have granted a permit for this kind of clearing. Of course the scale of clearing that takes place in B.C. (or blowing up mountaintops in my neck of the woods for that matter, hi there West Virginia) is equally criminal, you’ll get no disagreement from me there. The issue here is being unable to see the trees for the forest, the shortsightedness of failing to recognize “oh, these trees keep those other trees propped up, and there are some things that live in them too.”
On brutality:
If this is the only image that resonated with you, like I said, there ain’t much I can do about that! Interpretation of art and literature are matters of taste more than anything else, are they not? But let us not forget, even if humanity is nothing but a blip – and it is hard to argue with that – does that mean we shouldn’t make the most of the blip and try to keep other blips alive for our grandchildren to enjoy? I hope that they will be able to visit the Everglades and Waikiki Beach and that those places are not buried under water or under fifty years of development, and that we haven’t stupidly burned up all our best fossil fuels without at least coming up with something better, so they can still get there.
On avarice: I didn’t realize I was quoting a gecko, I thought I was just quoting your Gods Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman who think that pure unenlightened self-interest represents the highest and greatest good in which we can engage? Again, it’s not about avoiding stepping on nature in any form, it’s about achieving something that resembles balance and harmony, and about recognizing we aren’t there yet, and that capitalism, for better or worse, has not yet provided us with all the answers, and we need other perspectives besides just “what is that which makes the most money” to at least be given equal consideration, since we have been at best imperfect about our pricing scheme when it comes to collective goods like a wetland or clean water. It is entirely fallacious to suggest that acting to conserve the Everglades or other ecologically sensitive areas is the equivalent of trying to stop volcanoes or asteroid collisions. We can actually have an effect upon the one area. I’m pretty sure a world of major vulcanism, AND deforestation or wetland clearing would be worse than a world with just volcanoes alone. And in any event, we do have something called “volcano monitoring” so we can at least make the best of bad situations, as much as some of our Conservative friends like Bobby Jindal might like to claim this is a waste of money!
On erasure: there are large-scale events we can prevent, and then there are large-scale events we cannot prevent. I’m not sure why what you’ve said is fundamentally any different from saying “my brother is dead, so I might as well just go ahead and kill my sister too, since nothing I can do will ever bring my brother back.” If someone you care about gets into a horrible automobile accident at some point, God forbid (although it is statistically decently likely, if they drive a car), is it better to think “oh well, nothing I could have done about that one” or to become more educated, and work to educate others, on the dangers of reckless driving and the hazards of automobile culture in general?
On Monsatan:
No, I’m sorry, if you really think that what these half-people stand for is “better living through chemistry” then you really should re-read this article: http://wastedenergy.net/2010/03/11/warning-biohazard/ and then let me know whether you still think so. Is it hubris to research genetics and apply the results of your work for the betterment of people’s lives? No, it is hubris to manipulate genes in ways that maximize profits while proliferating negative value in the form of mutually reinforcing farm pollutants (herbicides and herbicide-resistance genes derived from bacteria growing in chemical vats out in the back of the Monsanto lab, genes that wouldn’t even exist at all if it weren’t for Monsanto).
To summarize, I see that you’ve fallen victim to the fallacy of the beard (http://wastedenergy.net/2010/03/14/the-fallacy-of-the-beard-and-the-paradox-of-zero/) on a number of occasions. You accuse me of “trying to save the world” as if to suggest that is somehow an unworthy goal in the first place – and seeming to imply that the specific elements therein I identified are somehow not worth saving? You conclude wrongfully that because the world itself is not in imminent grave danger, that we should not act to protect those forests, coral reefs, and fragments of human culture that actually ARE in peril of disappearing forever? That just because we cannot possibly act to save all the fragments of our history, nor should we, that it is not worth acting to protect at least some of them, those that we find most dear? So because I prefer forests to factories, and see preservation as a sign of progress, or in other words, because I have a different vision of progress from the majority of our corporate and government leaders today, I am a vagabond trying to bring down society?
So where you have fallen victim to the fallacy is where you have stated essentially: we cannot make the world perfect, therefore it is not worth making parts of the world better (what might be conceived as “saving the world”). In any event, you know what they say: you can take the hippies out of the jungle, but you can’t take the magical forest out of the hippies!
wastedenergy said
And regarding Naples, summer 2008: what happened wasn’t a trash workers’ strike, what happened was just good old fashioned NIMBYism. People thinking they are too good to have a trash facility in their backyard, so instead it just piles up in the front yard, and the whole neighborhood turns into an illegal dump. Good times…
E. A. Blair said
Rebuttal follows.
100 years ago, 38% of the labour population were farmers.
The population of the USA was 79 000 000
Lets say the average American family ate chicken once week, farming families probably more often.
4 people to a family.
20 000 000 families.
20 000 000 Chickens per week slaughtered.
Do you know what conditions were for those 20 000 000 chickens in 1900? I’ll agree that the chickens were more spread out, but were they really allowed to be “chickens”? Whatever that means…
The chickens we know are a domesticated species – they exist in their current form because of us.
Have things improved since then? Progressed?
You seem to simply dislike the fact that things are more concentrated now. You have a hate-on for modernity.
You, like many environmentalists, have an irrational hatred of modernity – I believe it is the self-loathing of western culture that people such as Howard Zinn have fostered over the years.
You should spend some time on a working farm, maybe in a third world country.
Get your priorities straight.
wastedenergy said
I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that Redmond got raped in this debate, as they say from time to time. This time, he and his buddies are getting crushed. Read all about it.
http://wastedenergy.net/2011/03/05/slice-and-dice/
wastedenergy said
WHAT CAN I SAY I KNOW ART OF 2NR LIKE MY BACK HAND