Posted on 05/31/2003 1:46:05 PM PDT by sauropod
Rectitudine Sto. Sauropod
18th Century North America was a sustainable environment, however it relied on slavery.
The term "Sustainable Development" is an oxymoron.
Another sustainable society was England during the time of William the Bastard to the rise of the Tudors.
BTW, the troops are tired and want to come home, I support them.
You do know that the NWO is just another name for global domination by US don't you?
U.S. Army Officer Commissioning Oath
"I, (state your name), having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of Second Lieutenant, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of The United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter. So help me God. "
I took the long way around but sometimes those enemies might even be in DC.
Oh well, a bump is a bump is a bump!
Also, Ronald Bailey of Reason Magazine had some terrific reports from last year's U.N. sponsored "World Summit on Sustainable Development". You can either click on the WSSD Keyword, or search on exact phrase Ronald Bailey Live from WSSD. (In the later case you'll need to also select "Archive" rather than "Quick" search.) There were also good articles about the WSSD from Tech Central Online that I posted.
I'll post some specific links here later when I have time.
REASON * April 1999
Precautionary Tale
The latest environmentalist concept--the Precautionary Principle--seeks to stop innovation before it happens. Very bad idea.
I have on tape (somewhere) a Bill Moyers special from Jo'burg where some Indian delegate complained mightily about the flush toilet (if memory serves).
It turned out to be a bit of a mistake to hold it in South Africa, where the little brown people were able to express their own opinion about what the elitist lefties were planning for them:
"Profit Beats Poverty" (Ronald Bailey Live from WSSD)
Johannesburg—"Profit Beats Poverty," "Say No to Eco-Imperialism," "Free Trade Is Fair Trade," and "People or Pandas?" were just a few of the placards carried by 300 or so protesters at the Sandton Convention Center, where delegates from 190 countries are meeting at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD)...The protesters included farmers from India who had forced their government to let them grow genetically improved pest-resistant cotton, members of the Farmers Association of Africa, and local informal peddlers who are members of the Union of Gauteng Street Hawkers. The demonstrators delivered a memorandum to a representative of the President of the Summit, demanding, among other things, that poor farmers and traders be given the freedom to buy or sell their goods to whomever they wish, freedom to grow any crop of their choice and freedom of access to the best available technologies. They also demanded that the United States, Japan and the European Union open their markets to goods produced in poor developing countries.
Protester Barun Mitra from the Liberty Institute in New Delhi announced a special "Bullshit Award" for the many environmentalist non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which he claimed "are trying to sustain poverty." Winners included Greenpeace International and the Third World Network—with a special mention of India's "own divinity of poverty," Vandana Shiva, the strident eco-activist who once opposed American food aid to 10 million Indians left homeless after a typhoon because the food contained genetically improved corn and soybeans. The award consisted of a wooden placard displaying nicely laminated heaps of dung.
I see two huge problems here. First, we can't predict next winter's weather but we're supposed to be able to divine the needs of future generations well enough to make today's decisions? Were that the case, humans of the 16th century (had they the ability) would have rid the earth of oil as it was a nuisance to agrarian life.
This is typical collectivist rhetoric. They continually claim to speak for others. First, they spoke for the peasant against the monarch. That was all well and good until the peasants figured out the cure was worse than the disease. Their search for new constituents led them to speak for "the children," "the environment," "endangered species," anything that could not later embarrass them as had the peasants. Now they have latched on to "future generations," the perfect constituency. Always voiceless. Immune from the most potent attack against environmentalists: that they hate humans. If they can somehow get sustainable development some traction, communism will flower anew.
The second problem is the solution those advancing sustainable development propose. Socialism has proven time and again an ability to create more needs than it fills. Future generations of a socialists world will certainly face more needs that future world is unable to satisfy than will future generations of a capitalist world. That means those alive today must be even more constrained in anticipation of those greater needs of future generations.
What constraints did Malthus favor as he contemplated mass starvation in a world whose population exceeded it's ability to produce food. Of course, Malthus didn't forsee the impending "green revolution" in agriculture and that all his handwringing would be for naught.
One thing is certain. Future generations won't be solving their problems with today's knowledge base.
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