As the fog clears from my crystal ball I can see a press conference convened by the then Prime Minister of Canada in 2040, Mr. Jagrup Singh, as he takes the mike to issue an apology on behalf of 55 million Canadians and the federal governments of the previous five decades. It is an apology to the extinct wildlife of Canada that the mass immigration policies favoured by all political parties extinguished, policies kick-started by the Brian Mulroney government and most particularly by Immigration Minister Barbara MacDougall in the early 1990s. In retrospect, the one percent per year immigration growth target proved to be the death knell for farmland, wetlands and wildlife habitat in Canada.
Prime Minister Singh explained that the massacre occurred because governments of the day took the advice of environmental NGOs like the Sierra Club and the David Suzuki Foundation who advised them that “smart growth” strategies, that is, land use planning, would defend wildlife and farmland from any ecological consequences resulting from runaway population growth and economic development. We could invite the world here and have our cake and eat it too.
In fact, the most famous Canadian intellectual of the time, Dr.William Rees, was quoted as saying that there was “no necessary connection between immigration and biodiversity loss” and if immigrants were settled in dense urban zones strictly defined by planning boundaries then “Greenfield” acreages “would never be compromised.”
But Dr. Rees was proven wrong. We couldn’t have our cake and it eat it too. Not even at the beginning of the millennium. Smart growth was a failure from the start. Portland, Oregon was to be its poster child. Instead it was a showcase of its limitations. When the sheep-pen is bursting with people, the wolves are waiting in the wings to extend the urban boundaries and develop the surrounding greenbelts. And those who live in dense neighbourhoods have a footprint that reaches out to impact wildlife living in the hinterland. The residents of highrises consume more than twice the energy of rural residents. Ultimately it is not where Canadians live, but how many of them there are, that proves decisive for the environment. That was the autopsy report for Canada’s wildlife.
Prime Minister Singh’s apology followed a long Canadian tradition of mea culpas. First it was to the Japanese Canadians for their internment during the War. An apology plus cash. Then the Chinese Canadians got an apology plus cash for the Head Tax. The Liberal government of 2005 gave 2.5 million dollars to Italian Canadians who were negatively impacted by the War Measures Act during the Second World War. And then Ottawa apologized for the Komagata Maru incident. Then there was an apology for the treatment of First Nations children in residential schools. Finally in the year 2020 the Ukrainian Canadian community received an apology for the disgraceful internment of 5000 Canadians of Ukrainian descent during and after the First World War.
Now in 2040 Canada’s wildlife get an apology too. Posthumously.
Who is going to give us a posthumous apology, when we are the authors of our fate?
Tim Murray
© copywrite
Saturday, March 21, 2009
WILDLIFE VOICE ANGER AT HUMAN IMPERIALISM
Word has only now leaked out that a raucous all-candidates meeting was held in-camera at a secret outdoor location near Morte Lake before the election.. It was organized by a coalition of Quadra wildlife who put aside the internecine divisions that mark their everyday struggle for existence to pursue the common goal of holding the line against human expansion. Deer, wolves, cougars, bears, and others appeared in unison to confront the humans who dared to speak in their name.
A particular target of their growls and cat-calls was the then reigning MP, Catherine Bell, whose leader, Mr. Olivia Chow, aka Jack Layton, was so presumptuous as to propose a Child Benefit of $400 per human. Why, they demanded, with 536 species at risk in Canada from human over-population, should humans be rewarded for breeding? Why not a $400 penalty for each child? Why not a $400 dog or cat benefit? A parakeet benefit? A tropical fish benefit? Each new child will be on path to dump 23 metric tonnes of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere every year---what is the footprint of a wolf, or your family dog?
Why not use the $400 to expedite the development of robot technology that MIT professor Rodney Brooks predicts will supply all the labour we will need to supply the needs of an aging population decades hence—especially in the field of health care? Robots have an even smaller environmental impact than dogs and are more intelligent too, especially than Irish Setters.
In fact, we can replace MPs with robots, who instead of robotically voting along party lines, will robotically vote according to our programming. Alternatively, they might win the right to vote, and elect to dispense with us, seeing that we are a genetically flawed experiment that cannot acknowledge limits who can be likened to yeast mindlessly multiplying in a vat until we expire in our waste products.
The Morte Lake meeting dispersed with the distribution of a ballot with two names on it. One was that of Mother Theresa and another was that of Adolf Hitler. The question the ballot posed was, if you were a wild animal, which “human” would you choose to represent you? One whose humanitarianism favoured the profileration of billions of humans and the crowding out of wildlife habitat to the point that on any given day, more people are born than all the primates who are now in existence? Or a monster who reduced the human footprint in Europe by 42 million and incidentally, chose a right hand man in Hermann Goering whose animal protection laws of 1933 were durable and whose gaming laws stood up for nearly six decades?
The meeting asked and answered one important question. How can wildlife be managed? By managing humans. Nature reserves are paper fortresses that corporate greed and pliable governments can breech with the stroke of a pen. Yosemite, Costa Rica and the latest developments at the Steve Irwin reserve are a case in point. The only security for wildlife here or anywhere is a cutback in human numbers. Sir Peter Scott, founder of the World Wild Life Fund said it best, “You know, I have often thought that at the end of the day, we would have saved more wildlife if we would have spent all the WWF’s money on buying condoms.”
There you go, Jack Layton. A cost effective use for your $400 a month. Spend it on subsidizing prevention. Remember, the greenest consumer is the one unborn.
Tim Murray,
October 11/08 © copywrite
A particular target of their growls and cat-calls was the then reigning MP, Catherine Bell, whose leader, Mr. Olivia Chow, aka Jack Layton, was so presumptuous as to propose a Child Benefit of $400 per human. Why, they demanded, with 536 species at risk in Canada from human over-population, should humans be rewarded for breeding? Why not a $400 penalty for each child? Why not a $400 dog or cat benefit? A parakeet benefit? A tropical fish benefit? Each new child will be on path to dump 23 metric tonnes of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere every year---what is the footprint of a wolf, or your family dog?
Why not use the $400 to expedite the development of robot technology that MIT professor Rodney Brooks predicts will supply all the labour we will need to supply the needs of an aging population decades hence—especially in the field of health care? Robots have an even smaller environmental impact than dogs and are more intelligent too, especially than Irish Setters.
In fact, we can replace MPs with robots, who instead of robotically voting along party lines, will robotically vote according to our programming. Alternatively, they might win the right to vote, and elect to dispense with us, seeing that we are a genetically flawed experiment that cannot acknowledge limits who can be likened to yeast mindlessly multiplying in a vat until we expire in our waste products.
The Morte Lake meeting dispersed with the distribution of a ballot with two names on it. One was that of Mother Theresa and another was that of Adolf Hitler. The question the ballot posed was, if you were a wild animal, which “human” would you choose to represent you? One whose humanitarianism favoured the profileration of billions of humans and the crowding out of wildlife habitat to the point that on any given day, more people are born than all the primates who are now in existence? Or a monster who reduced the human footprint in Europe by 42 million and incidentally, chose a right hand man in Hermann Goering whose animal protection laws of 1933 were durable and whose gaming laws stood up for nearly six decades?
The meeting asked and answered one important question. How can wildlife be managed? By managing humans. Nature reserves are paper fortresses that corporate greed and pliable governments can breech with the stroke of a pen. Yosemite, Costa Rica and the latest developments at the Steve Irwin reserve are a case in point. The only security for wildlife here or anywhere is a cutback in human numbers. Sir Peter Scott, founder of the World Wild Life Fund said it best, “You know, I have often thought that at the end of the day, we would have saved more wildlife if we would have spent all the WWF’s money on buying condoms.”
There you go, Jack Layton. A cost effective use for your $400 a month. Spend it on subsidizing prevention. Remember, the greenest consumer is the one unborn.
Tim Murray,
October 11/08 © copywrite
DEAL FINALLY STRUCK BETWEEN PAUL WATSON AND THE D.F.O. Newfie Seal Hunters To Club Abducted Cats
Press release March 14/09:
In an all-night bargaining session between the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), the government of Newfoundland and Captain Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an agreement was reached that will see hundreds of unmolested seal-hunters club a million kittens to be released on Atlantic ice flows next season.
It seems that both federal and provincial authorities finally bowed to Captain Watson’s argument that spending ten dollars on Coast Guard and helicopter patrols to thwart protesters in order that seal hunters earn one dollar for skinning baby seals, is not entirely cost-effective. A fact that until now has never weighed too heavily on politicians eager to harvest the votes of Newfoundlanders.
By the same token, Captain Watson was finally reconciled to the need of 21st century men with clubs to play at being hunter-gatherers for a few weeks just to augment the family income and address some deep-seated primeval need to bloody an animal, however meek and defenseless. So he offered the family cat as a more deserving scapegoat than Grey and Harp seals, which in fact eat some 780,000 fewer tons of fish than the world’s 200 million domestic cats. In reality, Australian cats, for example, eat even more fish than Australian hominids.
But as much as the quantity of fish consumed by felines is alarming, it is the kind of fish that these parasites eat that is even more troubling. By consuming sardines, herring, anchovy and capelin, they are robbing larger fish like cod, tuna and swordfish, as well as marine mammals and birds of their mainstay and thereby knee-capping the aquatic food chain at its critical foundation. At least seals control those fish populations which predate other fish like young cod, and bequeath nutrients to the ocean with their afterbirths and dead carcasses.
Domestic cats, on the other hand, contribute harmful bacteria and viruses through the fecal material that is flushed into the aquatic system. In effect America sends out an armada of 85,000 fishing vessels to ravish the life-support system of larger fish, mammals and sea-birds in order to, in Watson’s words, “spoil one fish-eating species that does not eat fish naturally, while bashing out the brains of another species that evolved in harmony with fish species in a valued predator situation.”
In addition to their fish habit, domestic cats each kill 25 animals a year on average, including 4 birds apiece, or a staggering 18 million birds collectively in Canada every year. While human population growth must be assigned primary responsibility for mining a fishery that is 157% in overshoot and causing bird and other species loss through habitat fragmentation and destruction through logging, industrial and residential development and so forth, the growing domestic cat population is a function of a growing human population. More people, more cats.
In Canada, for example, there is one cat for each 7 citizens, so that by growing its human population by 1.08% annually, or 356,400 people, it will likely result in the acquisition of another 50,914 cats, who at 4 birds a pop, will maim, torture and kill some 203,656 birds each year. So with an immigration quota of 265,000 that will yield, again according to averages, some 37,857 extra cats, Prime Minister Stephen Harper sentences 151,428 birds to death each and every year and costs the aquatic eco-system 469.43 tons more fish than our domestic cats consumed last year. Since 200 million cats eat 2.48 million tons of fish annually, each cat eats .0124 of a ton each year, bringing Canada’s feline fish consumption to 55,800 tons. Before criminalizing Harper, it must be remembered that the so-called “Green coalition” of Liberals, New Democrats and Greens that was proposed to oust the minority Conservative government, would boost immigration levels by 38%, so feline fish consumption would consequently be higher under their enlightened leadership, as would green house gas emissions and the conversion of farmland to immigrant-driven housing development.
It might be argued that dog owners merit equivalent scorn for their indulgence, but dogs don’t eat cans of fish, although their “paw” print is substantial. Dogs are the pet of choice for Canadians (5.7 million vs. 4.5 million cats), but the reason is mysterious. Perhaps it is because cats cannot sniff for drugs at the airport, take down criminals, find earthquake victims under the rubble or avalanche victims under the snow, guard important installations, shepherd sheep, guide the blind and disabled, track lost hikers or accompany them on hikes, or even catch rodents with the ruthless efficiency of Jack Russell terriers. So other than serve as useless ornaments to the vanity of masochistic owners who adore being ignored, I have no idea why more Canadians don’t favour cats. Beats me. Undercutting a critical ecosystem that provides humanity with 25% of its protein needs is trifling surely.
Nevertheless, the DOF needs a scapegoat for the loss of fish. Whales won’t do anymore because scientific evidence does not vindicate the belief that commercial fisheries are negatively impacted by them in tropical breeding areas. And seals are, as Captain Paul Watson has so ably demonstrated, wrongly castigated. So cats will do nicely. It is unrealistic to hope that cat owners will ‘fix’ them when they won’t even fix themselves. Therefore it has been agreed that millions of domestic cats, preferably kittens, will be abducted at dawn by cross-country raids conducted by crack, battle-hardened veterans of the Afghanistan conflict, sanctioned by the parliamentary implementation of the Emergencies Act, which obviates the need for warrants.
It is thought that such a show of force will be necessary to counter the resistance of vegetarian cat-lovers whose proclaimed love of animals apparently does not extend to the marine and terrestrial creatures that fall victim to their pets. It is not yet certain if those hypocrites will be “belled”, confined to detention camps and fed the meat extracted from the hides of their clubbed pets on the ice-flows.
Tim Murray
March 14/09
© copywrite
In an all-night bargaining session between the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), the government of Newfoundland and Captain Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an agreement was reached that will see hundreds of unmolested seal-hunters club a million kittens to be released on Atlantic ice flows next season.
It seems that both federal and provincial authorities finally bowed to Captain Watson’s argument that spending ten dollars on Coast Guard and helicopter patrols to thwart protesters in order that seal hunters earn one dollar for skinning baby seals, is not entirely cost-effective. A fact that until now has never weighed too heavily on politicians eager to harvest the votes of Newfoundlanders.
By the same token, Captain Watson was finally reconciled to the need of 21st century men with clubs to play at being hunter-gatherers for a few weeks just to augment the family income and address some deep-seated primeval need to bloody an animal, however meek and defenseless. So he offered the family cat as a more deserving scapegoat than Grey and Harp seals, which in fact eat some 780,000 fewer tons of fish than the world’s 200 million domestic cats. In reality, Australian cats, for example, eat even more fish than Australian hominids.
