permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <hemenway@jeffnet.org>]

I've toured the various websites that rebut Lomborg, and think that
Souscayrous's analysis is the most cogent and promising. We can forever
debate whether species are vanishing or not; whether Lake Erie is now
cleaner or Baikal is now dying, and whether we'll find more oil or turn to
hydrogen for power. The debating game is a losing one and keeps us in an
endless cycle of Lomborg's making. We all know that most projections--from
sports scores to weather to the economy to global warming--end up wrong. The
Devil can quote scripture to his purpose, and Lomborg has ample writings to
choose from: If you torture the data long enough, they will confess.

Ask instead, Are human beings only consumers, here only to collect a lot of
toys? Does "what are you worth?" mean only "how much money do you make?" Is
the earth simply a treasure trove to be plundered? Playing Lomborg's game
answers those questions with a "yes." The question is really, what kind of
life do we want? One in which we are distracted by the candy dangling in
front of us, or one in which we try to find out what being human can be? I
know I'm preaching to the choir here, but Souscayrous has reminded me that
the real issues are larger than Lomborg's debate. Thanks for that.

Toby    

on 1/2/02 2:52 AM, souscayrous at souscayrous@wanadoo.fr wrote:

> There is nothing to answer in Lomborg's practical analysis: we are still
> using oil; there is still tin, copper, chromium, phosphate, gold and silver.
> It is simple to imagine new sources, new processes of extraction.  Even when
> the world has eventually yielded its mineral deposits Lomborg will not be
> proved wrong: because, surely, by then, there will be mine ships plying
> interplanetary routes laden with the fruits of other worlds.
> 
> Cassandra will always be a lonely and destitute woman.
> 
> Penitential environmentalism is exposed to the pragmatic derision of the
> status quo expressed through Lomborg and trite rebuttals are the stock of
> modern politics not a thoughtful counter movement.  Any response must be
> deliberate and profound however difficult and lengthy.  As we are
> discovering in the illuminating discussion currently lead by Flick Wright,
> the roots of our thinking go deep and an aboriginal interpretation (or other
> cultural perspective) of Lomborg's analysis might enlighten an answer.
> 
> It is not insatiable technology but insatiable desire stripping the world.
> It is not the exhaustion of oil, or tin, it is not the transformation of
> rain forest to carbon dioxide and ash: this is the product and not the
> source.
> 
> Lomberg is tangential.  He touches my concerns with his words but his
> meaning is not mine.  Resources, finite or infinite, have nothing to do with
> my belief in recycling, small is beautiful or my disgust at my societies
> over consumption.  Nothing.
> 
> 
> Souscayrous
> 
>