NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/sci/environm/13900

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-26 | 2.4 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!munnari.oz.au!uniwa!DIALix!tillage!gil
From: [e-mail] (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Save the Planet and the Economy at the Same time!
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
References: <[e-mail]>
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 92 03:31:31 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents
Lines: 39


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

 > Of course. But one can STILL avoid car ownership, if one tries, just like
 > we sacrifice to maintain good relations with people. We feel that such
 > sacrifices are worth it.

This idea of sacrifice is a real bun in the oven. The criteria for
effective management of the environment must necessarily be based on a
high quality cost/benefit analysis for all cases. Already many of us
have "sacrificed" far more than enough, by putting aside far more
lucrative careers to study in depth the various problems we face in
common, and to seek globally an interdisciplinary discourse on those
problems that we can work through them and finally achieve something.

What we receive most often in return is the most egregious abuse and
personal attacks against us by the uninformed and panic-stricken who
want to jump on the political bandwagon to promote simplistic, one-
dimensional solutions, instead of settling down to work with us on a
total systems management strategy. I do not have to sacrifice anything
to maintain good relations with such people; unless they show they are
prepared to exhibit a willingness to enter good relations with me, we
remain distant.

Which is the largest single part of the problem in itself.

Now, I own a car among other things which by any reasonable analysis
assists me in pursuing by any reasonable standards workable solutions
to the global problems we have. On the other hand, you might like to
visit Guangzhou during peak-hour; getting stuck in a traffic jam of
*bicycles* clogging up a four lane highway for literally miles, with
whole convoys of trucks and official vehicles just stuck there until
it clears, is no rational idea of progress whatsoever.

--
Gil Hardwick                          Internet:  [e-mail]
Consulting Ethnologist                              Fidonet:  3:690/660.6
PERTH, Western Australia                         Voice:  ([phone]
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