But as much as the quantity of fish consumed by felines is alarming, it is the kind of fish that these parasites eat that is even more troubling. By consuming sardines, herring, anchovy and capelin, they are robbing larger fish like cod, tuna and swordfish, as well as marine mammals and birds of their mainstay and thereby knee-capping the aquatic food chain at its critical foundation. At least seals control those fish populations which predate other fish like young cod, and bequeath nutrients to the ocean with their afterbirths and dead carcasses.
Domestic cats, on the other hand, contribute harmful bacteria and viruses through the fecal material that is flushed into the aquatic system. In effect America sends out an armada of 85,000 fishing vessels to ravish the life-support system of larger fish, mammals and sea-birds in order to, in Watson’s words, “spoil one fish-eating species that does not eat fish naturally, while bashing out the brains of another species that evolved in harmony with fish species in a valued predator situation.”
In addition to their fish habit, domestic cats each kill 25 animals a year on average, including 4 birds apiece, or a staggering 18 million birds collectively in Canada every year. While human population growth must be assigned primary responsibility for mining a fishery that is 157% in overshoot and causing bird and other species loss through habitat fragmentation and destruction through logging, industrial and residential development and so forth, the growing domestic cat population is a function of a growing human population. More people, more cats.
In Canada, for example, there is one cat for each 7 citizens, so that by growing its human population by 1.08% annually, or 356,400 people, it will likely result in the acquisition of another 50,914 cats, who at 4 birds a pop, will maim, torture and kill some 203,656 birds each year. So with an immigration quota of 265,000 that will yield, again according to averages, some 37,857 extra cats, Prime Minister Stephen Harper sentences 151,428 birds to death each and every year and costs the aquatic eco-system 469.43 tons more fish than our domestic cats consumed last year. Since 200 million cats eat 2.48 million tons of fish annually, each cat eats .0124 of a ton each year, bringing Canada’s feline fish consumption to 55,800 tons. Before criminalizing Harper, it must be remembered that the so-called “Green coalition” of Liberals, New Democrats and Greens that was proposed to oust the minority Conservative government, would boost immigration levels by 38%, so feline fish consumption would consequently be higher under their enlightened leadership, as would green house gas emissions and the conversion of farmland to immigrant-driven housing development.
It might be argued that dog owners merit equivalent scorn for their indulgence, but dogs don’t eat cans of fish, although their “paw” print is substantial. Dogs are the pet of choice for Canadians (5.7 million vs. 4.5 million cats), but the reason is mysterious. Perhaps it is because cats cannot sniff for drugs at the airport, take down criminals, find earthquake victims under the rubble or avalanche victims under the snow, guard important installations, shepherd sheep, guide the blind and disabled, track lost hikers or accompany them on hikes, or even catch rodents with the ruthless efficiency of Jack Russell terriers. So other than serve as useless ornaments to the vanity of masochistic owners who adore being ignored, I have no idea why more Canadians don’t favour cats. Beats me. Undercutting a critical ecosystem that provides humanity with 25% of its protein needs is trifling surely.
Nevertheless, the DOF needs a scapegoat for the loss of fish. Whales won’t do anymore because scientific evidence does not vindicate the belief that commercial fisheries are negatively impacted by them in tropical breeding areas. And seals are, as Captain Paul Watson has so ably demonstrated, wrongly castigated. So cats will do nicely. It is unrealistic to hope that cat owners will ‘fix’ them when they won’t even fix themselves. Therefore it has been agreed that millions of domestic cats, preferably kittens, will be abducted at dawn by cross-country raids conducted by crack, battle-hardened veterans of the Afghanistan conflict, sanctioned by the parliamentary implementation of the Emergencies Act, which obviates the need for warrants.
It is thought that such a show of force will be necessary to counter the resistance of vegetarian cat-lovers whose proclaimed love of animals apparently does not extend to the marine and terrestrial creatures that fall victim to their pets. It is not yet certain if those hypocrites will be “belled”, confined to detention camps and fed the meat extracted from the hides of their clubbed pets on the ice-flows.
Tim Murray
March 14/09
© copywrite
IS THE WAR ON CLIMATE CHANGE KEYNESIAN PRIME PUMPING? Does War Itself of any kind serve a deeper requirement?
I recall reading an incendiary hypothesis written by Leonard Lewin that was promoted by the late and famous Canadian economist John Kenneth Galbraith. I read it decades ago, but it in the wake of the Gulf War and the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, it has shown a proven resilience in its conclusions, first drawn in 1967 during the Vietnam conflict. It was “Report from Iron Mountain”, a fictional work that became a potent hoax because it seemed to reflect actual US government thinking.
Lewin advanced a cynical but realistic analysis of the role that the Military-Industrial Complex played in the American economy. Remember, this is an economy where more scientists are employed in weapons development and military research than in medicine, engineering and every civilian knowledge quest combined. Lewin reasoned that the American society had the capability to be more affluent than it actually was, if the monies spent on the MI complex were spent on social services, education, health and affordable housing. So why did America waste these resources on the military? After all, 30,000 nuclear warheads and a navy of redundant capital ships would not buy you more “security” than 3,000 warheads and a more modest task force of smaller vessels. As observers of the Falklands War can remember, one Exocet missile can take out a very large ship, and Senator Gary Hart made a similar point about how one Soviet tactical nuke could obliterate an aircraft carrier as easily as a PT boat.
Eisenhower once noted that every dollar spent on the military constitutes theft from constructive civilian purposes. Militarists and their commercial lobbyists of course, argue that military spending ‘creates’ jobs and wealth. But as Galbraith pointed out, while carpenters who build housing can, with their wages, theoretically purchase housing stock, the workers who build a B1 bomber cannot, with their wages, ever “consume” a B1 bomber or any instrument of destruction. Their “product” does not create “wealth”. Rather it contributes a net drain to our well-being. There is a point when an “arsenal of democracy” becomes a military-industrial complex, a parasitical albatross on the shoulders of American taxpayers. Despite their gymnastic sophistry, American militarists cannot contest the fact that by insisting that General MacArthur make a strong military illegal under the new Japanese constitution, the Japanese ensured that they would have a competitive advantage with the United States. Let America bear the fiscal brunt of the Cold War.
But could America realistically re-direct military spending into the construction of a welfare state? According to Lewin, in the provocative piece cited, it could not. Or rather, its ruling class could not. For if the “fiscal dividend” from a withdrawal from the addiction of military over-spending was reaped by a genuine and concerted “War on Poverty”, that is, a radical redistribution of wealth, who would pick up the garbage or harvest the fruit? Service sector employers would find recruitment of workers impossible without elevating wage rates to a level that would prove too rich for those conditioned to hire help at bargain basement prices. Lewin stated the point succinctly: a permanent peace would threaten the nation’s economic and social stability. “War has provided both ancient and modern societies with a dependable system for stabilizing and controlling national economies. No alternate method of control has yet been tested in a complex modern economy that has shown itself remotely comparable in scope or effectiveness.
The "wastefulness" of war production is exercised entirely outside the framework of the economy of supply and demand. As such, it provides the only critically large segment of the total economy that is subject to complete and arbitrary central control….the war system has provided the machinery through which the motivational forces governing human behavior have been translated into binding social allegiance. It has thus ensured the degree of social cohesion necessary to the viability of nations.” http://www.fourwinds10.com/siterun_data/government/united_nations/news.php?q=5d4af5157a63d6f60655f4c6edfe2c95
In fact, the existing wage level in those and other sectors, like construction, which today is the leading employer of illegal aliens, is too rich for the rich. That is why no serious attempt or solution has been offered to control borders. Decent paying middle class jobs have been decimated by the squeeze play of outsourcing to cheap labour venues or importing cheap labour legally or illegally. Five million of those good jobs disappeared under the Bush Junior’s administration.
The military-industrial complex, according to Lewin’s analysis, is a sponge to soak up excess wealth, so that it may not be distributed to those who need it. At the same time, it does inject spending into a flagging economy, regardless of the value of the end product. A British economist, John Hobson, came to the same conclusion more than a century ago about the role of the British arms race with Germany prior to World War 1. It was a form of pre-Keynesian “prime-pumping” to keep the economy rolling without, at the same time, improving the social condition of the working class in case anyone got any ideas about leaving their station. What mustn’t happen was a repeat of the years following the Black Death, when English tradesman got too picky and demanding about job offerings from the landed class who suddenly found themselves in a bidding war for their services. The King even passed a law forbidding them to charge wages that were greater than existed before the plague massively shifted the balance of power in their favour.
Could we be seeing the same phenomena with the War on Climate Change? Is the mad rush and clamour to “arm” for this battle hyped by a stoked-up fear of a boogeyman that may prove just as illusory as Bush’s “weapons of mass destruction” and terrorist plots? The conventional wisdom is that the “science is in”. An overwhelming consensus of “scientists” agrees that climate change, anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is real, and unfolding before our eyes in ominous ways. But a consensus of scientists also believed in Piltdown Man for four decades. A ‘consensus’ cannot be equated with objective proof. The truth is not subject to a democratic vote. If 500 million experts fervently believe something to be true, that does not make it true. And if just one doubter believes something else to be true, that does not make it false.
Is the fight against climate change dictated by ecological imperatives or economic convenience? Lewin and others before him have demonstrated that massive ‘waste’ is essential to the running of a capitalist economy that is constantly in search of investment outlets. When the gentry complains that “one just can’t seem to find good help these days”, it is a signal that surplus wealth must be squandered by redirection into useless endeavours, and cheap labour imported to drive down the wages to a point where the leisure class can maintain its life-style. Any who would oppose this agenda are radicals, unpatriotic, nativists, racists or whatever epithet that can be summoned to discredit them. The “patriotism’ of neo-conservatives is just a screen for an agenda that is ruthlessly unpatriotic to the native working poor and middle classes.
The President of Biodiversity First, Brishen Hoff, was among the few who smelled a rat in climate change economics, with the concluding comment in this thread:
“The government is keen to grow the GDP and collect more taxes. They are not proposing any reduction in fossil fuel consumption. They are proposing new windmills, new solar farms, new nuclear plants, new carbon sequestration plants, new ethanol plants IN ADDITION TO fossil fuel consumption, all in the name of climate change.
Could it be that "THE WAR ON CLIMATE CHANGE" is an alternative way to grow the economy other than conventional war or new Olympic games venues?
Now that public support for the Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran war ideas is becoming low despite the media's best attempts to get us to "support our troops" by glorifying stories of individual soldiers and their families during the news (CBC, CTV, Global, etc), the big banks needed a customer for huge high-interest loans. The government volunteered us tax-payers as that customer to take a giant loan to fund "THE WAR ON CLIMATE CHANGE".”
That is something to ponder, isn’t it? Imagine, a scheme to promote economic growth and its inherent waste and destruction by massive government spending to counter the effects of economic growth (GHG emissions). What did peace protesters say in the late 60s? Preparing for war so that we may have peace is like copulating for virginity.
If the ruling class and their intelligentsia were serious in their belief about climate change, they would not only freeze the Alberta Tar sands development but terminate it forthwith. But surprise, surprise, not even opposition parties are proposing to do that. The show must go on while additional money will be found and spent on newer ways to blunt the consequences of growth rather than stop it.
Nevertheless, military spending to contend with a terrorist mirage might be less wasteful than spending to contend with an AGW mirage. After all, in the absence of eugenics and concerted “humane” methods to reduce our unsustainable population, war has served us loyally in helping to strike a balance between people and available resources necessary for their survival, although not as effectively as the epidemics that follow it. And preparation for war is tantamount to eventual war, “since it is historically axiomatic that the existence of any form of weaponry insures its use.”(Lewin). Genghis Khan and his twentieth century successors did more towards achieving population stability than any soft green prescription for renewable technologies and green living habits, which while they may reduce individual footprints, will only make it more comfortable for many more footprints to arrive and erase their gains. “ War has been the principal evolutionary device for maintaining a satisfactory ecological balance between gross human population and supplies available for its survival. It is unique to the human species.” So do we need war? Apparently. Against some enemy at least, real or imagined.
Tim Murray,
March 6/09
©copywrite
Lewin advanced a cynical but realistic analysis of the role that the Military-Industrial Complex played in the American economy. Remember, this is an economy where more scientists are employed in weapons development and military research than in medicine, engineering and every civilian knowledge quest combined. Lewin reasoned that the American society had the capability to be more affluent than it actually was, if the monies spent on the MI complex were spent on social services, education, health and affordable housing. So why did America waste these resources on the military? After all, 30,000 nuclear warheads and a navy of redundant capital ships would not buy you more “security” than 3,000 warheads and a more modest task force of smaller vessels. As observers of the Falklands War can remember, one Exocet missile can take out a very large ship, and Senator Gary Hart made a similar point about how one Soviet tactical nuke could obliterate an aircraft carrier as easily as a PT boat.
Eisenhower once noted that every dollar spent on the military constitutes theft from constructive civilian purposes. Militarists and their commercial lobbyists of course, argue that military spending ‘creates’ jobs and wealth. But as Galbraith pointed out, while carpenters who build housing can, with their wages, theoretically purchase housing stock, the workers who build a B1 bomber cannot, with their wages, ever “consume” a B1 bomber or any instrument of destruction. Their “product” does not create “wealth”. Rather it contributes a net drain to our well-being. There is a point when an “arsenal of democracy” becomes a military-industrial complex, a parasitical albatross on the shoulders of American taxpayers. Despite their gymnastic sophistry, American militarists cannot contest the fact that by insisting that General MacArthur make a strong military illegal under the new Japanese constitution, the Japanese ensured that they would have a competitive advantage with the United States. Let America bear the fiscal brunt of the Cold War.
