[Vision2020] "No free meal, whatever...?

[Ted Moffett]

Debbie et. al.

I did not intend to label you as a "capitalist."  I am sorry you took
it that way.  After all, you are employed in the public sector, I have
gathered, a part of our economy that the capitalist free market
libertarians want to dismantle, or at least downsize dramatically.
They have had some success at the U of I, as I'm sure you are aware
of.  Your employment in the public sector, some might argue, makes you
a part of the "socialist" sector of the US economy.  Please, please
don't think I am labeling you a "socialist" either.

I am well aware of the "big picture," "hidden costs," etc. in resource
extraction, even something as minimal as picking a few mushrooms.

The "big picture?"  Consider this:

When viewing ecosystems, the Earth and our solar system as a total
system that stores and generates energy creating resources that human
beings extract or consume, human beings do not "pay" for, nor do they
create, all of this energy.  I do not see any way around the fact
that, for example, the stored energy in fossil fuels was not created
by human beings.  Most fossil fuel energy can be traced back to
nuclear fusion energy from our Sun, energy that impacted the Earth
before the human species even existed.

I do not think that all resources and energy that human beings consume
can be defined totally in terms of human created economic systems. 
This issue can be debated on and on.  But I think that at some point
in tracing the sources and costs of resources and energy we must jump
outside human created economic systems to realize that we are just
another species living inside the Earth's biosphere dependent on
"gifted" resources or energy not created by human beings.  This is not
to say that these sources of energy or resources are unlimited.   We
all know what is going to happen very soon with fossil fuels.  But in
fact the amount of energy that we in theory can gather from our Sun,
given the proper technology, is for practical purposes infinite,
unless the population of the human race grows to astonishing
proportions.

Infinite, that is, till our Sun starts to expand on its journey to
becoming a Red Giant star, according to the best current science on
stellar evolution.  When that starts to happen, life on Earth will
become impossible, due to tremendously hot temperatures, though this
is probably billions of years away.  Eventually our Sun will become a
black dwarf.  The primary energy source in our solar system will be
gone.

Game over.

http://www.columbia.edu/~ah297/unesa/sun/sun-chapter5.html

Thanks for your input!

Ted Moffett


On 5/17/05, Debbie Gray <dgray at uidaho.edu> wrote:
> Actually, as someone with a master's in environmental science, I
> would say that the environmental movement has done a bang up job
> in educating people on the 'costs' of shared resources in the
> 'commons.' Looking at the history of our country, you can see
> that people had the view of natural resources being not only
> free but unlimited. We now know that is not true. There are
> hidden costs to everything in life.
> 
> Yes, you may think it was free to have a nice morel meal but...
> did you drive up there on a road? who made the road? why? was it
> on private land or federal land or state land? who pays to
> maintain that? or, conversely, who pays to keep it from being
> clearcut into nothing? At the same time, looking at the tragedy
> of the commons as an example, what if everybody went up to that
> lovely spot, ate a few mushrooms and used a few dried out sticks
> to make a nice campfire? Soon there would be no mushrooms left,
> no meadow left, no dry kindling, etc (see also Africa or other
> places people gather firewood for subsistence but soon have to
> walk miles and miles for wood, water, etc). You can keep going
> further, if you did drive at least part way there who is
> subsidizing our fuel? What were the costs to make your car,
> tires, pollution, etc  etc. How has acid rain been mitigated so
> that it doesn't destroy the forest ecosystem to allow mushrooms
> to grow? Often morels grow in newly burned land, was that land
> you were on recently logged or burned?
> 
> You have to think big picture here...
> 
> Debbie (geez, i've never been labeled as a capitalist before. my
> parents have referred to me as a f***ing communist before but...
> i think they got over that when they figured out i was not going
> to take over the EPA and close down their farm)
> 
> On 17 May 2005 at 11:07, Ted Moffett wrote:
> 
> > Debbie et. al.
> >
> > Debbie wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Remember, there is no free ride, free meal, whatever =)
> > >
> > > Debbie
> >
> > "no free meal, whatever...?"
> >
> > So who was billed for that huge serving of delicious wonderful
> > wild forest mushrooms I ate cooked over a small campfire
> fueled
> > by a few dried out tree branches?
> >
> > And all along I thought this meal was a gift from the Goddess
> of
> > Mother Earth.
> >
> > The Capitalists who want to redefine everything in Mother
> Nature
> > as a resource they can extract and profit from have been more
> > astonishingly successful in their propaganda efforts than I
> > thought!
> >
> > So to whom and where was the bill sent for my meal that I
> thought
> > was "free?"
> >
> > Ted Moffett
> 
>