Gold vs. trees

[Narz]

http://www.ecohustler.co.uk/2011/09/27/this-economy-is-killing-our-planet-so-lets-kill-this-ecomomy/

Great article IMO. Lot of good articles on that site.

TL/DR version (it's really pretty short) is destroying forests (something essential) in search of gold (something largely useless) is sick.

This Economy Is Killing Our Planet So Lets Kill This Economy
On September 27, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In Activist, Business, Current Affairs, Evil Corp, Evolution, Extinction, Gaia, Sustainability

We know that the current global economy is suicidal because every day it eats a little further into the natural systems that sustain civilization. Today is Earth Overshoot Day, this means that today we have consumed all of the resources that the planet can afford to give us in this 12 month period. For the rest of the year we are eating into her reserves.

To be sustainable society must live off the interest of natural capital not the capital itself. Being unsustainable means that the biosphere is dying and yet still, governments the world over are determined to stimulate new economic ‘growth’ at all costs. This is mass insanity. Trying to stimulate growth on a dying planet will only speed up our own demise.

A specific example of this economy’s insanity goes like this: as the economy crashes (because increased growth is no longer possible) traders, financiers and other merchants of doom want to invest in something they can rely on, something nice like gold. Increased demand for gold pushes the price up. This increase in price, in turn, drives increased mining.

Today, the majority of all the gold that has been extracted from the earth sits in ordered ranks in bank vaults. This gold adds absolutely no value to any body’s life. It serves a totally abstract function.

Of course, the mining and the processing of the gold has huge impacts on the natural world. The current gold rush caused by this economic crash has led to a ‘chaotic jungle gold rush‘ chewing up more of the Amazon that we all need in order to breath. This shows absolutely clearly the flaws of the current economic model. The Amazon, despite being understood to be the ‘Lungs of the World’ is assigned a low economic value and therefore the logic of the market is to obliterate it and convert it into more cold bars of bullion sitting in bank vaults. This economy is fundamentally stupid.

Unfortunately protesting or appealing for sanity will not work. Recently, and predictably, protesters rallying on Wall Street were attacked by police. The banks, corporations and governments are focused solely on keeping the sinking ship afloat and won’t let anyone get in their way.

We do have the power to bring this economy down but we have to build the alternative. We can vote for it by spending differently and investing in our own alternative economies and by boycotting corporations and governments. The ultimate crash is coming and when it does the investments we have made locally in the real fabric of our communities and our land is what will actually count.

The bolded is the hard part. Over the past four thousand years cultures that valued short-term gains over long-term sustainability slowly but surely ravenged the planet & subjugated or annihilated cultures that took just what they needed & did not expand or exploit beyond necessity. It's a primal fear that any group (city, county or nation) that tries to scale down & reduce it's impact or think in the long term will be overrun & surpassed by those who aren't willing to. This is why Kyoto & other climate talks failed. Over the last few millenia evolution favored human cultures that valued growth over sustainability. The question is whether human beings can manage to human cultures can now adapt to a world where that strategy no longer flies. The problem I see (as an amateur student of history) is what I've already mentioned, it seems that human cultures that try to be smart long-term are overrun by ones that are greedy & take what they can when they can. How can long-term-thinking man dominate greedy-man or at least keep him from dominating?

 

[G-Max]

Short-term demand for gold does not mean a sudden increase in mining. The Amazon is not being strip-mined for gold. This whole article is nonsense from an eco-terrorist group that wants to destroy the global economy and send us back to the stone age.

 

[Narz]

Short-term demand for gold does not mean a sudden increase in mining. The Amazon is not being strip-mined for gold.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=gold-is-new-threat-to-amazon
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/12/amazon-gold-rush-peru-rain-forest_n_875482.html

The invisible hand of the market has no morals, it would fist-rape us all in the name of profit.

This whole article is nonsense from an eco-terrorist group that wants to destroy the global economy and send us back to the stone age.

No, it's the knee-jerk, fear-based dismissals like yours that will send us "back to the stone age" if anything. Just because we're aiming to save the jungle doesn't mean we have to live there (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).

Also, you use the word "terrorist" awfully lightly. Maybe you should look inside instead to see why you are so terrified.

 

[berkut]

Half of the amazon is protected in reserves. Every farm has to keep a percent of it's land untouched.The cost of dennying ourself even more territory and it's welth canot be justified in a country with milions of poors.

 

[G-Max]

The mining also is almost entirely illegal.

Clearly, what we need are more laws against this sort of thing.

 

[classical_hero]

The fact that you call gold useless shows your bias right from the start. A position like that shows massive ignorance. If you are using a computer to type that message, then you have some gold there, since it is an excellent conductor. The physical properties of Gold make it a useful metal. Historically it has been a metal that is valuable, which is why we use it for storing wealth, which in itself is an important function of an economy. Considering this article, I doubt that there are any worthwhile articles on that site you mentioned.

 

[BasketCase]

If we kill off the modern-day economy, human life will become even more unsustainable than it already is. The OP solution will not solve the problem, it will aggravate it.

Human technology has always been steadily reducing the impact of each individual human. Where it once took a square mile to feed a person indefinitely, today it takes half an acre. It's not the modern economy that's the problem. The problem is that there are too many of us; our numbers are growing faster than our per-person impact is shrinking.

 

[Narz]

The fact that you call gold useless shows your bias right from the start. A position like that shows massive ignorance.

