How many pages does it take?
LOL! Enough that I don't get posts like this one:
CO, this statement is an eye opener. I had begun to believe that we didn't share the same views on this, due to comments that you had made in a previous thread on a similar subject. Clearly that is not so. It now appears that we are in near-lockstep agreement. Words can be funny things at times.
It's not that words are funny things. You tend to read into them in terms of conventional battle lines from which I don't operate because, from what I can tell, you haven't read enough of my recommendations for how environmental management markets could work. For example, you have assumed that my preferences were for land preservation as responsible stewardship of natural resources, where I have NEVER advocated anything of the sort. I have always maintainded that nature needs our care, particularly when we have massively and rapidly altered the global boundary conditions under which it operates (particularly nitrogen, water, and carbon cycles). I also have said many time that we had best know what we're doing when we monkey with natural systems because mistakes are VERY expensive if not virtually impossible to reverse, which is why I think markets in risks and use of offsetting assets are the way to go.
I don't think nature is as resiliant as you apparently do. I give you Central Asia, most of Africa, and (if we don't get it together) the American West. Tens of millions of acres of weeds and exotic bugs on top of heedless over-use do have their adverse consequences that can be permanent without massive investment. We do agree that preservation of such is a very destructive thing to do.