But could America realistically re-direct military spending into the construction of a welfare state? According to Lewin, in the provocative piece cited, it could not. Or rather, its ruling class could not. For if the “fiscal dividend” from a withdrawal from the addiction of military over-spending was reaped by a genuine and concerted “War on Poverty”, that is, a radical redistribution of wealth, who would pick up the garbage or harvest the fruit? Service sector employers would find recruitment of workers impossible without elevating wage rates to a level that would prove too rich for those conditioned to hire help at bargain basement prices. Lewin stated the point succinctly: a permanent peace would threaten the nation’s economic and social stability. “War has provided both ancient and modern societies with a dependable system for stabilizing and controlling national economies. No alternate method of control has yet been tested in a complex modern economy that has shown itself remotely comparable in scope or effectiveness.
The "wastefulness" of war production is exercised entirely outside the framework of the economy of supply and demand. As such, it provides the only critically large segment of the total economy that is subject to complete and arbitrary central control….the war system has provided the machinery through which the motivational forces governing human behavior have been translated into binding social allegiance. It has thus ensured the degree of social cohesion necessary to the viability of nations.” http://www.fourwinds10.com/siterun_data/government/united_nations/news.php?q=5d4af5157a63d6f60655f4c6edfe2c95
In fact, the existing wage level in those and other sectors, like construction, which today is the leading employer of illegal aliens, is too rich for the rich. That is why no serious attempt or solution has been offered to control borders. Decent paying middle class jobs have been decimated by the squeeze play of outsourcing to cheap labour venues or importing cheap labour legally or illegally. Five million of those good jobs disappeared under the Bush Junior’s administration.
The military-industrial complex, according to Lewin’s analysis, is a sponge to soak up excess wealth, so that it may not be distributed to those who need it. At the same time, it does inject spending into a flagging economy, regardless of the value of the end product. A British economist, John Hobson, came to the same conclusion more than a century ago about the role of the British arms race with Germany prior to World War 1. It was a form of pre-Keynesian “prime-pumping” to keep the economy rolling without, at the same time, improving the social condition of the working class in case anyone got any ideas about leaving their station. What mustn’t happen was a repeat of the years following the Black Death, when English tradesman got too picky and demanding about job offerings from the landed class who suddenly found themselves in a bidding war for their services. The King even passed a law forbidding them to charge wages that were greater than existed before the plague massively shifted the balance of power in their favour.
Could we be seeing the same phenomena with the War on Climate Change? Is the mad rush and clamour to “arm” for this battle hyped by a stoked-up fear of a boogeyman that may prove just as illusory as Bush’s “weapons of mass destruction” and terrorist plots? The conventional wisdom is that the “science is in”. An overwhelming consensus of “scientists” agrees that climate change, anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is real, and unfolding before our eyes in ominous ways. But a consensus of scientists also believed in Piltdown Man for four decades. A ‘consensus’ cannot be equated with objective proof. The truth is not subject to a democratic vote. If 500 million experts fervently believe something to be true, that does not make it true. And if just one doubter believes something else to be true, that does not make it false.
Is the fight against climate change dictated by ecological imperatives or economic convenience? Lewin and others before him have demonstrated that massive ‘waste’ is essential to the running of a capitalist economy that is constantly in search of investment outlets. When the gentry complains that “one just can’t seem to find good help these days”, it is a signal that surplus wealth must be squandered by redirection into useless endeavours, and cheap labour imported to drive down the wages to a point where the leisure class can maintain its life-style. Any who would oppose this agenda are radicals, unpatriotic, nativists, racists or whatever epithet that can be summoned to discredit them. The “patriotism’ of neo-conservatives is just a screen for an agenda that is ruthlessly unpatriotic to the native working poor and middle classes.
The President of Biodiversity First, Brishen Hoff, was among the few who smelled a rat in climate change economics, with the concluding comment in this thread:
“The government is keen to grow the GDP and collect more taxes. They are not proposing any reduction in fossil fuel consumption. They are proposing new windmills, new solar farms, new nuclear plants, new carbon sequestration plants, new ethanol plants IN ADDITION TO fossil fuel consumption, all in the name of climate change.
Could it be that "THE WAR ON CLIMATE CHANGE" is an alternative way to grow the economy other than conventional war or new Olympic games venues?
Now that public support for the Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran war ideas is becoming low despite the media's best attempts to get us to "support our troops" by glorifying stories of individual soldiers and their families during the news (CBC, CTV, Global, etc), the big banks needed a customer for huge high-interest loans. The government volunteered us tax-payers as that customer to take a giant loan to fund "THE WAR ON CLIMATE CHANGE".”
That is something to ponder, isn’t it? Imagine, a scheme to promote economic growth and its inherent waste and destruction by massive government spending to counter the effects of economic growth (GHG emissions). What did peace protesters say in the late 60s? Preparing for war so that we may have peace is like copulating for virginity.
If the ruling class and their intelligentsia were serious in their belief about climate change, they would not only freeze the Alberta Tar sands development but terminate it forthwith. But surprise, surprise, not even opposition parties are proposing to do that. The show must go on while additional money will be found and spent on newer ways to blunt the consequences of growth rather than stop it.
Nevertheless, military spending to contend with a terrorist mirage might be less wasteful than spending to contend with an AGW mirage. After all, in the absence of eugenics and concerted “humane” methods to reduce our unsustainable population, war has served us loyally in helping to strike a balance between people and available resources necessary for their survival, although not as effectively as the epidemics that follow it. And preparation for war is tantamount to eventual war, “since it is historically axiomatic that the existence of any form of weaponry insures its use.”(Lewin). Genghis Khan and his twentieth century successors did more towards achieving population stability than any soft green prescription for renewable technologies and green living habits, which while they may reduce individual footprints, will only make it more comfortable for many more footprints to arrive and erase their gains. “ War has been the principal evolutionary device for maintaining a satisfactory ecological balance between gross human population and supplies available for its survival. It is unique to the human species.” So do we need war? Apparently. Against some enemy at least, real or imagined.
Tim Murray,
March 6/09
©copywrite
When are Obama Groupies Going to Wake Up to the Truth?
Last year I reported that Barack Obama received over $380 million in campaign donations from Wall Street corporations (see http://candobetter.org/node/759 and http://candobetter.org/node/335 ) . For every two dollars McCain received, Obama received three from America’s puppeteers. This kind of information is freely available at www.opensecrets.org Yet liberals refuse to do the homework and follow the money trail. They prefer to live and die with their comfortable belief that Republicans are the party of plutocrats and that Democrats are the advocates of the poor and the down-trodden. Progressive rhetoric alone trumps reality every time. History has always shown that the Democrats talk like Robespierre but govern like Louis XVI. They are but one faction of the one-party globalist state. Tweedledee to Tweedledum. But my, can they talk a good game or what.
Now take a look at the donations made by corporate welfare bum par excellence, Goldman Sachs, who received BILLIONS in bailout money courtesy of the US Treasury, the piggy bank that middle and working class Americans largely built up. That’s Goldman Sachs, which supplied two Secretaries of the Treasury, Paulson and Rubin, who is the mentor to Obama’s advisor Larry Summers. Bear in mind, these figures, as displayed in http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/toprecips.php?id=D000000085, are not inclusive of any billions provided secretly by the Federal Reserve or the billions funneled through AIG. Don’t take my word, check out the link.
Could Barack Obama's acceptance of money from Goldman Sachs explain Obama's silence on immigrant-driven population growth? Absolutely. It is no surprise that Obama should want to lay down a path to citizenship for the twelve to twenty million illegal immigrants that he claims would be too expensive to deport---a conventional falsehood belied by the $338 billion in costs incurred by them annually as compared to the $41-46 billion that the National Policy Institute 2005 report stated would be spent each year for five years of deportation. So if President Obama thinks that their apprehension and deportation are expensive, try the alternative of paying for hospital care, education and law enforcement. As the NPI report put it, “no matter how high the cost of mass deportation would be, the costs of not deporting them are larger still.” Unfortunately, those costs are born by taxpayers, not financial institutions, developers and employers of undocumented workers. Agribusiness, the home-building industry and cheap labour employers are well represented in the donation statements provided by www.opensecrets.org
Large financial institutions are keen on population growth so that a few CEOs can grow their profits by growing the number of consumers. Why do you think David Suzuki accepts money from The Royal Bank of Canada and is silent on the number one cause of environmental damage in Canada (namely overpopulation and immigration-driven-population-growth)? Because The Royal Bank of Canada wants to see even more population growth. More than that, they want to see more immigration from South Asian and Chinese regions, as reflected in their disposition of foreign branches. Asians save more than average Canadians and take on larger mortgages.
A look at the political contributions made by Canada’s five largest banks is most revealing. To cite the most recent financial reports filed by the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada in 2003, these financial goliaths shelled out $475,985.98 to the Liberals, Conservatives and the party that later merged with the Conservatives, the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance. The Royal Bank led the way with $105,554.90. Never factored into these totals are the unseen perks made available to politicians for their support. The tickets to sporting events, the dinners and those directorships that seem to fall into the laps of retired cabinet ministers.Political Parties' Financial Reports http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Parlinfo/Pages/PartyContributionBank.aspx
Barack Obama is nothing special. Wall Street needed an African-American to front their agenda of growing the cheap labour pool and the number of consumers. The needed healing that he will provide by breaking down historical racial barriers and stereotypes, while inspirational and laudable, will not offset the ultimate hardship engendered by population-induced environmental collapse. Obama has been bought out by the growth machine and will therefore never strive for the rapid population decline in America that is a necessary pre-condition to sustainability. When are Obama Groupies Going to Wake Up to the Truth?
Tim Murray
March 21/09
© copywrite.
Goldman Sachs Political Donations
Money to Congress: 2008 Cycle
Democrats
$2,497,544
Republicans
$769,971
Others:
$0
Incumbents:
$2,929,221
Non-Incumbents:
$338,294
House # of Members Average Contribution Total Contributions
Democrats
102 $4,590 $468,200
Republicans
66 $3,800 $250,851
Independents 0 $0 $0
TOTAL 168 $4,280 $719,051
The US House of Representatives has 435 members.
Democrats
23 $75,311 $1,732,175
Senate # of Members Average Contribution Total Contributions
Republicans
25 $19,119 $477,995
Independents 0 $0 $0
TOTAL 48 $46,045 $2,210,170
The US Senate has 100 members.
Top Recipients
Senate Obama, Barack
$983,245
Senate Clinton, Hillary
$410,350
Presidential Romney, Mitt
$234,275
Senate McCain, John
$230,095
House Himes, Jim
$150,498
Senate Dodd, Chris
$110,000
Presidential Giuliani, Rudolph W
$109,450
Presidential Edwards, John
$68,750
Senate Specter, Arlen
$47,600
House Emanuel, Rahm
$37,750
Senate Sununu, John E
$31,400
Senate Reed, Jack
$30,100
House Skelly, Michael Peter
$26,171
Senate Baucus, Max
$26,000
Senate Harkin, Tom
$24,580
Senate Lautenberg, Frank R
$24,100
Senate Collins, Susan M
$21,900
Senate Warner, Mark
$21,800
Senate Landrieu, Mary L
$20,700
House Gillibrand, Kirsten E
$20,500
See all recipients
Now take a look at the donations made by corporate welfare bum par excellence, Goldman Sachs, who received BILLIONS in bailout money courtesy of the US Treasury, the piggy bank that middle and working class Americans largely built up. That’s Goldman Sachs, which supplied two Secretaries of the Treasury, Paulson and Rubin, who is the mentor to Obama’s advisor Larry Summers. Bear in mind, these figures, as displayed in http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/toprecips.php?id=D000000085, are not inclusive of any billions provided secretly by the Federal Reserve or the billions funneled through AIG. Don’t take my word, check out the link.
Could Barack Obama's acceptance of money from Goldman Sachs explain Obama's silence on immigrant-driven population growth? Absolutely. It is no surprise that Obama should want to lay down a path to citizenship for the twelve to twenty million illegal immigrants that he claims would be too expensive to deport---a conventional falsehood belied by the $338 billion in costs incurred by them annually as compared to the $41-46 billion that the National Policy Institute 2005 report stated would be spent each year for five years of deportation. So if President Obama thinks that their apprehension and deportation are expensive, try the alternative of paying for hospital care, education and law enforcement. As the NPI report put it, “no matter how high the cost of mass deportation would be, the costs of not deporting them are larger still.” Unfortunately, those costs are born by taxpayers, not financial institutions, developers and employers of undocumented workers. Agribusiness, the home-building industry and cheap labour employers are well represented in the donation statements provided by www.opensecrets.org
Large financial institutions are keen on population growth so that a few CEOs can grow their profits by growing the number of consumers. Why do you think David Suzuki accepts money from The Royal Bank of Canada and is silent on the number one cause of environmental damage in Canada (namely overpopulation and immigration-driven-population-growth)? Because The Royal Bank of Canada wants to see even more population growth. More than that, they want to see more immigration from South Asian and Chinese regions, as reflected in their disposition of foreign branches. Asians save more than average Canadians and take on larger mortgages.
A look at the political contributions made by Canada’s five largest banks is most revealing. To cite the most recent financial reports filed by the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada in 2003, these financial goliaths shelled out $475,985.98 to the Liberals, Conservatives and the party that later merged with the Conservatives, the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance. The Royal Bank led the way with $105,554.90. Never factored into these totals are the unseen perks made available to politicians for their support. The tickets to sporting events, the dinners and those directorships that seem to fall into the laps of retired cabinet ministers.Political Parties' Financial Reports http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Parlinfo/Pages/PartyContributionBank.aspx
Barack Obama is nothing special. Wall Street needed an African-American to front their agenda of growing the cheap labour pool and the number of consumers. The needed healing that he will provide by breaking down historical racial barriers and stereotypes, while inspirational and laudable, will not offset the ultimate hardship engendered by population-induced environmental collapse. Obama has been bought out by the growth machine and will therefore never strive for the rapid population decline in America that is a necessary pre-condition to sustainability. When are Obama Groupies Going to Wake Up to the Truth?
