> Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 14:49:17 -1000
> From: Jim Dator <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Most people seem to think we can preserve, or at least restore, ecosystems
> to some sort of "natural" cybernetic state so that humans will once again
> live in a sustaining and sustainable environment.
Yes this is a prevail;ing problem. Also orthodox politicians try to
paint 'greens' as beleieving that - when we don't.
> I do not think that is an option any more. Maybe two hundred years ago.
> Maybe 2000 years ago. Not now.
By definition we cannot return since by our actions we have and are
already eliminated a large number of species.
> The only "sustainable" future I can imagine (and it is very difficult to
> imagine too) is that prefigured in the title of Walter Truett Anderson's
> book of a decade ago: "To govern evolution."
>
> We need to understand that nature is essentially dead.
Pardon?! I think we part company here, nature (by which I take it you
mean Earth) is alive and well! In
at least one previous case, nature has been irrevocably *changed* by
one species type the 'anerobic microbes' who 'poluted' the planet with Oxygen
and thus killed of a large proportion of the then extant species,
including themselves. What *is* a racing certainity is that if we
don't do something soon (and I agree that we probably won't) then we
*will* be dead! But the planet will be fine - different - but fine.
> If we humans wish to survive, then we need to envision and
> create a sustainable artificial environment.
This seems to me to be the dualistic thinking that got us here in the
first place. When we describe human activity as 'artifical' we
separate ourselves from *our* nature and *that* is not sustainable.
-------------------------------------------------
Mark Elliot -
CCSR
Faculty of Economics
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester
M13 9PL
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Phone number: 0161-275-4948
Fax: 0161-275-4722
