Kenneth Boulding was an economist known for having a way with words and refusing to mince them. His most biting criticisms were reserved for the myopia of his own discipline: "Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist" and "Mathematics brought rigor to economics. Unfortunately it also brought mortis."
...
In 1958 he asked, "Are we to regard the world of nature simply as a storehouse to be robbed for the immediate benefit of man?... Does man have any responsibility for the preservation of a decent balance in nature, for the preservation of rare species, or even for the indefinite continuance of his race?" He dubbed the growth model a "cowboy economy," which treats nature as inexhaustible and rewards "reckless exploitative, romantic and violent behavior." Boulding proposed an alternative paradigm: a "spaceman economy" that likened the Earth to a self-contained spaceship. With limited resources, members of a spaceman economy have a decided incentive to save rather than consume.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
A Confession ~ Leo Tolstoy
What happened to me was something like this: I was put into a boat (I do not remember when) and pushed off from an unknown shore, shown the direction of the opposite shore, had oars put into my unpractised hands, and was left alone. I rowed as best I could and moved forward; but the further I advanced towards the middle of the stream the more rapid grew the current bearing me away from my goal and the more frequently did I encounter others, like myself, borne away by the stream. There were a few rowers who continued to row, there were others who had abandoned their oars; there were large boats and immense vessels full of people. Some struggled against the current, others yielded to it. And the further I went the more, seeing the progress down the current of all those who were adrift, I forgot the direction given me. In the very centre of the stream, amid the crowd of boats and vessels which were being borne down stream, I quite lost my direction and abandoned my oars. Around me on all sides, with mirth and rejoicing, people with sails and oars were borne down the stream, assuring me and each other that no other direction was possible. And I believed them and floated with them. And I was carried far; so far that I heard the roar of the rapids in which I must be shattered, and I saw boats shattered in them. And I recollected myself. I was long unable to understand what had happened to me. I saw before me nothing but destruction, towards which I was rushing and which I feared. I saw no safety anywhere and did not know what to do; but, looking back, I perceived innumerable boats which unceasingly and strenuously pushed across the stream, and I remembered about the shore, the oars, and the direction, and began to pull back upwards against the stream and towards the shore.
That shore was God; that direction was tradition; the oars were the freedom given me to pull for the shore and unite with God. And so the force of life was renewed in me and I again began to live.
That shore was God; that direction was tradition; the oars were the freedom given me to pull for the shore and unite with God. And so the force of life was renewed in me and I again began to live.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Shattering: Food, Politics, and the Loss of Genetic Diversity ~ Part 2
Eric's Note: This is why I try not to eat beef.
Central American cattle raising got its impetus in the 1960s with the explosion of fast-food hamburger restaurants in the United States. Burger King (the third largest fast-food chain in the U.S), Roy Rogers, and Hot Shoppes acknowledge that they use beef imported from Central America. In truth, most chains do, though some, including McDonald’s, deny it. It has been reported that one McDonald’s supplier, Industrial de Ganaderos Guatemalecos SA, concedes that they obtain their beef from Guatemala. After imported beef is inspected at a U.S. port of entry, it no longer bears the label “imported.” This bureaucratic maneuver changes Central American beef into domestic meat with one stroke of a purple U.S. Department of Agriculture stamp. Meat can sometimes change ownership several times while lying in a warehouse, before it becomes a “Big Mac” or a “Whopper.” But the connection between the North American hamburger industry and tropical deforestation is unquestionable.
Cattle ranching on tropical forest land is no simple matter. By the time cattle are munching away on the grass, the land may have been logged by a timber company, supported a few years of agricultural crops grown by a peasant-settler, or both. Stocking rates begin low—one animal per hectare—and get worse, dropping to one or two cattle per five to ten hectares. But as long as there is plenty of forest to be cut, and government incentives to do so persist, there is no need to look for greener pastures.
As U.S. beef imports have increased, per person consumption of meat in Central America has declined to point below that of a domestic cat in the U.S. Using land to raise beef and grow export crops has deprived thousands of people of their means of making a living and feeding themselves. The poor would lack the money to buy the meat even were it not exported. The meat follows the money.