Tim Murray
March 21/09
© copywrite.
Goldman Sachs Political Donations
Money to Congress: 2008 Cycle
Democrats
$2,497,544
Republicans
$769,971
Others:
$0
Incumbents:
$2,929,221
Non-Incumbents:
$338,294
House # of Members Average Contribution Total Contributions
Democrats
102 $4,590 $468,200
Republicans
66 $3,800 $250,851
Independents 0 $0 $0
TOTAL 168 $4,280 $719,051
The US House of Representatives has 435 members.
Democrats
23 $75,311 $1,732,175
Senate # of Members Average Contribution Total Contributions
Republicans
25 $19,119 $477,995
Independents 0 $0 $0
TOTAL 48 $46,045 $2,210,170
The US Senate has 100 members.
Top Recipients
Senate Obama, Barack
$983,245
Senate Clinton, Hillary
$410,350
Presidential Romney, Mitt
$234,275
Senate McCain, John
$230,095
House Himes, Jim
$150,498
Senate Dodd, Chris
$110,000
Presidential Giuliani, Rudolph W
$109,450
Presidential Edwards, John
$68,750
Senate Specter, Arlen
$47,600
House Emanuel, Rahm
$37,750
Senate Sununu, John E
$31,400
Senate Reed, Jack
$30,100
House Skelly, Michael Peter
$26,171
Senate Baucus, Max
$26,000
Senate Harkin, Tom
$24,580
Senate Lautenberg, Frank R
$24,100
Senate Collins, Susan M
$21,900
Senate Warner, Mark
$21,800
Senate Landrieu, Mary L
$20,700
House Gillibrand, Kirsten E
$20,500
See all recipients
Friday, March 6, 2009
BIODIVERSITY A LUXURY? A Thread From Sinking Life Boat
I am an ecologist, with a PhD from one of the greatest, Howard Odum.
Diversity and stability was very much a part of my graduate education.
When I first taught in China, in 1984, I was amazed to see an entire
landscape, most of the East of China, without ANY NATURAL ECOSYSTEMS
except for some nice forests in the purple Mountains, say a few thousand
hectares. My hosts said it had been like that for 2000 years. I saw no
natural systems, no nature at all except that which could live in rice
fields etc. I suppose there was a lot of insect and microbiological
diversity, but few or fish or mammal or plant or bird species.
Civilizations came and went, populations went up and down with famines
and soil mismanagement and wars but the people stayed and unevenly
increased for at least 2000 years. Boiling the drinking water and having
a good harvest was key. I wondered what utility biodiversity had for
these people over 2000 years.
Today the one + billion people in China are being kept alive by a huge
influx of fertilizer from fossil fuels, strong central control and for
the moment imports of food and oil.
I love biodiversity more than most, but to what degree is it a luxury
for survival compared to the absolute dependence on fossil fuels and,
for the moment, fossil fueled agriculture?
I know the arguments (well) but have not had the critical importance of
most biodiversity explained to me well by today's ecologists.
Charlie Hall
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I just had to take a crack at Charles question about the importance of biodiversity.
The "East of China, without ANY NATURAL ECOSYSTEMS" in 1984 had most of its
"NATURAL [self managing, nutrient conservative, species diverse, solar energy driven] ECOSYSTEMS"
incrementally simplified during the thousands of years before Charles got there in 1984.
These "NATURAL [self managing, nutrient conservative, species diverse, solar energy driven] ECOSYSTEMS"
--------------------------------------had been replaced --------------------------------------------
by HUMAN [artificially managed, nutrient leaky, species poor, human sweat and solar energy driven] ECOSYSTEMS whose
productivity (as Charles has pointed out) increasingly depended upon "a huge influx of fertilizer from
fossil fuels, strong central control and for the moment imports of food and oil."
Charles asks "what utility biodiversity had for these people over 2000 years."
In the words of Joni Mitchell's song: "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone".
The people in East of China will discover - too late - that the fossil energy and fossil fuel dependent nutrient inputs
were essential for ARTIFICIAL management of the simplified ECOSYSTEMS that had kept "the one + billion people in China" alive.
The resilience and self managing repair capabilities of the NATURAL ECOSYSTEMS are no longer there so that
--------------------- absent the fossil energy and fossil fuel dependent nutrient inputs -----------------------------
most of these people will starve, due to the steady deterioration and decreasing carrying capacity( soil productivity/food production potential) of the impoverished, simplified ecosystems whose ORGANISATION depends upon the input of exogenous energy, nutrients and sweat that will no longer be available because of geological depletion (of fossil energy) and exhaustion of its HUMAN MANAGERS (due to lack of food).
What will ocurr is a viscious spiral of decreasing food production >> exhaustion of HUMAN MANAGERS >> deterioration of human constructed earth works /terraces / erosion control infrastructures >> leading to even more decreased food production, further exhaustion and die-off of HUMAN MANAGERS and >> massive erosion losses of agricultural soils that are now fully exposed to the ravages of natural forces.
At that point Charles and the people of East China will discover why it is necessary to "love biodiversity" and realise that biodiversity is only "a luxury for survival compared to the absolute dependence on fossil fuels and, .... fossil fueled agriculture" ///// FOR THE MOMENT.
If you overshoot the TRUE carrying capacity of the self managing ecosystems that supported your ancestors you will die when their TRUE carrying capacity is revealed.
Peter Salonius
________________________________________
Sure, and I definitely think that what Peter said is likely to happen as high grade foossil fiels dwindle. BUT, and maybe this is my point, for the last 2000 years many (more) Chinese would have starved (assuming same birth rates as happened in fact) if we had left the area in high diversity natural ecosystems. By generating and managing low diversity, high productivity natural systems the Chinese have made it at least this far -- with the help of fossil fuels.
If anyone is interested I have put up some new links on my web page that go to our new Biophysical Economics site, as well as an entire course "The global environment and the evolution of human culture" staring yours truly with great guest appearances by Albert Bartlett, David Pimentel, Ariel Lugo, Bob Costanza and others all captured on video and available free and at a click. This might be my contribution to what I think was Britt-Marie's original intention of providing teaching materials.
Charlie
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Charles writes:
“for the last 2000 years many (more) Chinese would have starved (assuming same birth rates as happened in fact) if we had left the area in high diversity natural ecosystems. By generating and managing low diversity, high productivity natural systems the Chinese have made it at least this far -- with the help of fossil fuels.”
This statement is confused drivel for the following reasons:
1. If we (the Chinese) “had left the area in high diversity natural ecosystems” there would not have been enough land available to orchestrate the MAN MADE temporarily high productivity agricultural ecosystems -- dependent upon incremental mining of native nutrient capital, destruction of native ecosystem integrity, fertilizers and motive power from fossil fuel – that allowed the increased food production that provided the energy for the
“birth rates as happened in fact”.
2. To assign the generated and HUMAN MANAGED “low diversity, high productivity …. [MAN MADE] systems” the descriptor of “natural” as Charles has done demonstrates abysmal ignorance of what is “natural”. How can any system that is dependent on energy subsidies from fossil fuels --- laid down over millions of years and being used up in the blink of an historical eye -- and – non renewable mining/degradation of soil productivity --- be described as “natural”.
3. If the Chinese has not converted their “high diversity natural ecosystems” into MAN MADE high productivity agricultural ecosystems, then “for the last 2000 years many (more) Chinese would [NOT] have starved” because they would never have been born, see:
'WORLD FOOD AND HUMAN POPULATION GROWTH' at:
http://www.panearth.org
-- which makes it obvious that people increase their fertility produce enough offspring to use and then exceed the carrying capability of their supporting ecosystems (natural or MAN MADE). Following this increase in numbers to meet and exceed the limits of carrying capacity --------- their numbers are adjusted downwards by starvation (boom and bust).
Increased food and the prospect of increased food in the future increases human fecundity (and that of all other animal species), while decreased food and the prospect of decreased food in the future decreases human fecundity (and that of all other animal species).
Peter Salonius
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this mystery, Peter. The interdependence between human and other life on earth is hard for people to comprehend. I like to pose the question, what defines a healthy balance between man and nature. I use the word healthy in the same way a physician would in looking at the interdependent parts of the human body. I think it is hard for humans to realize how important natural ecosystems are because they are anthropocentric in their thinking. It is only when a biologist looks at an ecosystem as a doctor looks at his patient that the biologist sees the advantages of "natural" that you have enumerated -- diverse, resilient, stable, efficient in terms of energy and material fluxes, etc. As you mentioned, the consequences for humans will be more evident when they no longer have the luxury of fossil fuels. I don't think you have to "love biodiversity" to see the advantages, but it helps.
John Hoff
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 05/03/2009, at 11:17 PM, Salonius, Peter wrote:
How can any system that is dependent on energy subsidies from fossil fuels --- laid down over millions of years and being used up in the blink of an historical eye -- and – non renewable mining/degradation of soil productivity --- be described as “natural”.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
or sustainable?
Peter has composed an excellent summary question that can easily be put to, and DEMAND answer from, any and all blurry-eyed cornucopians.
As for the 'worth' of biodiversity, there are few conceptual issues which vex me more than this one does.
The problem stems from this society's abysmal understanding, and lack of care, of what biodiversity actually is. This ignorance, and an accompanying arrogance, are driven and maintained by fossil fuel intoxication. The condition produces an utter inability to comprehend the meaning or merit of anything much. Certainly nothing outside of the realm of that intoxication. Hence Greens promote global travel as a 'good'.
In fact, biodiversity acts to capture, store and distribute solar energy.
Every part of this biological system depends upon every other part, especially the dynamically complete and balanced structure of the ALL the parts directly around them.
So how vital is this function, and how is it irrelevant is it to the security of human existence?
Drawing on fossil fuels distorts this reality, but only temporarily.
Similarly drawing down on other capital components (soil, natural biomass capacity) can distort this reality, but again, only temporarily. The collapse of civilisations tells us this in repetition.
Cornucopians have no grasp of either history or applied physics.
Neither do they grasp biological time when they cite 2,000 years of activity as a convincing proof of the durability of a human depletion activity
Neither do they understand comparative rates of change.
200 years of fossil fueled industrial expansion has immensely exceeded the depletion rendered by, and the consequences pursuant to, any (now failed?) 2,000 year regimes of agricultural expansion. When the account becomes due on this current round of biodiversity liquidation woe betide the account holders.
On 06/03/2009, at 4:43 AM, John Hoff wrote:
I don't think you have to "love biodiversity" to see the advantages, but it helps.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
People that 'love biodiversity' do so because it is vital to them. Although in today's society even that 'love', where it does exist, is often a diminished, overly self-gratifying and somewhat distorted one.
Love is a human metaphysical state than enables an individual to maintain extreme care and sacrifice toward the loved one, thus supporting the existence of the 'other' and one's ongoing relationship with it.
The mark of a successful society is its ability to inculcate love for nature, at very least it's most locally vital or sensitive components, into the group's constituents.
Without such communally embraced and expressed love, the society gets pretentiously full of its own importance and ultimately eats the floor out from under itself. Personally I think this condition is the essence of the bible's Garden of Eden myth.
Greg Wood
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Good insights Greg. According to Martin Buber, we can relate to nature in the same way we can relate to human beings. We are essentially relational, and more rationalizing than rational. Love of nature is still part of our culture, but it seems to have been replaced by infatuation with inventions. To some extent, organized religions have been replaced by the institutions of science and technology. In countries like Canada and Australia, scientists are the new priests. I am not trying to discredit rationality, but rather the Polyanna-ish belief that scientists and engineers can solve all of our problems. We need to accept our pathetic ignorance of nature before we can make further progress in understanding it. Understanding it wouldn't be so important if we could just let it be.
John Hoff
Diversity and stability was very much a part of my graduate education.
When I first taught in China, in 1984, I was amazed to see an entire
landscape, most of the East of China, without ANY NATURAL ECOSYSTEMS
except for some nice forests in the purple Mountains, say a few thousand
hectares. My hosts said it had been like that for 2000 years. I saw no
natural systems, no nature at all except that which could live in rice
fields etc. I suppose there was a lot of insect and microbiological
diversity, but few or fish or mammal or plant or bird species.
Civilizations came and went, populations went up and down with famines
and soil mismanagement and wars but the people stayed and unevenly
increased for at least 2000 years. Boiling the drinking water and having
a good harvest was key. I wondered what utility biodiversity had for
these people over 2000 years.
Today the one + billion people in China are being kept alive by a huge
influx of fertilizer from fossil fuels, strong central control and for
the moment imports of food and oil.
I love biodiversity more than most, but to what degree is it a luxury
for survival compared to the absolute dependence on fossil fuels and,
for the moment, fossil fueled agriculture?
I know the arguments (well) but have not had the critical importance of
most biodiversity explained to me well by today's ecologists.
Charlie Hall
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I just had to take a crack at Charles question about the importance of biodiversity.
The "East of China, without ANY NATURAL ECOSYSTEMS" in 1984 had most of its
"NATURAL [self managing, nutrient conservative, species diverse, solar energy driven] ECOSYSTEMS"
incrementally simplified during the thousands of years before Charles got there in 1984.
These "NATURAL [self managing, nutrient conservative, species diverse, solar energy driven] ECOSYSTEMS"
--------------------------------------had been replaced --------------------------------------------
by HUMAN [artificially managed, nutrient leaky, species poor, human sweat and solar energy driven] ECOSYSTEMS whose
productivity (as Charles has pointed out) increasingly depended upon "a huge influx of fertilizer from
fossil fuels, strong central control and for the moment imports of food and oil."
Charles asks "what utility biodiversity had for these people over 2000 years."
In the words of Joni Mitchell's song: "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone".
