Gold vs. trees


True, which is why good regulations are based around making destroying the environment less profitable than sustainable business plans - sometimes through simply banning it, more often through incentivising 'doing it properly'. Also, the market responds entirely to the wishes of consumers, and if consumers will prefer goods made in a sustainable way (as the trend seems to be) then corporations will have to change to making their goods in this manner or be edged out.


(though I wouldn't mind spending a month or two living in the jungle like Bruce Parry, maybe when my daughter is grown up, if there are peoples who live there left or if there is any rainforest left).
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Jungles are horrible places, take it from me. The only good thing about them is Gurkha curry and a cold beer in the evening, and you won't get any of that living with the Flintstones.
 
Gold=a shiny metal with some uses in electronics that many overvalue
Trees=tall plants that can be used to build furniture and grow crops

Gold for the win? I don't think so.
 
I'm doing my part in destroying the forest, my family (3x people) uses 7x1 meters of cut wood each year, because we own a forest, hell why not use it.
 
Replace gold with paper money in the article and nothing changes.
 
Replace gold with paper money in the article and nothing changes.

Did anyone else know that dollar bills are found fully formed in mines buried in the jungle?
 
Did anyone else know that dollar bills are found fully formed in mines buried in the jungle?
Stop your lies! Everyone knows they grow in birthday money trees!

money-tree.jpg
 
The average person today now consumes the same as a blue whale. A BLUE WHALE. There are 7 billion blue whales running around!

Dude, I know the Western world has an obesity problem right now, but don't you think that you're exaggerating a bit?
 
Gold=a shiny metal with some uses in electronics that many overvalue
Trees=tall plants that can be used to build furniture and grow crops

Gold for the win? I don't think so.

You can sit on Gold.

Maybe we could solve this problem by basing our currency on in ground trees.
 
that reminds me of the 3rd book in the Hitch-Hikers guide to the galaxy book thay featured a bunch that tryed to use leaves as currency but found thay had an inflation problem so thay started burning down the forest.
 
Why not extract the gold and then replant the trees afterwards? Keep a few patches of old growth to help provide a seed population for natural regrowth of all the plant species.
 
Because it costs money, obviously.
 
I quote Louis the XV

"Aprés moi, c'était un deluge!" - "After me, the flood!"

I thought that was Madame Pompadour?

That's a problem, I agree. What is needed is a change of mentality; forests should not be thought of a bunch of trees uselessly occupying useful land, but rather as a precious asset which is directly related to people's wellbeing and should be managed for human use in a way that is sustainable. Environmentalists who appeals to a sense to duty to a "Mother Gaia" or something along those lines are, I think, misguided. What instead needs to be hammered into people's heads is that clearing forests unsustainably is like shooting yourself in the foot.

In technical speak, you're arguing for environmentalism over ecologism. But ecologists would argue that without a strong moral and philosophical backing (i.e. in the form of ecologist thinking), environmentalism is inherently anthropocentric and self-serving and would therefore not create the kind of change in mentality that is enough to spur dramatic changes in habits. Heck, I think I argued that in an essay once, though I'm no ecologist.
 
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