Could many members of our culture be fixated on a fantasy: the patently unsustainable goal of limitless, unbridled economic growth? Are we suffering from a sort of illness, something like amnesia, that is resulting in our forgetfulness with regard to the necessity of the finite Earth and its frangible environs to the preservation of life as we know it, a functional global political economy and the human species? Alternatively, have we been mesmerized by a modern rendition of the ancient Tower of Babel? Or have all of the above, and more, somehow been occurring?

Perhaps we are forever forgetting about Earth and its environment because too many people, especially the economic powerbrokers, their bought-and-paid-for politicians and their minions in the mainstream media, are worshipping a “totem”. At least to me, there appear to be many too many people for whom the economy, in and of itself, is the primary object of their idolatry. This behavior is observable, obvious and flagrant. In many instances, these worshippers make what they evidently believe are rational arguments that suggest manmade financial and economic systems are somehow essential to, and an integral part of, God’s Creation; that indicate the growth of the global economy will occur from now on, even after the Creation is ravaged and its climate destabilized by unrestrained overproduction, unchecked overconsumption and unregulated overpopulation activities of the human species. Aside from the “Economic Colossus” nothing else seems to matter much to them.

Today, it appears that the financial system of the economic powerbrokers is collapsing like a “house of cards” and the real economy of the family of humanity is threatened. Experts in political economy are saying internally inconsistent and contradictory things as well as leaving the impression that they do not know what is happening. Communications about financials and the economy are generally confused and in disarray. Confidence and trust in the operating systems of finance and the global economy have been undermined by the duplicitous invention of dodgy financial instruments and fraudulent business models as well as by the promulgation of con games and Ponzi schemes. Transparency, accountability and honesty in business activities have been largely vanquished. A great economic system is being undone by con artists, gamblers and cheats. In such circumstances, does the manmade colossus we call the global political economy remind you in some ways of a modern Tower of Babel?

Sincerely,

Steve

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1176

just had to pipe up here. but i feel strongly!

there is a part of me that doubts whether we dominate earth . in many ways, i think that’s a real western conceit, and a scientific conclusion that rings of extreme anthro-bias.

do we abuse the earth, manipulate it, tranform it, overrun it? yes.

but to say “dominate”…it suggests we’ve gained advantage of something (maybe nature?) that exists outside of us.

when i think the truth is more like this: we’ve utilized to our fullest advantage something of which we are a (non-integral) part.
and, in consideration of the state Earth is in, it might be fair to say we’ve also used it to our fullest disadvantage.

thanks for the microphone!!!!

whaddaya think?