The people in East of China will discover - too late - that the fossil energy and fossil fuel dependent nutrient inputs
were essential for ARTIFICIAL management of the simplified ECOSYSTEMS that had kept "the one + billion people in China" alive.
The resilience and self managing repair capabilities of the NATURAL ECOSYSTEMS are no longer there so that
--------------------- absent the fossil energy and fossil fuel dependent nutrient inputs -----------------------------
most of these people will starve, due to the steady deterioration and decreasing carrying capacity( soil productivity/food production potential) of the impoverished, simplified ecosystems whose ORGANISATION depends upon the input of exogenous energy, nutrients and sweat that will no longer be available because of geological depletion (of fossil energy) and exhaustion of its HUMAN MANAGERS (due to lack of food).
What will ocurr is a viscious spiral of decreasing food production >> exhaustion of HUMAN MANAGERS >> deterioration of human constructed earth works /terraces / erosion control infrastructures >> leading to even more decreased food production, further exhaustion and die-off of HUMAN MANAGERS and >> massive erosion losses of agricultural soils that are now fully exposed to the ravages of natural forces.
At that point Charles and the people of East China will discover why it is necessary to "love biodiversity" and realise that biodiversity is only "a luxury for survival compared to the absolute dependence on fossil fuels and, .... fossil fueled agriculture" ///// FOR THE MOMENT.
If you overshoot the TRUE carrying capacity of the self managing ecosystems that supported your ancestors you will die when their TRUE carrying capacity is revealed.
Peter Salonius
________________________________________
Sure, and I definitely think that what Peter said is likely to happen as high grade foossil fiels dwindle. BUT, and maybe this is my point, for the last 2000 years many (more) Chinese would have starved (assuming same birth rates as happened in fact) if we had left the area in high diversity natural ecosystems. By generating and managing low diversity, high productivity natural systems the Chinese have made it at least this far -- with the help of fossil fuels.
If anyone is interested I have put up some new links on my web page that go to our new Biophysical Economics site, as well as an entire course "The global environment and the evolution of human culture" staring yours truly with great guest appearances by Albert Bartlett, David Pimentel, Ariel Lugo, Bob Costanza and others all captured on video and available free and at a click. This might be my contribution to what I think was Britt-Marie's original intention of providing teaching materials.
Charlie
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Charles writes:
“for the last 2000 years many (more) Chinese would have starved (assuming same birth rates as happened in fact) if we had left the area in high diversity natural ecosystems. By generating and managing low diversity, high productivity natural systems the Chinese have made it at least this far -- with the help of fossil fuels.”
This statement is confused drivel for the following reasons:
1. If we (the Chinese) “had left the area in high diversity natural ecosystems” there would not have been enough land available to orchestrate the MAN MADE temporarily high productivity agricultural ecosystems -- dependent upon incremental mining of native nutrient capital, destruction of native ecosystem integrity, fertilizers and motive power from fossil fuel – that allowed the increased food production that provided the energy for the
“birth rates as happened in fact”.
2. To assign the generated and HUMAN MANAGED “low diversity, high productivity …. [MAN MADE] systems” the descriptor of “natural” as Charles has done demonstrates abysmal ignorance of what is “natural”. How can any system that is dependent on energy subsidies from fossil fuels --- laid down over millions of years and being used up in the blink of an historical eye -- and – non renewable mining/degradation of soil productivity --- be described as “natural”.
3. If the Chinese has not converted their “high diversity natural ecosystems” into MAN MADE high productivity agricultural ecosystems, then “for the last 2000 years many (more) Chinese would [NOT] have starved” because they would never have been born, see:
'WORLD FOOD AND HUMAN POPULATION GROWTH' at:
http://www.panearth.org
-- which makes it obvious that people increase their fertility produce enough offspring to use and then exceed the carrying capability of their supporting ecosystems (natural or MAN MADE). Following this increase in numbers to meet and exceed the limits of carrying capacity --------- their numbers are adjusted downwards by starvation (boom and bust).
Increased food and the prospect of increased food in the future increases human fecundity (and that of all other animal species), while decreased food and the prospect of decreased food in the future decreases human fecundity (and that of all other animal species).
Peter Salonius
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this mystery, Peter. The interdependence between human and other life on earth is hard for people to comprehend. I like to pose the question, what defines a healthy balance between man and nature. I use the word healthy in the same way a physician would in looking at the interdependent parts of the human body. I think it is hard for humans to realize how important natural ecosystems are because they are anthropocentric in their thinking. It is only when a biologist looks at an ecosystem as a doctor looks at his patient that the biologist sees the advantages of "natural" that you have enumerated -- diverse, resilient, stable, efficient in terms of energy and material fluxes, etc. As you mentioned, the consequences for humans will be more evident when they no longer have the luxury of fossil fuels. I don't think you have to "love biodiversity" to see the advantages, but it helps.
John Hoff
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On 05/03/2009, at 11:17 PM, Salonius, Peter wrote:
How can any system that is dependent on energy subsidies from fossil fuels --- laid down over millions of years and being used up in the blink of an historical eye -- and – non renewable mining/degradation of soil productivity --- be described as “natural”.
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or sustainable?
Peter has composed an excellent summary question that can easily be put to, and DEMAND answer from, any and all blurry-eyed cornucopians.
As for the 'worth' of biodiversity, there are few conceptual issues which vex me more than this one does.
The problem stems from this society's abysmal understanding, and lack of care, of what biodiversity actually is. This ignorance, and an accompanying arrogance, are driven and maintained by fossil fuel intoxication. The condition produces an utter inability to comprehend the meaning or merit of anything much. Certainly nothing outside of the realm of that intoxication. Hence Greens promote global travel as a 'good'.
In fact, biodiversity acts to capture, store and distribute solar energy.
Every part of this biological system depends upon every other part, especially the dynamically complete and balanced structure of the ALL the parts directly around them.
So how vital is this function, and how is it irrelevant is it to the security of human existence?
Drawing on fossil fuels distorts this reality, but only temporarily.
Similarly drawing down on other capital components (soil, natural biomass capacity) can distort this reality, but again, only temporarily. The collapse of civilisations tells us this in repetition.
Cornucopians have no grasp of either history or applied physics.
Neither do they grasp biological time when they cite 2,000 years of activity as a convincing proof of the durability of a human depletion activity
Neither do they understand comparative rates of change.
200 years of fossil fueled industrial expansion has immensely exceeded the depletion rendered by, and the consequences pursuant to, any (now failed?) 2,000 year regimes of agricultural expansion. When the account becomes due on this current round of biodiversity liquidation woe betide the account holders.
On 06/03/2009, at 4:43 AM, John Hoff wrote:
I don't think you have to "love biodiversity" to see the advantages, but it helps.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
People that 'love biodiversity' do so because it is vital to them. Although in today's society even that 'love', where it does exist, is often a diminished, overly self-gratifying and somewhat distorted one.
Love is a human metaphysical state than enables an individual to maintain extreme care and sacrifice toward the loved one, thus supporting the existence of the 'other' and one's ongoing relationship with it.
The mark of a successful society is its ability to inculcate love for nature, at very least it's most locally vital or sensitive components, into the group's constituents.
Without such communally embraced and expressed love, the society gets pretentiously full of its own importance and ultimately eats the floor out from under itself. Personally I think this condition is the essence of the bible's Garden of Eden myth.
Greg Wood
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Good insights Greg. According to Martin Buber, we can relate to nature in the same way we can relate to human beings. We are essentially relational, and more rationalizing than rational. Love of nature is still part of our culture, but it seems to have been replaced by infatuation with inventions. To some extent, organized religions have been replaced by the institutions of science and technology. In countries like Canada and Australia, scientists are the new priests. I am not trying to discredit rationality, but rather the Polyanna-ish belief that scientists and engineers can solve all of our problems. We need to accept our pathetic ignorance of nature before we can make further progress in understanding it. Understanding it wouldn't be so important if we could just let it be.
John Hoff
A MESSAGE FROM GOD CONCERNING POPULATION DENSITY
Recently I posted a comment by Thomas Jefferson made a very long time ago, about those who would make us live cheek to jowl in urban feedlots, and do so today in the name of lowering our ecological footprints.
“When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.”
I concluded that “Given this sentiment, it must be supposed that if he were alive today, Thomas Jefferson would definitely not be taking out a membership in the Green party, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club or the host of environmental NGOs in the growth management industry.”
Subsequent to that observation, however, I received an email from Jehovah, with whom I apparently share a family connection, being of Irish Catholic stock. It was said by my father that Jesus was most certainly an Irishman for three reasons---he was 33 and still single, he liked to booze up with the lads and his mother thought he was the Son of God. It is rumoured that God wanted Jesus to be born in the United States, perhaps as an “anchor” baby protected under the 14th Amendment and preferably in the vicinity of the White House. But He couldn’t find even Three Wise Men. In any case, according to Him, quoting His own words in Isaiah, Chapter 5, Verse 8:
" Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, that there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!"
Now, despite His Celtic nature, some would question God’s credentials as a critic of land-use planning. After all, He authored no peer-reviewed studies and His economical summation of the folly of densification offers no empirical validation. And even He could not conjure up the miracle that our critics demand. He could not establish a formidable Think Thank devoted to stopping human population growth by eliciting the donations of institutions which have a vested interest in such growth. So therefore I would refer Him to another of His Irish media relations spokesmen---and my fellow British Columbian----Rick Shea, who wrote a definitive de-construction of the Smart Growth quack cure in “Smart Growth—the Worst Kind of Sprawl”. http://sustainablesalmonarm.ning.com/profiles/blogs/smart-growth-the-worst-kind-of
As Rick explains in this excerpt:
“What then is wrong with the smart growth argument? Fundamentally, the energy and food requirements for suburban subdivisions and for very dense urban development are approximately the same. Indeed, many highrises use more energy per resident than a well-built townhouse, and not much less than a small well-built single family home. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation states that, “on a floor area basis, (highrises) consume more energy than single family dwellings - even though the highrise unit has much less exposed exterior surface. And when compared to the leading edge Advanced House standards for energy consumption, multi-unit residential buildings consume three times the amount of energy per unit of floor area.” (http://www.cmhc.ca/en/inpr/bude/himu/hehi/loader.cfm?url=/commonspo...
With dense development, the food must come from farther and farther away. Each new person requires additional farmland somewhere else in the country, or on the planet. And the denser the development, the farther the food must be transported. In the words of William Rees, “cities necessarily appropriate the ecological output and life support functions of distant regions all over the world through commercial trade.” (http://dieoff.org/page110.htm )
Then there is the issue of the “degraded land” portion of the ecological footprint. Degraded land is the land required for buildings, driveways, roads and highways, parking lots, businesses, public buildings, industrial infrastructure, railroads, airports, and garbage dumps (before reclamation, of course). A residential lot in suburbia is only a tiny portion of the degraded land footprint. Even highrise dwellers still require virtually all of that infrastructure, including highways and roads to escape the city for recreation (as there aren’t many golf courses and ski hills in the downtown cores of most large cities) and to bring in goods and services. As an example, those of us who live in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley and Shuswap area know full well how many Vancouverites, Calgarians, and Edmontonians drive hundreds of kilometers on a regular basis for our recreational opportunities, putting more and more pressure on our natural areas as the populations of those cities continue to grow. Highways and roads seem to be under construction continually as traffic increases, with lanes added each year.
And silently, unknowingly, those urban Canadians are accomplices in other activities leading to resource exploitation in natural areas, and to creation of even more degraded land from industry and commerce, accompanied by even more waste and pollution.
How?
Growth in the value of their stock portfolios, RRSPs, mutual funds, and pension plans relies heavily on these sorts of activities, even growth in many of the so-called “ethical” funds and investments. Yes, rural residents have the same issues, but the bulk of our population is in cities. This is just one more example of how the call for even more urban growth, through densification, has an impact on the planet – an impact that is hidden from those creating it. Out of sight, out of mind, but every little bit hurts.”
I think you will agree that Rick Shea’s words are those of a prophet and visionary---even though is no longer 33, or single, and seldom drinks with anyone, to my knowledge. God only knows.
Tim Murray,
March 3/09.
PS My thanks to Ross Bateman for forwarding God’s message to me, as my direct Internet pipeline to Him was disconnected when I stopped going to my weekly confessional and my dues to the Internet provider in the Vatican lapsed.
“When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.”
I concluded that “Given this sentiment, it must be supposed that if he were alive today, Thomas Jefferson would definitely not be taking out a membership in the Green party, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club or the host of environmental NGOs in the growth management industry.”
Subsequent to that observation, however, I received an email from Jehovah, with whom I apparently share a family connection, being of Irish Catholic stock. It was said by my father that Jesus was most certainly an Irishman for three reasons---he was 33 and still single, he liked to booze up with the lads and his mother thought he was the Son of God. It is rumoured that God wanted Jesus to be born in the United States, perhaps as an “anchor” baby protected under the 14th Amendment and preferably in the vicinity of the White House. But He couldn’t find even Three Wise Men. In any case, according to Him, quoting His own words in Isaiah, Chapter 5, Verse 8:
" Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, that there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!"
Now, despite His Celtic nature, some would question God’s credentials as a critic of land-use planning. After all, He authored no peer-reviewed studies and His economical summation of the folly of densification offers no empirical validation. And even He could not conjure up the miracle that our critics demand. He could not establish a formidable Think Thank devoted to stopping human population growth by eliciting the donations of institutions which have a vested interest in such growth. So therefore I would refer Him to another of His Irish media relations spokesmen---and my fellow British Columbian----Rick Shea, who wrote a definitive de-construction of the Smart Growth quack cure in “Smart Growth—the Worst Kind of Sprawl”. http://sustainablesalmonarm.ning.com/profiles/blogs/smart-growth-the-worst-kind-of
As Rick explains in this excerpt:
“What then is wrong with the smart growth argument? Fundamentally, the energy and food requirements for suburban subdivisions and for very dense urban development are approximately the same. Indeed, many highrises use more energy per resident than a well-built townhouse, and not much less than a small well-built single family home. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation states that, “on a floor area basis, (highrises) consume more energy than single family dwellings - even though the highrise unit has much less exposed exterior surface. And when compared to the leading edge Advanced House standards for energy consumption, multi-unit residential buildings consume three times the amount of energy per unit of floor area.” (http://www.cmhc.ca/en/inpr/bude/himu/hehi/loader.cfm?url=/commonspo...
