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The divine right of environmentalists : Comments
By Justin Jefferson, published 14/1/2010The ideal of sustainability is a dream of stasis; a utopian fantasy of paradise.
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Posted by Ludwig, Thursday, 14 January 2010 9:24:10 AM
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Justin, take a bex and lay down. This all boils down to ownership of land. There are two basic camps Justin and other believe that an individual can own land and should have exclusive control over what happens on that land. The other camp basically say's that society owns the land, sure there maybe custodians of parts of it, but ultimately we all have a say in its management.
No one lives in a bubble, our actions affect other people, and any single individual will only be here for a short while the land and hopefully society will be here much longer. Is the author saying people should be able to do whatever they like on their own property, how far can we go before even he gets uncomfortable with that idea? Land clearing, mining, urban spread affects us all, and trying the emotive angle about personnel freedoms just will not work, this is not the US. No one is starving in Australia through lack of food; however our ecosystems are under a great deal of strain. The author may not understand but the air we breathe the condition of the solid the very health of the worlds replies on the little bit of native vegetation, all over the world. Halting land clearing in Australia holding onto those little bits of native bush will not condemn people to starvation, however bad land management will. Our advertcating bad land management. Posted by Kenny, Thursday, 14 January 2010 9:32:11 AM
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Ludwig,
You are far to kind. This article belongs in the letters to the editor pile. A load of over hyped emotional drivel. I'm sad to see anyone suffer but in the final analysis it is the choice of the person involved to adopt this strategy. I wonder what he really hopes to achieve Posted by examinator, Thursday, 14 January 2010 9:37:15 AM
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The author has confused sustainability with stasis. They are not the same thing. An example is the predator/prey relationship of fox and rabbit. The rabbit population will increase and decrease but not beyond certain levels. If it gets too large the foxes will cut down the numbers. If it gets too small then foxes who do not have enough other prey will die out. The populations will be in continual flux. However, if lack of habitat, disease or other means wipes out one of the populations the other may also become extinct. The system is no longer sustainable. However, no sustainable relationship is static.
Posted by david f, Thursday, 14 January 2010 10:06:47 AM
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Kenny, you are right about one thing, but little else. Yes, there are basically two camps.
In one corner are those who respect the sanctity of property. They go through life trying their best to respect contract and consent. In the other corner are those who do not respect the sanctity of property. As long as they can dream up a good enough reason, they believe it is okay to use force to obtain what they want. The ones in this corner are very devious, because deep inside they know that their behaviour is wrong and immoral, so they hide it. The tell us all that they are acting in “the common good”, or “the public interest”, and usually employ the government to act on their behalf to do the dirty deed. To support this, they tell us that we need strong powerful government to make sure society is “orderly”, knowing that a strong powerful government is also better placed to rob some and hand the loot over to others. For any democracy to have a chance of surviving – of avoiding descent into mob rule and tyranny – there has to be a line beyond which the government cannot trespass. That’s one of the key reasons why respect for private property rights lies at the heart of most constitutions in free, non-communist countries. Few here seem to understand this pivotal issue. You would all do well to research it before you wake up to find yourselves living in poverty under a totalitarian socialist dictatorship. Posted by Winston Smith, Thursday, 14 January 2010 10:08:44 AM
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Ah yes let the Barbaric Heart and techno-"man" rule, and hence inevitably destroy the entire world.
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/4680 http://www.dartmouth.edu/~spanmod/mural/panel14.html Posted by Ho Hum, Thursday, 14 January 2010 10:14:44 AM
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Yes!
But then it gets a little weird….
< …to stop their land from producing food, causing people in the poorest countries to sacrifice their lives so Australia’s spoilt environmentalists will not have to sacrifice the slightest luxury! >
Whaat?
That’s an enormously long bow – vegetation management laws that are implemented in order to strive for a balance between human usage of the environment and the retention of healthy ecosystems, supposedly leading to the sacrifice of lives of those in poor countries and no sacrifice of anything in Australia!
Tis very weird and whacky logic!
The great constitutional breach is not the prevention of clearing of old growth and regrowth vegetation on thousands of properties, it is the lack of compensation for farmers' losses.
Bringing an end to broadacre clearing was GOOD! Allowing regrowth to grow back to maturity is GOOD, generally speaking. But doing this to the extent of completely skittling the viability of properties without ANY compensation is akin to criminality.
I’d like to get right into the nitty gritty of this debate, if the author would be so kind as to come into the discussion.