Beef, big business, and politics are the ingredients of the Central American stew. Nicaragua’s former dictator, the lat Anastasio Somoz, for example, held interest in six beef importing companies in Florida and raised cattle on fifty-one haciendas in Nicaragua (to say nothing of this forty-six coffee plantations). Until the revolution in 1979, the U.S. imported more beef from that country than from any other in Central America. Costa Rica now enjoys that honor. But Costa Rica’s pastures have been suffering from drought, due to decreased rainfall and increases in the amount of runoff caused by deforestation. The deforestation is also causing severe soil erosion, which according to Norman Myers “has caused dams to silt up, in turn bringing shortages of drinking water and electricity.”
Paul and Anne Ehrlich of Stanford University contend that “more than a quarter of all Central American forests have been destroyed in the past twenty years (this book was written in 1990) to produce beef for the United States”—an activity supported and financed by billions of dollars of World Bank and U.S. “aid” money, and millions more in technological assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Organization of American States, and the Pan American World Health Organization. Today some two-thirds of the region’s arable land is devoted to cattle production.
Central American cattle raising got its impetus in the 1960s with the explosion of fast-food hamburger restaurants in the United States. Burger King (the third largest fast-food chain in the U.S), Roy Rogers, and Hot Shoppes acknowledge that they use beef imported from Central America. In truth, most chains do, though some, including McDonald’s, deny it. It has been reported that one McDonald’s supplier, Industrial de Ganaderos Guatemalecos SA, concedes that they obtain their beef from Guatemala. After imported beef is inspected at a U.S. port of entry, it no longer bears the label “imported.” This bureaucratic maneuver changes Central American beef into domestic meat with one stroke of a purple U.S. Department of Agriculture stamp. Meat can sometimes change ownership several times while lying in a warehouse, before it becomes a “Big Mac” or a “Whopper.” But the connection between the North American hamburger industry and tropical deforestation is unquestionable.
Cattle ranching on tropical forest land is no simple matter. By the time cattle are munching away on the grass, the land may have been logged by a timber company, supported a few years of agricultural crops grown by a peasant-settler, or both. Stocking rates begin low—one animal per hectare—and get worse, dropping to one or two cattle per five to ten hectares. But as long as there is plenty of forest to be cut, and government incentives to do so persist, there is no need to look for greener pastures.
As U.S. beef imports have increased, per person consumption of meat in Central America has declined to point below that of a domestic cat in the U.S. Using land to raise beef and grow export crops has deprived thousands of people of their means of making a living and feeding themselves. The poor would lack the money to buy the meat even were it not exported. The meat follows the money.
Beef, big business, and politics are the ingredients of the Central American stew. Nicaragua’s former dictator, the lat Anastasio Somoz, for example, held interest in six beef importing companies in Florida and raised cattle on fifty-one haciendas in Nicaragua (to say nothing of this forty-six coffee plantations). Until the revolution in 1979, the U.S. imported more beef from that country than from any other in Central America. Costa Rica now enjoys that honor. But Costa Rica’s pastures have been suffering from drought, due to decreased rainfall and increases in the amount of runoff caused by deforestation. The deforestation is also causing severe soil erosion, which according to Norman Myers “has caused dams to silt up, in turn bringing shortages of drinking water and electricity.”
Paul and Anne Ehrlich of Stanford University contend that “more than a quarter of all Central American forests have been destroyed in the past twenty years (this book was written in 1990) to produce beef for the United States”—an activity supported and financed by billions of dollars of World Bank and U.S. “aid” money, and millions more in technological assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Organization of American States, and the Pan American World Health Organization. Today some two-thirds of the region’s arable land is devoted to cattle production.
Shattering: Food, Politics, and the Loss of Genetic Diversity ~ Fowler and Mooney
Our conversation, slowed by the necessity of going through an interpreter, turned to the Siege of Leningrad. The heroics of the people of Leningrad, surrounded and bombarded steadily by the Nazis for nine hundred days, are well-known. Less well-known is the story of the institute (Vavilov Institute collects and preserves seeds to protect genetic diversity) during the siege.
