“It is small wonder then that local and international environmental groups have initiated efforts to halt the development of the mine based on the need to preserve one of the last relatively untouched wilderness areas on the planet.”

All of whom, as the main instrument of their activism, use electronic devices, that they expect will power up quickly and display images in vibrant colour.

Suppose the issue is the value people that place on the one hand on the salmon and other living beings, and the natural beauty affected by the mining, and on the other hand, the value people place on the use and pleasure derived from computers. Obviously if people knew about the risks to the environment, and voluntarily chose to forego the use of computers, this would satisfy the environmentalists.

But what would satisfy them on the other hand? If people knew of the risks to the environment, and still chose the products of mining, because all things considered, they preferred fast and colourful computers to salmon etc., would the environmentalists concede the issue? Seems doubtful, doesn’t it?

The environmentalists usually urge for political solutions over voluntary solutions. What if everyone took a democratic vote on the issue, and decided they prefer computers to salmon? Would that satisfy the environmentalists that the value of mankind in fast and fun communications ranks higher than the natural values foregone as a result? Somehow I doubt that too.

So the real underlying issue is, why should environmentalists have the privilege of using force and threats to tell everyone else what values they should prefer to live their lives by? What are they, a new priestly caste? And what are we, their dumb and involuntary servants?

Peter
Opinion polls around the world have consistently shown large majorities in favor of action on climate change. Even now with the rise in support for the denialist position it is still over 50% in favor.

What part of "democratic" dont you understand Peter? If it is still the majority position that something should be done then why havent YOU accepted the majorities will [deleted]? And why hasnt anything been done? Its you right wingers that subvert democracy with your denialist propaganda and consumptive agenda of never ending growth and greed.

What if everyone took a democratic vote on the issue, and decided they prefer survival to catastrophic climate change? Would that satisfy the denialists that humanmankind values a viable ecosphere over the profits of a few fat cats and greed merchants?

So the real underlying issue is, why should capitalists have the privilege of using force and threats and lies to tell everyone else what values they should prefer to live their lives by? What are they, a new ruling caste? And what are we, their dumb and involuntary servants?

mikk
Unfortunately for you, in the democratic system, whether the majority want something is judged by the elected representatives who form the government, not by what opinion polls you can point to from time to time.

Opinion polls tell us what people's opinion is, divorced from them having to pay the costs of their opinions. The people who vote for salmon conservation, or for politicians to do something about climate change, are the same people who react with furious indignation and vote out governments, when as a result of such policies, they find their electricity bills going up. Yet such reductions in their own living standards are the logical consequence of their own polled opinions about what should happen.

This is the problem of real politick Rudd is facing now. He knows that if he brings in the carbon tax, or greatly reduces livings standards in line with the environmentalist belief that we face ecological catastrophe, the people will vote him out.

What this means is that opinion polls, and political voting once very three years, are a less true measure of what people want, than their actions every day in buying and selling goods and services to directly satisfy their own wants and values.

By the same token, if we *ask* you, you’ll say you prefer conservation of endangered species to fast and colourful computers. But if we *watch what you do and not what you say* we find you railing against the evils of consumerism on your computer, in your electrically-lit home, using fossil fuels, consuming goods transported long distances and so on.

No-one is forcing you to buy a computer, and false statements to induce you to buy one are already illegal. So there is no question of capitalists using force or fraud, unlike governments, for whom both the use of force, and misleading and deceptive statements, are legal.

What gives rise to the consumption and profits you despise is the actions of the masses of people, including you, in scrambling to buy the goods and services that capitalists provide.

“What if everyone took a democratic vote on the issue, and decided they prefer survival to catastrophic climate change?”

If they decided they prefer that, then they wouldn’t need a democratic vote. They could just voluntarily stop using computers for example, stop using electricity made with fossil fuels, stop using cars, stop using food grown with tractors, and so on.

So why don’t they? Why don't you? The answer’s obvious, isn’t it? People, including you, don’t want to live, or die, at the standard of living at which people lived and died before capitalism made it possible for you to live at the highest living standards in the history of the human race.

"What part of "democratic" don’t you understand Peter?"

You are either not understanding, or ignoring the issues. If the problem is that people consume natural resources when they should conserve them, democracy is no solution, because it is made up of these same people. Whether you like it or not, the profit and loss of businesses who live or die by the sovereign choices of the mass of the people as consumers, are far truer measures of the people's actual values than their once-in-three-years political vote on values divorced from costs or personal responsibility.

Take away your back-to-front misunderstanding of the issues of resource-use decision-making, and your school-yard method of name-calling, and you don't have a feather to fly with.

Considering it's the capitalistic right-wing planet trashers demolishing any effective measures to abate climate change, I would say these corporate bullies remain in charge and soon it could be every nation for itself.

A moral and ethical issue arises with the ecocidal practice of mining gold and diamonds. Humans could once have been forgiven for their pursuit of all that glitters, however these pursuits can no longer be justified in an age of enlightenment.

Massive environmental degradation is created so that human vanity can be appeased by adorning the body with gold and diamond jewellery. The more expensive the bling, the greater the status among ignoramuses who strut their stuff and who care little of the human misery, morbidity, mortalities and human rights' abuses in mining.

Gold is mined predominantly for jewellery and no longer plays a large part in investment. Not satisfied with one modest gold trinket in each ear, we now witness four or five in one lobe. Then we have the diamonds and/or gold pierced into one's nostrils, tongues, navels and nipples (and perhaps even in less visible parts of the anatomy?) And let us not forget the tacky humans who wear gold and diamonds on every finger including the thumbs. And the multi-national planet trashing mining giants rejoice!:

http://protestbarrick.net/downloads/barrick_report.pdf

Naturally mining is not restricted to minerals and metals. I have today signed the Humane Society's petition to urge giant supermarket Ahold to boycott Canada's seafood in an endeavour to stop the gruesome 'mining' of seals. Furthermore I have pledged not to purchase Canadian seafood in any supermarket or any restaurant:

Of concern are the "throwaway" cowboys with a large carbon footprint who regularly upgrade their computers (similarly their vehicles) for no good reason and without much thought for the pollution they create.

However, a computer has become an educational tool, necessary in the pursuit of knowledge and can be recycled (to the dismay of right-wing greed merchants) to minimise mining and there are many other ways to reduce consumption but the obscene state of Australia's landfills and the estimated 100,000 industrial contaminated sites contradict these possibilities.