> On Nov 19, 10:18 am, ibsham...@gmail.com wrote:
>

>> On the issue of environment and civilization, the Western society is
>> torn between two lines of thought. One is the unconditional growth of
>> the civilization, whatever the consequences for the planet and for the
>> future generations. The other is a reaction against it: a return-to-
>> the-roots hippie environmentalism that seeks to destroy the
>> civilization and return to natural existence.

>
> Like all polarised viewpoints yours merely goes to show how wrong you
> are.
> You set up two false dichotomies and then you spill much ink saying
> why the polarisation is so bad.
> Well these extreme positions are only inside your head, they do not
> relfect the reality of the situation which is far more complex.
>
> The serious debate which seeks to challenge anthropomorphic global
> climate change by carbon emissions does not come from big business but
> from scientists themselves. And whilst industry tends to exploit the
> natural resources and aims to collect the greatest amount of dollars
> they are also composed of people with children and grandchildren who
> they know deserve a future too. They can also see the sense in
> alternative sources of energy that are economically viable.
> Paradoxically the main lobby for pushing carbon as the main cause of
> global warming (the IPCC) is not lead by the hippie movement but was
> started and funded by Margaret Thatcher and the British meteorological
> office in the early eighties when she wished to smash the power of the
> miners in seeking alternative forms of energy. The main aim was a
> return to nuclear power which had fallen out of favour; seeking to
> promote it has a cleaner and more environmentally friendly source of
> energy. Now it takes anthropomorphic gloabl warming by Co2 emissions
> has "fact" when there is still no basic science to suggest why Co2
> might increase the atmospheric temperature. Indeed the ice core
> evidence suggests the opposite.
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>> Right now, the two work together in the worst possible manner. The
>> first group engages in reckless plunder, while the second group, being
>> powerless to stop the plunder, instead attacks the good things that
>> come from the civilization and the good things that civilization can
>> achieve. Instead of keeping the first group from driving millions of
>> species into extinction, it instead plays upon the culturally endemic
>> fear of thought, innovation and human intelligence to fan hysterias
>> about scientific advances, whether they consist of genetically
>> modified corn or cloning or stem-cell research or the Human Genome
>> Project.

>

>> I believe that both are doing grave wrong. Nature contains tremendous
>> variety and richness, and to drive millions of species into extinction
>> in a shortsighted pursuit of profit is to destroy what is
>> irreplaceable to pay for temporary enrichment of the enterprise at the
>> price of permanent destruction of riches the enterprise cannot
>> possibly replace. Like suicide, it is a permanent solution to a
>> temporary problem; and if it continues unchecked, the result will
>> indeed be a permanent planetary suicide.

>
> This is an hysterical statement which is complete bollocks.
> Mankind may destroy himself but earth will abide.
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>> However, to stand in the way of research that can lead to more
>> sustainable farming, cures for genetic illnesses, cures for paralysis
>> and cancer, and synthesis of bacteria that can break down plastics and
>> styrofoams with which the civilization has been poisoning the planet,
>> is to do a still graver wrong: To deny humanity the tools it's been
>> given to solve the problems that it has created, to make its life (and
>> the life of the planet) rich and sustainable, and to create a
>> civilization that is an improvement on nature and not a degradation.

>

>> The atavistic types shout about the scientific experimentation that
>> seeks to create new life-forms or resurrect ones that people have
>> driven into extinction. They did not shout when people used DDT and
>> Agent Orange to poison everything around them, nor when people created
>> enough nuclear weapons to kill the world seven times over, nor when
>> Amazonian ranchers kill thousands of species of plants and animals
>> every year. Why this grating, atavistic hypocrisy? Why is it OK to
>> destroy but not to create, to pillage nature and not to improve on
>> nature, to murder but not to heal and resurrect? It is my belief that
>> this comes from the same place as the saying that "beauty is only skin-
>> deep, but ugliness goes down to the bone" and that "to err is human" -
>> from the cultural notion that evil in human beings is to be expected
>> but good is to be suspected; that destructiveness, violence, stupidity
>> and short-sightedness is a necessary part of the human makeup but
>> thought, innovation and inspiration is not. It comes from the fact
>> that most people have never been taught to think creatively and
>> inventively, and they can identify with ugliness and destructiveness
>> in the human nature - the ugliness and destructiveness which they've
>> known since taking their first breath - but cannot rise to embrace the
>> human ability to understand, to envision, to create and to solve.

>

>> In dividing the human beings into the "leavers" who live as part of
>> nature and "takers" who live in the face of nature, Daniel Quinn
>> separated the two aspects of human being: A being that lives in nature
>> and follows the laws of nature and a being that shapes and creates out
>> of its will, intelligence and self-awareness. I believe that both the
>> leavers and the takers are a necessary part of the human makeup, and
>> that the beneficial outcome comes neither from return-to-the-soil
>> atavism nor from turning the world into a giant strip mall. I believe
>> that there is good in the leaver mentality and there is good in the
>> taker mentality, and that the two need to work together in an
>> integrative synthesis - in a synergy - that makes the best of both.

>

>> The good done in service of leaver mentality comes most starkly in
>> form of Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan activist who risked her life many
>> times to plant millions of trees in her country - an action that
>> allowed Kenya to escape the fate of Haiti and other countries that had
>> ignorantly driven their forests into extinction to pay for slash-and-
>> burn farming and in so doing condemned themselves to sickness and
>> poverty. To resurrect rainforest where it has been pillaged - to bring
>> back natural richness to places in which it once has existed - is a
>> prudent, inspired and ethical project that will preserve Planet Earth
>> for future generations and for the life to come. The Reagan official
>> who said, "If you've seen one tree, you've seen them all" can be
>> answered quite simply, "If you've seen one Republican, you've seen
>> them all." And to say out of that consideration that it is right to
>> kill off thousands of species of trees, many containing useful
>> medicinal qualities, is as damnable as to say that one should kill off
>> all Republicans.

>

>> The good done in service of the taker mentality comes from innovators:
>> From people who've created cars, airplanes, computers, spaceships,
>> Internet, representative democracy, antibiotics and masterpieces such
>> as the Sistine Chapel and the Empire State Building. It comes from
>> people who use the unique inventive capacity in the human being to
>> produce work that beautifies the world and improves people's lives. It
>> comes from anyone who's ever had an original idea, anyone who's ever
>> contributed something intelligent and creative, anyone who produced
>> something good that has not existed before. Humanity has all it needs,
>> not only to survive long-term, but also to manifest all the good
>> things that live in the mind and psyche. To create a civilization
>> that's an improvement on nature and not a degradation.

>

>> What am I proposing then? I propose taking the best of the Leaver
>> mentality and the best of the Taker mentality and making them work
>> together in an integrative synthesis. I propose preserving the planet
>> for the future and repeating the feat of Wangari Maathai all over the
>> world; and I propose using the human ingenuity to create a beautiful
>> civilization - a civilization that builds upon nature, that improves
>> upon nature, and that draws from the endless well of human ingenuity
>> and intelligence to make our world the richest, most happy, most
>> beautiful world it can be. It is to produce masterpieces -
>> masterpieces artistic, scientific, medical, social and technological -
>> that use the best in the human mind to create the best possible
>> civilization. And, in synergy with the nature as it is kept from being
>> mindlessly plundered, arrive at a planet that has the best of nature
>> and the best of civilization, with nature in all its richness and
>> color remaining alive and humanity building on top of it a
>> civilization equal to all the richness, color and inspiration that has
>> been imparted mankind.

>

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