Maria Stella wrote:
>
> > >What environmentalist ISN'T against killing all the trees John??????
>
> To correlate with Budiansky and others, please answer to this:
> It is obviousl (though not in Budiansky's book), that 'environmentalists'
> are of many categories, and some here are trying to point out taht
> Budiansky was not addressing reallistically thinking individuals, but
> mainly 'preservation' freaks. My question:
> Do you know many serious scientists, peer reviewed etc, that address the
> ignorant grassroots public rather than their peers? Perhaps yes, but how
> many?
No, i agree. Not enough. We have guys coming out over specific issues -
but they need to feel pretty strongly to come out, because of the risks they
face (especially with the way the universities are run in NZ since 1992).
If they do talk to the public someone from the other side is bound to
suggest "PR". Academics generally feel much more comfortable with talking
amoungst their peers - which is safer for a start, and where responses are
likely to be more reasoned.
[snip]
> I agree with what John Foster says of course. If you REALLY want to be
> politically correct, you have to admit that Budiansky (more later) and all
> Public Realatins companies, etc that are condemning preservationists for
> ignorance, never come up and critisize the scientificness of the much more
> widesperead plague of TV commercials.
> It is obvious taht TV commercials are full of lies and lies and lies (e.g.
> take cosmetics), but has our darling Budiansky or every one like him, or
> anyone that agrees with him uncontroversially in this list, ever explained
> to us why scientists do not attack scientifically this side of the
> sleeping public, 'consumers', while they attack 'environmentalists' or
> 'preservationists' so much?
Good point. But as I say above I think that academics only come out on
specific issues when they feel strongly about it. A particular and
controversial add is more likely to get a public statement than general
adds. But there is one example I have of a statement against consumerism -
in relation to the argument that a sustainable "ethic" cannot look just at a
land ethic. It needs a consumption ethic as well.
Doug MacCleery wrote a paper last year
===========
Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic: Is it Only Half a Loaf Unless a Consumption Ethic
Accompanies It?
Or
Is the Shift to “Ecological Sustainability” on U.S. Public Lands Merely a
Sophisticated “NIMBYism” Masquerading as a “Paradigm Shift”?
By Doug MacCleery, USDA/Forest Service
Washington, D.C.
"Over the last two decades there has been a substantial shift in the
management emphasis of public, particularly federal, lands in the U.S. That
shift has been to a substantially increased emphasis on managing these lands
for biodiversity protection and amenity values, with a corresponding
reduction in commodity outputs. Over the last decade, timber harvest on
National Forest lands has dropped by 70 percent, oil and gas leasing by
about 40 percent, and livestock grazing by at least 10 percent."
.
.
.
and one dominant theme summed up in these three paras -
"A cynic might assert that one of the reasons for the belated adoption of
Aldo Leopold’s land ethic is that it has become relatively easy and painless
for most of us to do so. When Leopold was a young man forming his ideas,
more than 40 percent of the U.S. population lived on farms. An additional
20 percent lived in rural areas and were closely associated with the
management of land. Today less than two percent of us are farmers and most
of us, even those living in rural areas, are disconnected from any direct
role in the management of land. Adopting a land ethic is easy for most of
us today because it imposes the primary burden to act on someone else.
While few of us are resource producers any more, we all remain resource
consumers. This is one area we all can act upon that could have a positive
effect on resource use, demand and management. Yet few of us connect our
resource consumption to what must be done to the land to make it possible.
At the same time many of us espouse the land ethic, our operating motto in
the marketplace seems to be “shop ‘till you drop” or “whoever dies with the
most toys wins.”
The disjunct between people as consumers and the land is reflected in rising
discord and alienation between producers and consumers. Loggers, ranchers,
fishermen, miners, and other resource producers have all at times felt
themselves subject to scorn and ridicule by the very society that benefits
from the products they produce. What is absent from much environmental
discourse in the U.S. today is a recognition that urbanized society is no
less dependent upon the products of forest and field than were the
subsistence farmers of America's past. This is clearly reflected in the
language used in such discourse. Rural communities traditionally engaged in
producing timber and other natural resources for urban consumers are
commonly referred to as natural resource "dependent" communities. Seldom are
the truly resource dependent communities like Boulder, Denver, Detroit, or
Boston ever referred to as such."
===============
The article is quite short (3 pages a4) and I could post if desired.
????????? Anyone want it?
But once again, MacCleery is commenting from the standpoint of a particular
issue (USFS) to provide context.
> Do you REALLY think that what John Foster has the immense patience to
> repeat and repeat and repeat is so trivial that you neve answer?
I confess to not reading this repeated trivial message.
> Do you REALLY think that you can keep ignoring the problem of unfettered
> consumerism (e.g. by not answering what John actually says) and still want
> to be politically correct in this list?
No, I agree with you. But I HAVE mentioned a consumption ethic. MacCleery
made some interesting points which is why I modified my conditions for a
sustainable future to include a consumption ethic as well as a land ethic
and a move to renewable, low energy demanding, low environmental impact
resources. See my post to John last week.
Chris Perley
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