As the war began, institute scientists started to make duplicates of the 180,000-accession collection. Especially vulnerable was the potato collection, kept not as seed but as potatoes. Sub-zero temperatures would freeze them in the winter. Rats were a year-round threat. In the spring of 1942 the potatoes began to germinate, forcing scientists to plant he in the only place they had—in fields along the front. A valuable collection of blight-resistant potatoes made by Vavilov in Chile needed short days to mature and so was shielded from the sun by crude “cabins” constructed by the staff. By August, with the invaders near and the city in flames, institute staff began digging up the potatoes as shells hit the fields. Amazingly, they retrieved all the samples. During the winter as scientists were evacuated, they smuggled out potatoes sewn into pockets next to their bodies, so that the potatoes wouldn’t freeze. All blight-resistant potatoes in the USSR today are descended from these potatoes.
The blockade of the city was forcing people to eat dogs, cats, rats, and even grass to stave off hunger. Over six hundred thousand people were to starve to death before the siege ended. Inside the institute, the rats had learned how to knock metal boxes full of seeds off the shelves in order to break them open. Guards were posted to protect the seeds from rats, and on the roof scientists took turns watching for fires caused by the shelling.
After the evacuation in 1942, thirty-one people were left at the institute. They were given a daily ration of 120 grams of bread (less than a quarter of a loaf of American bread). Fourteen died of starvation in December.
Dr. Tchuvashina brought out a scrapbook of photographs of these people and we sat around a table in Vavilov’s outer office to look through it. There was Dr. Dmytry S. Ivanov, the rice specialist, who died at his desk surrounded by bags of rice. Dr. Rubtzov, a fruit breeder. As she leafed through the photos, Dr. Tchuvashina paused over one; she said something to the interpreter who smiled and gave a short reply, before she turned to the next page. We asked the interpreter what she had said. She had asked him if he knew Dr. Geynts, the institute’s librarian, now in his sixties. Yes, he did. The photograph was of Geynts’ father—one of the men who had died of starvation in this building. We went on. Dr. Kreyer, a specialist in medicinal plants. Professor Molbyboga, the meteorologist…
Why? Why would these people starve to death surrounded by so much food? Dr. Tchuvashina looked at us as if we must already know the answer—they were students of Vavilov. But what did they think they were doing saving all these seeds? What did they say to themselves as they slowly and collectively starved in this big old building? Dr. Tchuvashina reminded us that these scientists knew the value of genetic resources. Vavilov had taught them that. From where they were it looked as if humanity was destroying itself. Someday it would need these seeds.
As the war began, institute scientists started to make duplicates of the 180,000-accession collection. Especially vulnerable was the potato collection, kept not as seed but as potatoes. Sub-zero temperatures would freeze them in the winter. Rats were a year-round threat. In the spring of 1942 the potatoes began to germinate, forcing scientists to plant he in the only place they had—in fields along the front. A valuable collection of blight-resistant potatoes made by Vavilov in Chile needed short days to mature and so was shielded from the sun by crude “cabins” constructed by the staff. By August, with the invaders near and the city in flames, institute staff began digging up the potatoes as shells hit the fields. Amazingly, they retrieved all the samples. During the winter as scientists were evacuated, they smuggled out potatoes sewn into pockets next to their bodies, so that the potatoes wouldn’t freeze. All blight-resistant potatoes in the USSR today are descended from these potatoes.
The blockade of the city was forcing people to eat dogs, cats, rats, and even grass to stave off hunger. Over six hundred thousand people were to starve to death before the siege ended. Inside the institute, the rats had learned how to knock metal boxes full of seeds off the shelves in order to break them open. Guards were posted to protect the seeds from rats, and on the roof scientists took turns watching for fires caused by the shelling.
After the evacuation in 1942, thirty-one people were left at the institute. They were given a daily ration of 120 grams of bread (less than a quarter of a loaf of American bread). Fourteen died of starvation in December.