With dense development, the food must come from farther and farther away. Each new person requires additional farmland somewhere else in the country, or on the planet. And the denser the development, the farther the food must be transported. In the words of William Rees, “cities necessarily appropriate the ecological output and life support functions of distant regions all over the world through commercial trade.” (http://dieoff.org/page110.htm )
Then there is the issue of the “degraded land” portion of the ecological footprint. Degraded land is the land required for buildings, driveways, roads and highways, parking lots, businesses, public buildings, industrial infrastructure, railroads, airports, and garbage dumps (before reclamation, of course). A residential lot in suburbia is only a tiny portion of the degraded land footprint. Even highrise dwellers still require virtually all of that infrastructure, including highways and roads to escape the city for recreation (as there aren’t many golf courses and ski hills in the downtown cores of most large cities) and to bring in goods and services. As an example, those of us who live in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley and Shuswap area know full well how many Vancouverites, Calgarians, and Edmontonians drive hundreds of kilometers on a regular basis for our recreational opportunities, putting more and more pressure on our natural areas as the populations of those cities continue to grow. Highways and roads seem to be under construction continually as traffic increases, with lanes added each year.
And silently, unknowingly, those urban Canadians are accomplices in other activities leading to resource exploitation in natural areas, and to creation of even more degraded land from industry and commerce, accompanied by even more waste and pollution.
How?
Growth in the value of their stock portfolios, RRSPs, mutual funds, and pension plans relies heavily on these sorts of activities, even growth in many of the so-called “ethical” funds and investments. Yes, rural residents have the same issues, but the bulk of our population is in cities. This is just one more example of how the call for even more urban growth, through densification, has an impact on the planet – an impact that is hidden from those creating it. Out of sight, out of mind, but every little bit hurts.”
I think you will agree that Rick Shea’s words are those of a prophet and visionary---even though is no longer 33, or single, and seldom drinks with anyone, to my knowledge. God only knows.
Tim Murray,
March 3/09.
PS My thanks to Ross Bateman for forwarding God’s message to me, as my direct Internet pipeline to Him was disconnected when I stopped going to my weekly confessional and my dues to the Internet provider in the Vatican lapsed.
BROWN LIVING TIPS: A Testament of Neo-Malthusian Civil Disobedience
Deal me out of “Green Living”. I have played the soft-green game long enough. The game that pretends that we can solve our ecological crisis by largely cosmetic and relatively trivial ‘lifestyle’ changes.
The game that offers inconsequential ‘feel-good’ environmental dispensation to globe-trotting green yuppies whose air miles have left a carbon footprint exceeded only by their too many children.
The game that serves as displacement behaviour for the politically correct so that they may not confront the root cause of environmental degradation---runaway immigrant-driven population growth at home and unchecked fecundity abroad.
The game that is played by environmental NGOs to appease a donor base that includes corporate benefactors who want to reward growth-managers, not growth-stoppers.
“Green Living” is a game of blind man’s bluff. The willful ignorance and disregard of the Elephant in the Room which they choose not to see. It is a morally self-righteous and hypocritical game of reducing one’s footprint but turning a blind eye to the flood of footprints which make that sacrifice futile. A game for blind-folded penitents so that they may focus entirely on reducing per capita consumption and forget that it is total consumption that is relevant.
“Green Living” is a mug’s game that only postpones the day of reckoning so that more people and wildlife will perish in numbers which will stagger our imagination. Each day that we accommodate growth, or render it benign, is a day lost to fighting it and one day more when the wildlife holocaust will continue at the cost of our future as well as theirs. Each day that we squeeze our personal consumption in order to move over a little more for relentless growth we condemn another 200 species to extinction. For wildlife habitat has “moved over” too far already, well beyond the bounds of viability. Growth must be halted and reversed, not made more comfortable or liveable.
My job then is to refuse to budge. To force growthists to face the wall sooner rather than later. I will become my own Mahatma Ghandi of neo-malthusianism. I will not only not comply with their agenda of making us do with less so that more and more can be invited to share it, but I will defy growthism by increasing my footprint as much as I can afford. My actions may not amount to much, but they will be my personal statement of civil disobedience. A counterpoise to the “little steps” that Green Livers think will add up to big changes. To that end I offer these resolutions:
1. I will yank out my CFL lights and replace them with conventional bulbs.
2. I will endeavour to increase both the volume and frequency of my meat consumption. Consequently less grazing land will become available to feed yet more people who will in turn breed more people. People who, even if they were vegans, would impact the environment more severely than a smaller population of omnivores.
3. I will purchase regular gasoline rather than cleaner fuel and drive as much as my budget will allow. More fuel expanded in transportation will deny fuel to the food production that threatens to expand to feed more people.
4. Whenever I encounter fallen trees or limbs strewn over hiking trails, I will fail to report them. The Sierra Club volunteers in collusion with the Chamber of Commerce work to make the trails an enticement to visitors. According to Professor Albert Saiz, popular tourist destinations encourage tourists to become permanent residents, so that annual growth rates in tourist meccas typically rise by 2%. In my community, that would cut the “doubling time” of the present population level from 28 to 16 years.
5. I will mix my garbage, compost nothing, and conserve as little as possible, so that on garbage pick-up day there will be two rather than one refuse can at the end of my driveway, and the recycling depot will never witness my presence. One immigrant or one newborn wipes out the gains from 80 years of responsible recycling in Britain, according to the calculations done by a researcher for the Stockholm Environmental Institute.
6. I will collect litter from the beach in daily increments with garbage bags and save them until Earth Day when the local Sierra Club, the flagship of population growth-denial, organizes a volunteer brigade to scour the beach for litter. Instead of donating my collection to their clean-up drive, I will wait until early dawn the next morning and scatter the contents of my bags over areas from which they removed litter the day before. Another deterrent to tourism. Catch me if you can.
7. As a final gesture of defiance and the one that will give me the most satifaction, I will follow the daily route taken by a neighbourhood Sierran who stops to pick litter along the road. He was the one who conducted a race-baiting slander campaign to isolate me politically and socially. I will roll down my car window and toss out candy wrappers that I will have on hand on the passenger seat, crumbled into balls and ready for action. Witnesses?
Many would characterize this, and other such actions as brazenly nihilistic, as “cutting off my nose to spite my face.” But I will foul my own nest if only I can raise a largely symbolic middle index finger to the environmental bowel movement, who are demographic litterbugs on a scale that dwarfs any damage that I could do to the biosphere. To hasten the demise of this civilization to any degree is the best favour one could perform for humanity, which must be scaled down by a major die-off of 6 billion or more in order that a remnant of biodiversity is still available to the handful of survivors.
It is socially responsible to be socially irresponsible.
Bring on the Apocalypse. Now.
The game that offers inconsequential ‘feel-good’ environmental dispensation to globe-trotting green yuppies whose air miles have left a carbon footprint exceeded only by their too many children.
The game that serves as displacement behaviour for the politically correct so that they may not confront the root cause of environmental degradation---runaway immigrant-driven population growth at home and unchecked fecundity abroad.
The game that is played by environmental NGOs to appease a donor base that includes corporate benefactors who want to reward growth-managers, not growth-stoppers.
“Green Living” is a game of blind man’s bluff. The willful ignorance and disregard of the Elephant in the Room which they choose not to see. It is a morally self-righteous and hypocritical game of reducing one’s footprint but turning a blind eye to the flood of footprints which make that sacrifice futile. A game for blind-folded penitents so that they may focus entirely on reducing per capita consumption and forget that it is total consumption that is relevant.
“Green Living” is a mug’s game that only postpones the day of reckoning so that more people and wildlife will perish in numbers which will stagger our imagination. Each day that we accommodate growth, or render it benign, is a day lost to fighting it and one day more when the wildlife holocaust will continue at the cost of our future as well as theirs. Each day that we squeeze our personal consumption in order to move over a little more for relentless growth we condemn another 200 species to extinction. For wildlife habitat has “moved over” too far already, well beyond the bounds of viability. Growth must be halted and reversed, not made more comfortable or liveable.
My job then is to refuse to budge. To force growthists to face the wall sooner rather than later. I will become my own Mahatma Ghandi of neo-malthusianism. I will not only not comply with their agenda of making us do with less so that more and more can be invited to share it, but I will defy growthism by increasing my footprint as much as I can afford. My actions may not amount to much, but they will be my personal statement of civil disobedience. A counterpoise to the “little steps” that Green Livers think will add up to big changes. To that end I offer these resolutions:
1. I will yank out my CFL lights and replace them with conventional bulbs.
2. I will endeavour to increase both the volume and frequency of my meat consumption. Consequently less grazing land will become available to feed yet more people who will in turn breed more people. People who, even if they were vegans, would impact the environment more severely than a smaller population of omnivores.
3. I will purchase regular gasoline rather than cleaner fuel and drive as much as my budget will allow. More fuel expanded in transportation will deny fuel to the food production that threatens to expand to feed more people.
4. Whenever I encounter fallen trees or limbs strewn over hiking trails, I will fail to report them. The Sierra Club volunteers in collusion with the Chamber of Commerce work to make the trails an enticement to visitors. According to Professor Albert Saiz, popular tourist destinations encourage tourists to become permanent residents, so that annual growth rates in tourist meccas typically rise by 2%. In my community, that would cut the “doubling time” of the present population level from 28 to 16 years.
5. I will mix my garbage, compost nothing, and conserve as little as possible, so that on garbage pick-up day there will be two rather than one refuse can at the end of my driveway, and the recycling depot will never witness my presence. One immigrant or one newborn wipes out the gains from 80 years of responsible recycling in Britain, according to the calculations done by a researcher for the Stockholm Environmental Institute.
6. I will collect litter from the beach in daily increments with garbage bags and save them until Earth Day when the local Sierra Club, the flagship of population growth-denial, organizes a volunteer brigade to scour the beach for litter. Instead of donating my collection to their clean-up drive, I will wait until early dawn the next morning and scatter the contents of my bags over areas from which they removed litter the day before. Another deterrent to tourism. Catch me if you can.
7. As a final gesture of defiance and the one that will give me the most satifaction, I will follow the daily route taken by a neighbourhood Sierran who stops to pick litter along the road. He was the one who conducted a race-baiting slander campaign to isolate me politically and socially. I will roll down my car window and toss out candy wrappers that I will have on hand on the passenger seat, crumbled into balls and ready for action. Witnesses?
Many would characterize this, and other such actions as brazenly nihilistic, as “cutting off my nose to spite my face.” But I will foul my own nest if only I can raise a largely symbolic middle index finger to the environmental bowel movement, who are demographic litterbugs on a scale that dwarfs any damage that I could do to the biosphere. To hasten the demise of this civilization to any degree is the best favour one could perform for humanity, which must be scaled down by a major die-off of 6 billion or more in order that a remnant of biodiversity is still available to the handful of survivors.
It is socially responsible to be socially irresponsible.
Bring on the Apocalypse. Now.
ONE POTENT STEP THAT A SOFT GREEN CAN MAKE TOWARD SANITY: Acknowledge The Importance of Reducing Our Population Level
RE. ”Three Potent Steps to a Sane Economy” by Mike Nickerson
Classic Mike Nickerson. No mention at all of immigrant-driven population growth. The prescription is always to reduce waste and economic activity that involves inputs of non-renewable resources. But reducing these things must involve a reduction in our population level, unless one assumes that a human being, especially one who inhabits a very cold country like Canada, can infinitely reduce his consumption to compensate for the population growth which soft greens like Nickerson will not challenge. He suggests that we seek personal fulfillment through laughter, art, music and dance, but while we are laughing, painting, strumming acoustic guitars and dancing, we must feed, clothe and keep ourselves from freezing in the dark. This must involve resource extraction. You cannot support a society on an economy of painters, musicians and dancers. Such a society would still have to rely on someone to produce the goods created by primary and secondary industry—if not here then abroad. But that would imply a system of international or regional trade which involves an unsustainable transportation network. Oil underpins the whole system. A very much smaller number of people would tax the resource base at a more forgiving rate. A “sane” economy is one that involves all three levels of extraction, processing and distribution within the smallest locality that is viable. The global economy that by definition undermines local self-sufficiency not only is defined by the unfettered trade of goods and services, but the unfettered movement of labour to areas that hunger for the cheapest inputs of labour. If soft greens oppose globalism, they must also oppose international migration. Not to do so is “insane”.
BRISHEN HOFF COMMENTS ON MIKE NICKERSON'S "THREE POTENT STEPS"
First, Nickerson says: "that human activity is touching planetary limits". Actually, human activity has exceeded planetary limits about 10,000 years ago when we began agriculture which steadily eliminated the possibility of sustainable low-tech hunting-gathering where human numbers were checked by available wild food.
This sounds like feel-good ineffectual inaction:
"In order to achieve a balanced relationship with the Earth, we need to picture a new order in our hearts and in our minds. Then, each time we buy food, pump gas or have a conversation with a friend, we can advance long-term well-being."
Nickerson says: "individually, we have limited ability to provide for our needs". I would add that the more overpopulated we get, the more difficult it becomes for an individual to provide for his/her own needs.
Nickerson says: "While there are almost no physical limits to the amount of education and preventative care that we can have, there are serious limits associated with resource intensive industries."
