I first heard the term "true cost" from Robert David Steele and I think that if the true cost of all of our human activities were calculated and displayed for all to see on the internet we would have a shift in consciousness over night! It's too bad that our "leaders" don't understand something unless there is budget allocation statements for them to read! Bastards. . .

 

 

 

Black Light in the Attic Podcast w/Serpicody & Sancho

http://blacklightattic.podomatic.com

What is a "true" cost? Usually, when someone uses these words I immediately become skeptical. Typically, the use of "true cost" just represents a subjective preference or opinion that someone is attempting to substitute as an objective cost. Although costs may be able to be measured objectively, they are subjective in nature. I would certainly like to know how the $2-$5 trillion figure was reached. What factors are being considered in this cost? Who's costs are they? From the BBC article: "The first phase concluded in May when the team released its finding that forest decline could be costing about 7% of global GDP." How was this measured? Were benefits measured too? Did they take into account all forest loss? Did they take into account all forest growth? What underlying assumptions ultimately formulated the study? Until that information can be displayed, none of us have any reason to believe that said $2-$5 trillion cost is anything more than an arbitrary number.

The evidence for an ongoing environmental catastrophe is pervasive, right under our noses. While empirical studies from authoritative figures and institutions are welcome in confirming what common sense could be attending to, one has to wonder why we remain so complacent. I am totally bewildered.

 

"How was this measured?" -For heavens's sake, just take a look at the mess that is right in front of your eyes! Please.

 

How arbitrary is your daily household garbage multiplied times six and a half billion?

 

Aren't you glad you're not an amphibian, without the means to detach yourself from the consequences of your shrink wrap?

Just voted in the Canadian Election. Results aren't in yet. But i voted for the Green Party. The reason why i voted for the Greens is because i try to make a decisions with the Earth in mind. The Earth is the most important thing we have. More important then the economy. Why do i say that? If we have no Earth we have no economy, simple as that.

EntangledRoots:

You don't need to be "convinced that global environmental catastrophe lies in our future"

Because a global environmental catastrophe is occuring in the present.

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Between May 2000 and August 2006, Brazil lost nearly 150,000 square kilometers of forest—an area larger than Greece—and since 1970, over 600,000 square kilometers (232,000 square miles) of Amazon rainforest have been destroyed.

At the current rate, in two decades the Amazon Rainforest will be reduced by 40%.
http://www.mongabay.com/brazil.html

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Industrial logging has become the most extensive land use in Central Africa, with more than 600,000 square kilometers (30%) of forest currently under concession.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/316/5830/1451

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And those are just two things I found quickly, there's plenty more "evidence" - I even hesitate to call it evidence, it's as plain as day, there is no debate, there is no case, there is no court.

 

I'm one of the most opitmistic people I know, but it's just impossible and downright irresponsible to ignore the current ecological "happenings". You don't have to believe everything you read - but my suggestion is to find a way to take all this crisis and cry and use it to fuel your own fire and build some kind of personal, and community orientated, symbios with the planet.

It doesn't matter who's accurate or who's crunched the numbers or what exactly is going on. The bottom line is this:

Do you want to live in a gray, toxic, boring, suffocating, dead world?

Or do you want to live in a green, lush, magical, healthy, fresh world?

...of course.

So get to work.

 

$2-5 trillion is nothing.

At best it's an ultra conservative number. The forests are invaluable, and asigning a monetary figure here is generally for the benefit of those who don't know any better or for whom money talks.

Just imagine someone or some group who, during these times of financial transition, figuring out that they can lose millions or billions by investing in unstable old ways (ie deforestation) or make trillions and trillions by investing in thriving green ways.

hmmmm I think this sort of thing is called a no brainer...

Although I don't think human beings (or the ecosystem for that matter) would ever let that happen, I am overwhelmingly in favor of preserving the environment and I throw in the extra buck for ecologically friendlier goods and services

History and current events are replete with Human Beings not only letting this happen but actively fighting against reason to do so,.  I find it so strange that many people express that same idea that 'people would not let that happen' or state that they do not see the eco-collapse,. one only needs to travel a bit with their eyes open to see these things first hand,. look at the rate of extinction of species,  and the closing of fisheries as the stocks are depleted,. "would not" imlies the future this has been going on for a long time,. it truly baffles me to hear people express these views.

As far a throwing a few bucks at 'eco-friendly' product; this is largely a lost leader, the net is filled with so called green sites flogging all sorts of consumer goods,. this is still consumerism, and in many cases conspicuous consumption.  We need to be building local interconnected Permacultural human scaled food, housing and energy systems,. and ending the dissconected consumerism of the past,. . before the whole planet goes the way of Easter Island.

 

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