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

Tue May 17 13:27:41 PDT 2005

Ted closes with noting that in a few billion years, the sun will go all 
supernova on us, turning the earth into a black, cold, lifeless orb, ruining 
an otherwise nice day.  That's the bad news.  The good news is, given a few 
billion years, the Mariners might yet win the World Series.                  

                              Carl Westberg Jr.

>From: Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com>
>To: Debbie Gray <dgray at uidaho.edu>
>CC: vision2020 at moscow.com
>Subject: Re: [Vision2020] "No free meal, whatever...?
>Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 13:09:16 -0700
>
>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
> >
> >
>
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