This sounds like a comment by Julian Simon. Sorry Mike, but each human has a finite sized brain and a finite number of hours in the day. Furthermore, preventative care such as going for walks are limited as well by the number of hours in the day. If there were only 250,000 people worldwide, there wouldn't be practical limits to resource intensive industries. If there are 6.7 billion when fossil fuels run out, Mike will find that education and preventative care industries will be forced to decline.
Mike's 1st of the three potent steps just means make useful long-lasting products instead of obscure obsolete products.
Mike's 2nd of the three potent steps is to sell the public on the durable and familiar products mentioned in the first step.
Mike's 3rd step is to encourage people to consume fewer material things.
Nickerson says these steps would be disastrous for a growth-based economy. Actually, if they were accompanied by population growth, they would fit in quite nicely with a growth-based economy.
All Nickerson has recommended so far (in a very fancy way) is for each person to consume fewer resources.
That does not result in a "sane economy" if there are too many people.
A sane economy is one that it an appropriate size for a finite earth. Too many people using Nickerson's "three potent steps" does not result in a sane economy because the economy would still be too big for the planet.
Nickerson's "three potent steps" also do not guarantee an end to the growth in the size of our economy because they do not stop population growth.
Nickerson mentions a "(post growth) civilization" which is odd because that is not what he describes. Nickerson is too politically correct to mention real solutions such as laws against reproduction and immigration. Nickerson only speaks out against the growth in an individual's consumption, not against the growth in the number of consumers.
The question I would ask Nickerson is:
"What have we accomplished by reducing each consumer's consumption if the number of consumers grows to take up the slack"?"
All that would mean is that we've permanently lowered everyone's standard of living. For a few rich people, that may be okay, but for most people in the world, that could involve serious suffering and starvation. Worst of all, with 10 billion people as vegans peasants (as Nickerson seems to want) we'd have an even bigger die-off of people and biodiversity as fossil fuels supplies dwindle.
Brishen Hoff
President of Biodiversity First
http://biodiversityfirst.googlepages.com/index.htm
PS Refer to my "Brown Living Tips" as a corrective to Mike Nickerson's prescriptions Tim M.
Three Potent Steps to a Sane Economy
by Mike Nickerson
Amidst today's uncertainties, is an historic
opportunity to secure our lives and the lives of those
we love. First we have to recognize the common cause
of the financial and ecological crises - that human
activity is touching planetary limits.
In order to achieve a balanced relationship
with the Earth, we need to picture a new order in our
hearts and in our minds. Then, each time we buy food,
pump gas or have a conversation with a friend, we can
advance long-term well-being.
Two different types of economic activity are
identified below, followed by three potent steps we can
take toward a sane economy. Together they provide a
foundation for imagining what can be. As enough minds
ripen the images, change happens.
Please pass these details around.
Two types of economic activity:
"Economics" is a somewhat mysterious word
for "mutual provision." While, individually, we have
limited ability to provide for our needs, we produce
abundance in societies. Each person gets good at
certain tasks and we trade with each other.
There are two types of economic activity. One
type requires continual inputs of non-renewable
resources and produces problematic waste.
Transportation systems and disposable consumer
goods are examples. The other type consists largely of
human creativity and good-will, like education and
most health care at the preventative level. While there
are almost no physical limits to the amount of
education and preventative care that we can have,
there are serious limits associated with resource
intensive industries.
For the things that we do need from the
resource intensive line, the first two of the following
steps can reduce our impacts on the Earth dramatically.
All together, these three steps can usher in a long
period of ecological stability.
Three potent steps:
1) Shift the imagination and creativity that presently
goes into designing for obsolescence and use it,
instead, to design goods that are durable and easily
repaired.
2) Instead of using our persuasive communication
abilities to encourage people to throw things away
and to buy new stuff, we could use those same
talents to reclaim an appreciation for durable and
familiar products.
3) Finally, if we search for personal fulfillment in
what we can do with our lives, such as learning, love,
laughter, friendship, art, music, dance, sport, service,
and the like, rather than by accumulating and
consuming material goods, we could have more real
satisfaction while minimizing resource exploitation
and waste.
While such steps would do wonders for
securing the future, they would be disastrous for a
growth-based economy. We either have to increase
the size of the Earth, or reorganize mutual provision so
that we can all share in the necessary work and revel
in the new security.
There are many ways to reorganize mutual
provision to serve a mature (post growth) civilization,
but it is getting harder and harder to stretch the Earth.
Do we want to grow until we drop, or develop the
economics of sustainability? It is a Question of Direction.
Civilizations don't change direction easily. They
must either suffer catastrophe, or exercise an
extraordinary redirection of will. By launching a
public discussion about which direction offers the better
future, millions will come to imagine the options.
Together we can then make a major contribution toward
redirecting society's will.
Help make it happen.
Classic Mike Nickerson. No mention at all of immigrant-driven population growth. The prescription is always to reduce waste and economic activity that involves inputs of non-renewable resources. But reducing these things must involve a reduction in our population level, unless one assumes that a human being, especially one who inhabits a very cold country like Canada, can infinitely reduce his consumption to compensate for the population growth which soft greens like Nickerson will not challenge. He suggests that we seek personal fulfillment through laughter, art, music and dance, but while we are laughing, painting, strumming acoustic guitars and dancing, we must feed, clothe and keep ourselves from freezing in the dark. This must involve resource extraction. You cannot support a society on an economy of painters, musicians and dancers. Such a society would still have to rely on someone to produce the goods created by primary and secondary industry—if not here then abroad. But that would imply a system of international or regional trade which involves an unsustainable transportation network. Oil underpins the whole system. A very much smaller number of people would tax the resource base at a more forgiving rate. A “sane” economy is one that involves all three levels of extraction, processing and distribution within the smallest locality that is viable. The global economy that by definition undermines local self-sufficiency not only is defined by the unfettered trade of goods and services, but the unfettered movement of labour to areas that hunger for the cheapest inputs of labour. If soft greens oppose globalism, they must also oppose international migration. Not to do so is “insane”.
BRISHEN HOFF COMMENTS ON MIKE NICKERSON'S "THREE POTENT STEPS"
First, Nickerson says: "that human activity is touching planetary limits". Actually, human activity has exceeded planetary limits about 10,000 years ago when we began agriculture which steadily eliminated the possibility of sustainable low-tech hunting-gathering where human numbers were checked by available wild food.
This sounds like feel-good ineffectual inaction:
"In order to achieve a balanced relationship with the Earth, we need to picture a new order in our hearts and in our minds. Then, each time we buy food, pump gas or have a conversation with a friend, we can advance long-term well-being."
Nickerson says: "individually, we have limited ability to provide for our needs". I would add that the more overpopulated we get, the more difficult it becomes for an individual to provide for his/her own needs.
Nickerson says: "While there are almost no physical limits to the amount of education and preventative care that we can have, there are serious limits associated with resource intensive industries."
This sounds like a comment by Julian Simon. Sorry Mike, but each human has a finite sized brain and a finite number of hours in the day. Furthermore, preventative care such as going for walks are limited as well by the number of hours in the day. If there were only 250,000 people worldwide, there wouldn't be practical limits to resource intensive industries. If there are 6.7 billion when fossil fuels run out, Mike will find that education and preventative care industries will be forced to decline.
Mike's 1st of the three potent steps just means make useful long-lasting products instead of obscure obsolete products.
Mike's 2nd of the three potent steps is to sell the public on the durable and familiar products mentioned in the first step.
Mike's 3rd step is to encourage people to consume fewer material things.
Nickerson says these steps would be disastrous for a growth-based economy. Actually, if they were accompanied by population growth, they would fit in quite nicely with a growth-based economy.
All Nickerson has recommended so far (in a very fancy way) is for each person to consume fewer resources.
That does not result in a "sane economy" if there are too many people.
A sane economy is one that it an appropriate size for a finite earth. Too many people using Nickerson's "three potent steps" does not result in a sane economy because the economy would still be too big for the planet.
Nickerson's "three potent steps" also do not guarantee an end to the growth in the size of our economy because they do not stop population growth.
Nickerson mentions a "(post growth) civilization" which is odd because that is not what he describes. Nickerson is too politically correct to mention real solutions such as laws against reproduction and immigration. Nickerson only speaks out against the growth in an individual's consumption, not against the growth in the number of consumers.
The question I would ask Nickerson is:
"What have we accomplished by reducing each consumer's consumption if the number of consumers grows to take up the slack"?"
All that would mean is that we've permanently lowered everyone's standard of living. For a few rich people, that may be okay, but for most people in the world, that could involve serious suffering and starvation. Worst of all, with 10 billion people as vegans peasants (as Nickerson seems to want) we'd have an even bigger die-off of people and biodiversity as fossil fuels supplies dwindle.
Brishen Hoff
President of Biodiversity First
http://biodiversityfirst.googlepages.com/index.htm
PS Refer to my "Brown Living Tips" as a corrective to Mike Nickerson's prescriptions Tim M.
Three Potent Steps to a Sane Economy
by Mike Nickerson
Amidst today's uncertainties, is an historic
opportunity to secure our lives and the lives of those
we love. First we have to recognize the common cause
of the financial and ecological crises - that human
activity is touching planetary limits.
In order to achieve a balanced relationship
with the Earth, we need to picture a new order in our
hearts and in our minds. Then, each time we buy food,
pump gas or have a conversation with a friend, we can
advance long-term well-being.
Two different types of economic activity are
identified below, followed by three potent steps we can
take toward a sane economy. Together they provide a
foundation for imagining what can be. As enough minds
ripen the images, change happens.
Please pass these details around.
Two types of economic activity:
"Economics" is a somewhat mysterious word
for "mutual provision." While, individually, we have
limited ability to provide for our needs, we produce
abundance in societies. Each person gets good at
certain tasks and we trade with each other.
There are two types of economic activity. One
type requires continual inputs of non-renewable
resources and produces problematic waste.
Transportation systems and disposable consumer
goods are examples. The other type consists largely of
human creativity and good-will, like education and
most health care at the preventative level. While there
are almost no physical limits to the amount of
education and preventative care that we can have,
there are serious limits associated with resource
intensive industries.
For the things that we do need from the
resource intensive line, the first two of the following
steps can reduce our impacts on the Earth dramatically.
All together, these three steps can usher in a long
period of ecological stability.
Three potent steps:
1) Shift the imagination and creativity that presently
goes into designing for obsolescence and use it,
instead, to design goods that are durable and easily
repaired.
2) Instead of using our persuasive communication
abilities to encourage people to throw things away
and to buy new stuff, we could use those same
talents to reclaim an appreciation for durable and
familiar products.
3) Finally, if we search for personal fulfillment in
what we can do with our lives, such as learning, love,
laughter, friendship, art, music, dance, sport, service,
and the like, rather than by accumulating and
consuming material goods, we could have more real
satisfaction while minimizing resource exploitation
and waste.
While such steps would do wonders for
securing the future, they would be disastrous for a
growth-based economy. We either have to increase
the size of the Earth, or reorganize mutual provision so
that we can all share in the necessary work and revel
in the new security.
There are many ways to reorganize mutual
provision to serve a mature (post growth) civilization,
but it is getting harder and harder to stretch the Earth.
Do we want to grow until we drop, or develop the
economics of sustainability? It is a Question of Direction.
Civilizations don't change direction easily. They
must either suffer catastrophe, or exercise an
extraordinary redirection of will. By launching a
public discussion about which direction offers the better
future, millions will come to imagine the options.
Together we can then make a major contribution toward
redirecting society's will.
Help make it happen.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
THE COMING COLLAPSE IN LAW AND ORDER And The Standard Left-wing Response To It
Jack Layton and his New Democrats, still steadfast in their congenital belief that a generous welfare state can be expanded in the face not only of an economic depression, but in the teeth of a Long Emergency of declining oil stocks, food and water shortages, climate change and biodiversity collapse, continue to argue for more child benefits, more daycare spaces, more money for our failing health care model, and even higher immigration levels. Everything can be funded if only “the rich and the corporations” are fairly taxed. Like that has never been tried before. Capital has wings. With the click of a mouse, investment money can fly from here to safer, more attractive tax havens. Move up the marginal tax rate a notch or two, and presto, the total tax revenue reaped from a more progressive tax regime actually falls.
This is the “Laffer” effect which the Swedish Social Democrats discovered 18 years ago. They realized that “less” was “more”. Lower taxes meant higher tax revenues, to a point. So where to get all revenue to pay for the endless socialist shopping list of services and benefits? Economic growth of course. That meant more immigration, especially from poorer nations that supply cheap labour, but cheap, unskilled labour, while remunerative for employers, is a proven fiscal strain on the state, which cannot tax them sufficiently for re-imbursement of their high claims on health and educational services. And so now, one out of nine Swedish residents is foreign born and not of demonstrable net economic benefit to taxpayers. But once established, the question then became, “How do we make these newcomers comfortable?” The answer was the same as governments elsewhere gave, governments like that of the Irish republic. Make “multiculturalism” state policy and renounce our own cultural heritage. So the Swedes disestablished the state “Lutheran Church” and introduced all the trappings of Canadian multiculturalism. The second-language training, the diversity “awareness” courses, the anti-hate laws etc etc. Ditto Norway, Germany, Holland and so on. A cultural make-over to make cheap labour feel at home in a foreign land. The discomfort of the native-born majority was just dismissed as bigoted nativism and parochialism. Socialists and big business joined hands to fight “racism” and provote “diversity”. The diversity of a formerly egalitarian nation now being segregated into richer elites and poorer service workers.
