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Re: The Limits To Growth



On 12 Dec 1996, David Lloyd-Jones wrote:

> On Wed, 11 Dec 1996 13:31:20 EDT, Toby Reiter <str4552@OBERLIN.EDU>
> wrote:
> 
> 
> >p.s. You obviously don't live in Ohio.   States in the industrial belt 
> >which continue to be industrialized have some of the worst water quality 
> >in the country, mostly because the U.S. government regulates businesses 
> >in how fast they can poison other people and animals, and not whether 
> >they should be doing it in the first place.
>  
> Toby,
>  
> The Monongahela River used to burn from time to time before the white
> people arrived in North America.  The original inhabitants used to
> skim the oil and rub it on arthritic limbs.
>  
> The river is now cleaner than it was in 1976, in 1776, or in 1276 --
> because we made even more valuable ways of cleaning up nature's oil
> spill.  Think Quaker State.

After reading some of your posts, I'm beginning to become a little 
scared.  There is no way you can sat that humans can operate an ecosystem 
better than nature--it's just not true. Water quality in the U.S. 
overall is much worse than before European colonization. There are much 
fewer forests in the U.S. than there were before, and the forests that do 
exist are almost entirely second or even third growth, and as a result 
have lower biomass to land ratios, and are much weaker in terms of 
diversity and efficiency of the system.

I'm wondering where you're coming from. What is your particular 
background, and what is your purpose? On my end I am a college freshman 
in an introductory environmental studies course. I know my knowledge is 
limited, but from what I have read I can see that most of what the 
environmental movement would have implemented in the U.S. and around the 
world would have better economic as well as environmental ramifications 
for humans and all other members of the biosphere.  My purpose is to try 
and create a society in which social connections are improved, emphasis 
is placed on moral and ethical improvements are put above economic ones, 
and humans live a sustainable equilibrium within nature.

Waiting to hear your response....

Toby Reiter



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