permaculture

[Marimike6@cs.com]

>Where are these animals souls? Their essence? Their...spirit?

>If they were without souls, it would be merely unattractive. But animal 
cloning is somewhat more disturbing than that--because I imagine they do 
have souls. And what condition is a clone's soul in?

Or, could my reaction be a mistake? Why can't a clone, developed in a 
living mother's womb and raised, become a healthy, "right" being? Anyone?

I am much more certain that being raised in a factory or otherwise desolate 
environment is wrong. That, and the legalization of gene or lingeage 
ownership.

***

This goes to the heart of the permacultural spirit, which implies a reverence 
for all life, arising from a very practical recognition of its very nature.

Opposed to that is the commodification of all existence. Workers are reduced 
to being economic units, needing management. Confined animals are also just 
captive economic units, being developed for profit. A tropical forest is 
valueless, until converted into economic units-- board feet of lumber or even 
tons of 
pulp. If it lives, it has no value unless its body is worth something dead.

A sobering thought for our times is that the Amazon rain forest is being 
chewed up as we speak, not even to sell the valuable hardwoods there. Yes, 
they 
have value. But that is diminished since they are so far from the hardwood 
markets of the Far East and Europe. They're not worth transporting.

Instead, the forest are being cleared because they are considered overburden. 
The product being developed in the Amazon Basin is real estate. And the land 
needs to be cleared before it is useful. The overburden is burned in great 
piles, that can be seen from satellite views.

Comments that this is a crime against Nature are met with the observation 
that we did this to our own continent, and now we have no right to complain 
while 
they do it to theirs.

Carbon trading schemes are absolutely the only way this atrocity can be 
addressed. The profit-oriented have to be paid off before they will make the 
rational decision to save their environment. This is a market-driven issue, 
as they 
say, and the players will invariably do whatever is needed to maximize their 
profit.