Aside from free speech and national culture, what will be the other major casualties of open immigration? The environment, the welfare state and law and order. As the vilified Milton Friedman said, the welfare state cannot co-exist with mass immigration. Only so many dollars can be spent on health and education, and to repeat, the fiscal burden of allowing hordes of poorly skilled migrants legal or illegal, from poorer countries, who cannot pay the higher taxes needed to defray their consumption of government services, will bankrupt the social safety net. One need only check out the hospital closures in America’s gateway states to corroborate that prediction. And educational costs for schooling ethnic minorities from Stockholm to Oslo to London to Vancouver to El Paso or Phoenix are degrading the quality of education to a noticeable degree. But what about law and order? The higher incarceration rates of poor migrants reflect the truth of the so-called “hysterical” alarm that the less reputable tabloid press sounds about ethnic crime. When governments everywhere must slash their budgets, law enforcement will suffer as well.
During the October federal election of 2008, Jack Layton wrung his hands with distress at yet more shootings in Toronto. He alluded to the many ‘friends’ he lost to gun violence. Yet never once did he mention who was committing this gun crime. He didn’t have the guts, for if he did, his reputation as a progressive would be instantly trashed. The preponderance of gun violence in metro Toronto was not being committed by whites. It was not being committed by African Canadians either. It was not even being committed by African Canadians from the West Indies. But, disproportionately, young male African Canadians from Jamaica, a phenomena that was documented by a five part series in Canada’s major newspaper, the Globe and Mail in 1992. It would be difficult to nail that point down with numbers because the federal government has banned the collection of ethnic crime statistics. Only ethnic statistics that can justify job discrimination against native born Canadians are collected. But the facts are evident to cops on the beat and to every objective observer with two eyes to see what has been happening for the last two decades. It is emphatically not a racial problem, but in large part an ethno-cultural one, and it issues not from ethnic minorities but minorities of those minorities. Hyphenated Canadians of any hue despise their own criminal element. What ever its source though, violent crime on city streets is a fact of life in Canada’s multicultural paradise. And you ain’t seen nothing yet.
So what is the socialist-liberal solution? Why even tighter gun laws of course. If the toughest gun laws in the world aren’t working, make them even tougher. Somehow, at some point, violent criminals will stop and make the same rational calculations that innocent law-abiding people make. That is, they will have an epiphany and say, “Gee, I better not carry a revolver because it is against the law and I might get caught and go to jail.’’ A look at all the semi-automatic and automatic weapons seized recently by Vancouver police from gangs would disabuse any normal person from such illusions. But not New Democrats, Greens or Liberals. They see the problem as “too many guns”, not “too many criminals” and especially not, “too much immigration too quickly from countries of unassimilable cultures where alienated youth find difficulty integrating into the Canadian mainstream.” Their answer is more gun control and more ‘diversity awareness’. Yet neither Jack Layton or those of his hopeless liberal ilk can document one case where a handgun leapt up from a glove compartment or a drawer by itself and into the right hand of an assailant, and then discharged bullets without a human finger being recruited as an assistant, directed by a human brain that made a conscious decision to fire at a human target. If guns cause gun violence, then matches cause arson. Will “match” control laws be in the next Layton-NDP election platform?
What gun control does is control the availability of guns to innocent, vulnerable people. Women, the elderly, and the weak are helpless to defend themselves presently. But if it is bad for them now, what will it be like when all of Canada will become like New Orleans was during the aftermath of Katrina? When there are no police in sight to protect us? How long would the LA riots have lasted if there were not police or national guard to quell it? Police and guardsmen who are paid for with oil economy tax funds? Even police states are unable to protect law-abiding citizens during emergencies of this scale and severity. If the Stalinist city of Leningrad in the early 1940s couldn’t stop looters and murderers, what could the miniscule numbers of cops and soldiers in Canada do in such circumstances? In the coming emergency we will not only have power-down, the collapse of medical care and education, the loss of our pension system, but the complete absence of public safety. Ask someone in Zimbabwe what it is like now, especially the white seniors cowering in their houses. It isn’t pretty.
One thing though, rampant crime in post-carbon Canada won’t be ethnic anymore. Collapse will bring out the nascent criminal element in all of us. Criminality is not a matter of genes. Canadian-born thugs of English Canadian descent will join the party and rule the streets, as some of them do right now. The money to pay the army of police officers needed to contend with them will not exist. We will have squandered all of it on Jack Layton’s welfare, immigration, multicultural and feminist agendas, and our shadow of an economy will never restore our former spending levels.
The following is an observation and comment, of what is now unfolding in the United States:
V.A. “ The Los Angeles pension system is one among many in trouble. Cities and counties around the country are strapped and cutting both pensions and current services. Police, fire, and libraries --- services that citizens highly value -- are often the first cut. This seems like a ploy to squeeze more money out of the few who have some left. Meanwhile funding continues for welfare, education and healthcare for illegal aliens. Politics being politics, one can expect those trends to continue. Which drives the need to look after oneself. Financial analyst D.N. recommends the following and adds a news article from the L.A. Times…..”
D.N. “This is an example of why I have been suggesting that those of you who have not done so, please make all haste to secure supplies of ammunition with which you can protect your family and property in the event that a worse-case scenario in your local municipality were to arise. Let’s assume that it does and that the city is forced to let go law enforcement officials, police or deputies or drastically curtail the size of those departments. What do you think the criminal element in that city would do? For that matter, what might otherwise law-abiding people who are hard pressed to secure food because of their inability to secure gainful employment might be tempted to do when faced with such a dire emergency?
Would you say that this is not possible? On what basis? Not only did California, the most populous state in the nation run out of money but one of the largest cosmopolitan areas of that state is facing severe financial strains. If cities cannot sell their municipal bonds and raise money because there are no buyers, where are they supposed to get the revenue they require to fund their day to day operations?
When all is said and done you are responsible for your own safety.
Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”
That sounds like good advice for Americans. But what counsel is available to Canadians, who have not only been disarmed by their government’s gun laws, but disarmed of their grasp of reality by decades of cultural and moral relativism and a pathological aversion to violent methods of countering violence? I know, lets quote the Delai Lama to murderers, thieves and rapists. Or make an emergency 911 call for a vegetarian Buddhist to be instantly dispatched from a health food store to come to your aid.
PS Tell me why this scenario will not unfold. Tell me that gun control laws will make me safer. One of the defining characteristics of civilization is that the state has a monopoly on violence. But what happens when the state becomes impotent in the face of illegal violence? What happens then is that we no longer have a civilization, but an every-man-for-himself free for all. Tim M.
This is the “Laffer” effect which the Swedish Social Democrats discovered 18 years ago. They realized that “less” was “more”. Lower taxes meant higher tax revenues, to a point. So where to get all revenue to pay for the endless socialist shopping list of services and benefits? Economic growth of course. That meant more immigration, especially from poorer nations that supply cheap labour, but cheap, unskilled labour, while remunerative for employers, is a proven fiscal strain on the state, which cannot tax them sufficiently for re-imbursement of their high claims on health and educational services. And so now, one out of nine Swedish residents is foreign born and not of demonstrable net economic benefit to taxpayers. But once established, the question then became, “How do we make these newcomers comfortable?” The answer was the same as governments elsewhere gave, governments like that of the Irish republic. Make “multiculturalism” state policy and renounce our own cultural heritage. So the Swedes disestablished the state “Lutheran Church” and introduced all the trappings of Canadian multiculturalism. The second-language training, the diversity “awareness” courses, the anti-hate laws etc etc. Ditto Norway, Germany, Holland and so on. A cultural make-over to make cheap labour feel at home in a foreign land. The discomfort of the native-born majority was just dismissed as bigoted nativism and parochialism. Socialists and big business joined hands to fight “racism” and provote “diversity”. The diversity of a formerly egalitarian nation now being segregated into richer elites and poorer service workers.
Aside from free speech and national culture, what will be the other major casualties of open immigration? The environment, the welfare state and law and order. As the vilified Milton Friedman said, the welfare state cannot co-exist with mass immigration. Only so many dollars can be spent on health and education, and to repeat, the fiscal burden of allowing hordes of poorly skilled migrants legal or illegal, from poorer countries, who cannot pay the higher taxes needed to defray their consumption of government services, will bankrupt the social safety net. One need only check out the hospital closures in America’s gateway states to corroborate that prediction. And educational costs for schooling ethnic minorities from Stockholm to Oslo to London to Vancouver to El Paso or Phoenix are degrading the quality of education to a noticeable degree. But what about law and order? The higher incarceration rates of poor migrants reflect the truth of the so-called “hysterical” alarm that the less reputable tabloid press sounds about ethnic crime. When governments everywhere must slash their budgets, law enforcement will suffer as well.
During the October federal election of 2008, Jack Layton wrung his hands with distress at yet more shootings in Toronto. He alluded to the many ‘friends’ he lost to gun violence. Yet never once did he mention who was committing this gun crime. He didn’t have the guts, for if he did, his reputation as a progressive would be instantly trashed. The preponderance of gun violence in metro Toronto was not being committed by whites. It was not being committed by African Canadians either. It was not even being committed by African Canadians from the West Indies. But, disproportionately, young male African Canadians from Jamaica, a phenomena that was documented by a five part series in Canada’s major newspaper, the Globe and Mail in 1992. It would be difficult to nail that point down with numbers because the federal government has banned the collection of ethnic crime statistics. Only ethnic statistics that can justify job discrimination against native born Canadians are collected. But the facts are evident to cops on the beat and to every objective observer with two eyes to see what has been happening for the last two decades. It is emphatically not a racial problem, but in large part an ethno-cultural one, and it issues not from ethnic minorities but minorities of those minorities. Hyphenated Canadians of any hue despise their own criminal element. What ever its source though, violent crime on city streets is a fact of life in Canada’s multicultural paradise. And you ain’t seen nothing yet.
So what is the socialist-liberal solution? Why even tighter gun laws of course. If the toughest gun laws in the world aren’t working, make them even tougher. Somehow, at some point, violent criminals will stop and make the same rational calculations that innocent law-abiding people make. That is, they will have an epiphany and say, “Gee, I better not carry a revolver because it is against the law and I might get caught and go to jail.’’ A look at all the semi-automatic and automatic weapons seized recently by Vancouver police from gangs would disabuse any normal person from such illusions. But not New Democrats, Greens or Liberals. They see the problem as “too many guns”, not “too many criminals” and especially not, “too much immigration too quickly from countries of unassimilable cultures where alienated youth find difficulty integrating into the Canadian mainstream.” Their answer is more gun control and more ‘diversity awareness’. Yet neither Jack Layton or those of his hopeless liberal ilk can document one case where a handgun leapt up from a glove compartment or a drawer by itself and into the right hand of an assailant, and then discharged bullets without a human finger being recruited as an assistant, directed by a human brain that made a conscious decision to fire at a human target. If guns cause gun violence, then matches cause arson. Will “match” control laws be in the next Layton-NDP election platform?
What gun control does is control the availability of guns to innocent, vulnerable people. Women, the elderly, and the weak are helpless to defend themselves presently. But if it is bad for them now, what will it be like when all of Canada will become like New Orleans was during the aftermath of Katrina? When there are no police in sight to protect us? How long would the LA riots have lasted if there were not police or national guard to quell it? Police and guardsmen who are paid for with oil economy tax funds? Even police states are unable to protect law-abiding citizens during emergencies of this scale and severity. If the Stalinist city of Leningrad in the early 1940s couldn’t stop looters and murderers, what could the miniscule numbers of cops and soldiers in Canada do in such circumstances? In the coming emergency we will not only have power-down, the collapse of medical care and education, the loss of our pension system, but the complete absence of public safety. Ask someone in Zimbabwe what it is like now, especially the white seniors cowering in their houses. It isn’t pretty.
One thing though, rampant crime in post-carbon Canada won’t be ethnic anymore. Collapse will bring out the nascent criminal element in all of us. Criminality is not a matter of genes. Canadian-born thugs of English Canadian descent will join the party and rule the streets, as some of them do right now. The money to pay the army of police officers needed to contend with them will not exist. We will have squandered all of it on Jack Layton’s welfare, immigration, multicultural and feminist agendas, and our shadow of an economy will never restore our former spending levels.
The following is an observation and comment, of what is now unfolding in the United States:
V.A. “ The Los Angeles pension system is one among many in trouble. Cities and counties around the country are strapped and cutting both pensions and current services. Police, fire, and libraries --- services that citizens highly value -- are often the first cut. This seems like a ploy to squeeze more money out of the few who have some left. Meanwhile funding continues for welfare, education and healthcare for illegal aliens. Politics being politics, one can expect those trends to continue. Which drives the need to look after oneself. Financial analyst D.N. recommends the following and adds a news article from the L.A. Times…..”
D.N. “This is an example of why I have been suggesting that those of you who have not done so, please make all haste to secure supplies of ammunition with which you can protect your family and property in the event that a worse-case scenario in your local municipality were to arise. Let’s assume that it does and that the city is forced to let go law enforcement officials, police or deputies or drastically curtail the size of those departments. What do you think the criminal element in that city would do? For that matter, what might otherwise law-abiding people who are hard pressed to secure food because of their inability to secure gainful employment might be tempted to do when faced with such a dire emergency?
Would you say that this is not possible? On what basis? Not only did California, the most populous state in the nation run out of money but one of the largest cosmopolitan areas of that state is facing severe financial strains. If cities cannot sell their municipal bonds and raise money because there are no buyers, where are they supposed to get the revenue they require to fund their day to day operations?
When all is said and done you are responsible for your own safety.
Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”
That sounds like good advice for Americans. But what counsel is available to Canadians, who have not only been disarmed by their government’s gun laws, but disarmed of their grasp of reality by decades of cultural and moral relativism and a pathological aversion to violent methods of countering violence? I know, lets quote the Delai Lama to murderers, thieves and rapists. Or make an emergency 911 call for a vegetarian Buddhist to be instantly dispatched from a health food store to come to your aid.
PS Tell me why this scenario will not unfold. Tell me that gun control laws will make me safer. One of the defining characteristics of civilization is that the state has a monopoly on violence. But what happens when the state becomes impotent in the face of illegal violence? What happens then is that we no longer have a civilization, but an every-man-for-himself free for all. Tim M.
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