Thursday, December 09, 2010

Hacking at Branches, While Ignoring Roots




This is a very nice video that dares to ask:  What Is Nature Worth?

I went to the web site, however, and it seems to be a total FAIL.

How can these folks miss the most basic thing?

There is no investment in nature that will do more to save the planet than an investment in international family planning.

The Planet is not commiting suicide.

Nature is not killing itself.

We are killing it.

There is NO amount of reuse, recycle, or re-purpose that any of us can do that will offset the environmental impact of adding another child to the world's population.

There is no amount of mitigation of damage that is cheaper, more effective, or longer lasting than international family planning.

And not a word about it.

That's a FAIL.   A very basic fail.
.

4 comments:

Camera Trap Codger said...

Right on, Patrick. Why is that point so damn hard to grasp?

seeker said...

The problem is its just not us. It's China, India, South America and more. We, meaning the US, can't control or even convince the rest of the world the wisdom of your words.

Now, I'm not saying we're not as guilty. My hiking trails are being bulldozed and concreted for new houses. I'm waiting for the next flood to innundate the School accross the street from us because they have stripped and built ticky tacky houses on the hill above it. Flood plains which used to be pastures now have 2 and 3 hundred thousand dollar homes built right in the middle of them. This is going to cause untold losses because people are stupid enough to buy them. Then they will find a way to sue someone.

The Earth is talking. We must listen. Mother Nature is a bitch. If you mess with her too much, she will get you.

Disgusted Debi and the TX JRTs

Mailey E. McLaughlin, M.Ed. said...

How can they miss the most basic thing?

It's not politically correct to talk about population control, that's how.

It's so offensive to some people that they blow a gasket even contemplating that the tree-huggers would DARE to tell them about birth control.

You see, their god told them to be fruitful and multiply. To them, that's it. End of story.

Population control is the Elephant In The Room.

PBurns said...

There is a massive unmet need for family planning in the developing world.

In countries where access to clean water, soap, washing machines, electricity, and the right to vote is sporadic (or non-existent), they also do not have access to doctors, birth control pills, pharmacies, condoms, diaphrams, IUDs, or even basic health care and repoductive information.

We could change that for the cost of only a few billion dollars -- less than we spend in a week in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But, of course, there is no long -term business here.

The business of building dams, taking down damns, polluting water, cleaning up water, building new sewage lines, repairing old sewage lines, cuttting trees to plant trees, and inventing new ways to find energy and move people from Point-A to Point-B is onging, and there's a massive profit in it.

Environmental organizations are no different than Exxon in this regard; they are fully invested in the problem, with one side invested in the making of it for profit, and one side invested in raising cash to clean it up for a profit.

But those who say ENOUGH...?

Those who say "Why not give people the tools they need to determine their own familty size?"

They are drowned out by the profiteers. Because while Small is Beautiful, there is no quick profit in it.

P.