eco witch hunt

Feral wrote:
Back on topic, regarding people working toward mutual eco goals... humans also tend to be followers. When one is enthusiastically passionate about their beliefs and respectful towards others, regardless of their beliefs... people start listening, learning and following!

tel jetson wrote:
and I think we're painting with a pretty broad brush.  despite the increasing reach of globalized culture, there are still plenty of distinct cultures around the world.  some are very homogeneous and the vast majority folks don't feel any need to distinguish themselves from everyone else.  others cultures praise individualism as the very highest virtue.  others are someplace in between on that spectrum or maybe on an entirely different spectrum altogether.  that suggests to me that a lot of what we call "human nature" is actually just human culture.  not suggesting anyone here has thrown "human nature" out there recently.

Scott Reil wrote:
snip..........We are beyond live and let live and well into live and let die. We have been for some time; our disregard of our fellow species is as long as our history on this planet. ........

Scott Reil wrote:
And those of us here making any effort are drowned in the din of "not damaging the economy", as if depleting natural resource and destroying reproductive systems that are providing free services we cannot replicate made some sort of economic sense (it DOESN'T).

LasVegasLee wrote:
But an economy which requires constant growth is on a collision course with finite resources.

Scott Reil wrote:
MT Goat raises the salient issue, the tragedy of the commons.

I think of it as the tragedy of the unregulated commons.

When common resources are governed by those who depend upon them, the phenomenon referred to to as "the tragedy of the commons" becomes much more unlikely.

We have a good model of this with the acequias of the southwestern US, where "acequia" refers both to the physical water-carrying ditch and to the political body of ditch users which governs the acequia for their common good.

paul wheaton wrote:
I think the point of this thread is about how some people are so passionate about waving the eco flag that they will knowingly smack people in the head with the flag.  In the name of eco.  And I think that is not okay.

Chefmom wrote:
I can't stand when something so simple as to conserve the air, water and life on this planet is lost in the fight that I'm right and you are wrong. 

Chefmom wrote:
The moral of the story is to do what you can do, we all can conserve.  First reduce your overall usage, then re-use all you can, then re-cycle everything else.  Infinite consumption is the death of us all. 

Diana Leafe Christian wrote:

First, the folks at Earthaven who wanted to dig a well in their neighborhood did not, as Paul's comment suggests, also insist that the permaculture teacher agree with or also use their kind of irrigation or agricultural systems. They were fine for her to employ her preferred methods on her homesite and in her neighborhood. This was not a conflict between two parties who each had the view, "Do it my way; the right way!" Rather, it was a conflict between a party who said, "Do it my way, the right way, and I'll block proposals that will allow you to do it your way," and those who said, "Let's each do it the way we prefer and see how it turns out, share the information, and all learn from all these agricultural experiments."

Pignut wrote:
I would hate to live with this woman, but could  she perhaps have been concerned that the well would lower the watertable affecting everyone on the community?