Read more carefully, I said mostly useless.

Sure, gold is used in cables & other eletronics. I'm not ignorant. I know that.

However, that's not where the majority of gold is used. Gold is a luxury commodity & you know that, you're just using that tiny little issue to ignore the issue & troll the messenger.

If you are using a computer to type that message, then you have some gold there, since it is an excellent conductor.

A little bit but probably 100 times less than in my girlfriend's necklace.

The physical properties of Gold make it a useful metal. Historically it has been a metal that is valuable, which is why we use it for storing wealth, which in itself is an important function of an economy.

Nonsense. It's valuable becomes it's a symbol of beauty & luxury. Copper has always been & always will be far more useful generally.

Considering this article, I doubt that there are any worthwhile articles on that site you mentioned.

Considering you stopped reading at the word gold in the title I doubt you'd get much value out of any article you read. Anyway, it was my statement you had a problem with (gold is mostly useless) so why blame the article?

Human technology has always been steadily reducing the impact of each individual human.

I already dealt with this goobledegook statement in another thread. A typical America in the 21st century has a larger eco-footprint than two kings, a duke & fourteen jesters in medieval times (Source).

 

[Hygro]

Sorry to break up the quote but:

If we kill off the modern-day economy, human life will become even more unsustainable than it already is. The OP solution will not solve the problem, it will aggravate it.

Yeah, we need to keep innovating and that requires a progressive ecnomy, so in this sense you are correct.

Human technology has always been steadily reducing the impact of each individual human. Where it once took a square mile to feed a person indefinitely, today it takes half an acre. It's not the modern economy that's the problem. The problem is that there are too many of us; our numbers are growing faster than our per-person impact is shrinking.

This could not be further from the factual truth. Humans have been steadily and exponentially increasing the energy use per person, which also means environmental impact per person. The average person today now consumes the same as a blue whale. A BLUE WHALE. There are 7 billion blue whales running around! This is not sustainable.

Here's a classical economic principle in action. As we have increased efficiency, we have increased total consumption. This is what happens with all resources when left to a free market--as their efficiencies increase, so do their total usages.

 

[Narz]

Sorry to break up the quote but:
Yeah, we need to keep innovating and that requires a progressive ecnomy, so in this sense you are correct.

There are innovations even during periods of economic contraction (depressions and recessions) so there's no reason to think the economy must continually expand for innovation to occur.

 

[Winner]

I think it's increasingly clear that the way global economy works is totally unsustainable and needs to be reformed profoundly if humanity is to survive this century in any semblance of civilized order.

 

[NedimNapoleon]

I quote agent Smith!

"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure. "

Money is more important than a jungle I say cut it.

 

[Narz]

I quote agent Smith!

"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure. "

Yeah, reminds me of another quote. “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” - Edward Abbey

Money is more important than a jungle I say cut it.

You're not alone in that view sadly. I think it's because ironicly, money seems more real / less abstract than an ecosystem to most people.

 

[NedimNapoleon]

I quote Louis the XV

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

 

[Winner]

Well, there was a deluge, but it didn't really end well for the royal family

 

[El_Machinae]

I like the 'Earth Overshoot Day' in the title. It's like "tax-freedom day". A neat indicator.
Environmentalism is so much like finance, I sometimes boggle why people are on opposite sides of the coin on the two issues. I can't have had that unique of an education ... speaking of people with finance backgrounds ...

The average person today now consumes the same as a blue whale. A BLUE WHALE. There are 7 billion blue whales running around! This is not sustainable.

Average human, or average citizen in the developed world? As well, this is a great reference and a great metric. Do you have a good source for it?

 

[Cutlass]

Let me stop you right here...

A specific example of this economy’s insanity goes like this: as the economy crashes (because increased growth is no longer possible)...

According to who?

 

[Tee Kay]

Half of the amazon is protected in reserves. Every farm has to keep a percent of it's land untouched.The cost of dennying ourself even more territory and it's welth canot be justified in a country with milions of poors.

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.

I think we as a species are ingenious enough to think of ways to use resources sustainable if we are forced to. The dilemma between conservation and clearing land for farming, for instance, was actually solved a few thousand years ago by ancient Amazonians who decided to farm trees; in their case, they were forced to because their tools were as crappy as hell. Incentives and disincentives can be powerful; regulation is one way, money is another. You could invoke threats of spiritual damnation (as was done in Thailand, with limited success). But until there's some serious education on man's relationship with the environment to change people's attitude, it's going to an uphill battle.

 

[NiRv4n4]

Forests grow back, for the most part; this is especially the case in developed countries, where loggers/miners are often mandated to restore the environment after operations. However, when it comes to the Amazon, Congo, Southeast Asia, the forest takes a lot longer to recover; especially with the methods that are used to clear it. I think if environmental protection laws are in place, this isn't any different from logging; however, giving a bunch of peasants or corporations freedom over the forests with no repercussions is a bad idea.

 

[Tee Kay]

Forests grow back

A forest can never be truly replaced. Even getting the land to look like a forest again takes decades. And meanwhile you lose species through the destruction of habitat.

However, when it comes to the Amazon, Congo, Southeast Asia, the forest takes a lot longer to recover; especially with the methods that are used to clear it.

It's also partly to do with geography; tropical soil is terrible. All the nutrients are stored in the vegetation. Remove the vegetation and you remove the nutrients. Biocharring can add nutrients back into the soil, but unfortunately not many people know about it.