http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/01/world/gallery/eco-sols-text-nature-economics/index.html?hpt=hp_c4The UN, World Bank and a number of other studies are working to put a monetary value to the nature and wildlife on Earth in an attempt to "show its worth to society". Because the only way any kind of life can be valued is according to money - if it doesn't make money for us then it's not worth keeping.
This is how absolutely disgusting we are, that we will happily go about destroying the planet and using little placards and protests to ease our apathy guilt, and then move on to the next way to rationalize why we continue to allow the world to be destroyed and what parts of the world are "worth saving". Soon we will be rationalizing why there are children living on the streets in even the "richest countries in the world" as it not being "worth it" to provide them with food, shelter and an education.
The article above asks the question "What is the natural environment worth to us?" to which it actually has the audacity to answer in monetary values. Is there no end to the harm we will cause in order to accumulate imaginary numbers? We claim to be keepers of the Earth and to be the most "advanced" species on Earth - but every action we take only proves how much we do not deserve this gift of life. We live as if we are the only ones who have been given a gift and that everyone and everything around us is part of "our gift" - as if the rest of the world and the life here has been put here to serve me. The worst part is that it doesn't even make sense! Most of us don't live the lives we really want - we don't have enough MONEY. But - we still dream of being rich (just like we have dreamed up the idea of "money", "currency" etc) because it is this dream of being rich and special that drives us to not care about what it takes to be rich in this world (apparently) - the ability and willingness to exploit and harm anything in order to make a profit.
If our demonstrations of our nature do not show us as being evil, then I don't know what is.
This is the simple truth of our capitalist "free market", positive thinking system: every single instance of suffering that has happened and that will happen is/has been avoidable. We just don't want to change, because we fear losing who we (apparently) are and what we (apparently) have.
We don't have to live this way - it's as simple as that. As long as we continue to accept the way we live, it will continue and the abuse will continue.
Show your vote for LIFE at www.equalmoney.org
What many economists also fail to mention is that their environmental economics is based on a model that conveniently leaves out the point that environmental degradation is most of the time irreversible -- while the money values they throw at things are done from the assumption that the damage done is reversible (of course this is brushed off as a 'minor detail')-- while most of the time it is not. This in itself should show that the environment and nature is priceless. You can't just destroy the Earth and then throw some billions of money at it in the hope that it will 'fix' itself -- by then it is too late
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