Dr. Tchuvashina brought out a scrapbook of photographs of these people and we sat around a table in Vavilov’s outer office to look through it. There was Dr. Dmytry S. Ivanov, the rice specialist, who died at his desk surrounded by bags of rice. Dr. Rubtzov, a fruit breeder. As she leafed through the photos, Dr. Tchuvashina paused over one; she said something to the interpreter who smiled and gave a short reply, before she turned to the next page. We asked the interpreter what she had said. She had asked him if he knew Dr. Geynts, the institute’s librarian, now in his sixties. Yes, he did. The photograph was of Geynts’ father—one of the men who had died of starvation in this building. We went on. Dr. Kreyer, a specialist in medicinal plants. Professor Molbyboga, the meteorologist…
Why? Why would these people starve to death surrounded by so much food? Dr. Tchuvashina looked at us as if we must already know the answer—they were students of Vavilov. But what did they think they were doing saving all these seeds? What did they say to themselves as they slowly and collectively starved in this big old building? Dr. Tchuvashina reminded us that these scientists knew the value of genetic resources. Vavilov had taught them that. From where they were it looked as if humanity was destroying itself. Someday it would need these seeds.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
Praise for the speech mingled with praise for Lincoln himself. The Spectator suggested that it was “divine inspiration, or providence” that brought the Republican Convention in 1860 to choose Lincoln the “village lawyer” over Seward. Congressman Isaac Arnold overheard a conversation between a celebrated minister and an unidentified New York statesman, who one historian suggests was likely William Henry Seward himself. “The President’s inaugural is the finest state paper in all history,” the minister declared. “Yes,” the New Yorker answered, “and as Washington’s name grows brighter with time, so it will be with Lincoln’s. A century from to-day that inaugural will be read as one of the most sublime utterances ever spoken by man. Washington is the great man of the era of the Revolution. So will Lincoln be of this, but Lincoln will reach the higher position in history.”
Perhaps the most surprising contemporaneous evaluation of Lincoln’s leadership appeared in the extreme secessionist paper the Charleston Mercury. “He has called around him in counsel,” the Mercury marveled, “the ablest and most earnest men of his country. Where he has lacked in individual ability, learning, experience or statesmanship, he has sought it, and found it… Force, energy, brains, earnestness, he has collected around him in every department.” Were he not a “blackguard” and “an unscrupulous knave in the end,” the Mercury concluded, “he would undoubtedly command our respect as a ruler… We turn our eyes to Richmond, and the contrast is appalling, sickening to the heart.”
The editors of the Mercury would have been even more astonished if they had an inkling of the truth recognized by those closer to Lincoln: his political genius was not simply his ability to gather the best men of the country around him, but to impress up on them his own purpose, perception, and resolution at every juncture. With respect to Lincoln’s cabinet, Charles Dana observed, “it was always plain that he was the master and they were the subordinates. They constantly had to yield to his will, and if he ever yielded to them it was because they convinced him that the course they advised was judicious and appropriate.”
Perhaps the most surprising contemporaneous evaluation of Lincoln’s leadership appeared in the extreme secessionist paper the Charleston Mercury. “He has called around him in counsel,” the Mercury marveled, “the ablest and most earnest men of his country. Where he has lacked in individual ability, learning, experience or statesmanship, he has sought it, and found it… Force, energy, brains, earnestness, he has collected around him in every department.” Were he not a “blackguard” and “an unscrupulous knave in the end,” the Mercury concluded, “he would undoubtedly command our respect as a ruler… We turn our eyes to Richmond, and the contrast is appalling, sickening to the heart.”
The editors of the Mercury would have been even more astonished if they had an inkling of the truth recognized by those closer to Lincoln: his political genius was not simply his ability to gather the best men of the country around him, but to impress up on them his own purpose, perception, and resolution at every juncture. With respect to Lincoln’s cabinet, Charles Dana observed, “it was always plain that he was the master and they were the subordinates. They constantly had to yield to his will, and if he ever yielded to them it was because they convinced him that the course they advised was judicious and appropriate.”
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