We are all in desperate need of real investigative journalism which is not paid, bullied or feel obliged to follow the current state propaganda line.
There is not much more one can say about Media Lens’ concise summary of the activities of Western countries- particularly the United States and its closest ally, the United Kingdom, in engaging in serial murder over many years, against countries and peoples more vulnerable than their own, whose misery and deaths can be exploited for profit.
While the barbarity of the U.S. and U.K is documented elsewhere in great detail, Media Lens’ great strength is to outline the consistent role Western mainstream media have played in actively supporting those wars and the lies they knowingly propagated ( or in a few cases simply failed to do their journalistic duty of investigation)
As the wheel turns, the U.S. will in a few short years, no longer have the preeminent global role it has acquired through military domination. As the U.S. global role declines, so the need for justice for those many millions victimised by that imperial power will steadily rise until those responsible are indeed facing the court at the Hague for their war crimes .
Alongside them in the dock will surely be those media propagandists who knowingly aided and abetted their crimes with media lies and encouraged the lust for war.
On a more absurd and light-hearted note, we note the allegations from an Australian TV channel, Channel 9, that Vladimir Putin hacked their TV broadcast because he didn’t like what they said about him . While the ridiculous allegations are unsurprising from such a news source, there will be any number of gullible xenophobic Australians ready to be whipped up into a frenzy about malign state actors ( any one of either China, Russia, North Korea or Iran-take your pick) interfering with their TV viewing !
We are all in desperate need of real investigative journalism which is not paid, bullied or feels obliged to follow the current state propaganda line.
John Pilger has for several years now been talking about the ‘Coming War with China’-something I had in earlier years regarded as foolish speculation . However, in recent times I now hear much more loudly the drumbeats of war from America, and its more foolish and racist allies.
John Pilger has for several years now been talking about the ‘Coming War with China’-something I had in earlier years regarded as foolish speculation . However, in recent times I now hear much more loudly the drumbeats of war from America, and its more foolish and racist allies.
And in a more recent John Pilger article about the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima ‘ANOTHER HIROSHIMA IS COMING… UNLESS WE STOP IT NOW‘ he notes: “No radioactivity in Hiroshima ruin” said The New York Times front page on 13 September, 1945, a classic of planted disinformation. “General Farrell,” reported William H. Lawrence, “denied categorically that [the atomic bomb] produced a dangerous, lingering radioactivity.”-John Pilger .
It should therefore be no surprise that Western governments have lied and lied again in their pursuit of war and profit. The ongoing deluge of Western propaganda against China and its ally Russia, is clearly designed to ‘soften up’ Western publics for a war with those ‘evil orientals’.
The Western media claims of Uyghur genocide by the Chinese government have been largely constructed from one source; a somewhat ‘unusual’ gentleman called Adrian Zenz, a Christian fundamentalist evangelist and devout anti-communist. The Gray-Zone has published a damning report on the curious ways Mr Zenz has used public data to support his beliefs that Uyghur genocide is occurring. Western intelligence has latched onto Mr Zenz fundamentalist fervour to promote his views to the wider world, because it fits so well with their need to portray the Chinese government (and all things mainland Chinese) as evil .
As the GrayZone outlines in its article on the U.S. based Uyghur American Association (UAA), the Altay Club and other organisations determined to once again create an independent state in Xinjiang since its re-incorporation into the Chinese state in the 18th Century, there are multiple organisations both internal and external to China, determined to overthrow the current status quo in Xinjiang.
The Chinese government is now in the process of suing Zenz for libel in the courts.
Numerous Muslim Uyghur have in fact been radicalised by the Saudi Wahabbi doctrine and continue to play an important role as Salafi jihadi soldiers in Syria and other Middle Eastern countries, with funding and support from the Saudis and Western intelligence operatives. It is likely therefore that the Chinese government has put considerable effort into reducing the risk of Uyghur radicalisation in mainland China; the truth of how much repression of the Uyghur population in China is occurring is unknown at this point-although the Chinese government denies any such repression. It is however certain, given current population counts, that a Uyghur ‘genocide’ is not happening.
As one of the Chinese government’s representative Yang Jiechi so rightly put it at the recent Alaska China/U.S. Anchorage summit at the Captain Cook Hotel;’ the United States uses its financial and military might to bully other countries. …(and that) America had its own long history of human rights problems and foolish actions abroad. ‘Foolish actions’ is a wonderful euphemism for the scale of genocidal war and terror inflicted by the United States on ‘non-compliant’ countries over the past century and more ( i.e. countries that do not comply with the United States view of it’s ‘international rules based order’- not to be confused in any way with U.N. declarations)
Alistair Crooke summarises the theme of the anti-Russia-China rhetoric as ‘the U.S. thinks to lead the maritime and rim-land powers in imposing a searing psychological, technological and economic defeat on the Russia-China-Iran alliance’.
As with all colonial powers, the current arrogance and bellicosity of the Americans is premised on racism- the view that the Chinese are somehow an inferior nation who need education and ‘realignment’ with Western values and principles of what the Americans call ‘democracy and freedom’-but which in reality are principles based on the exploitation and subjugation of others.
The United States’ personal delusions of their exceptionalism – which align closely to Nazi views on the superiority of the German ‘race’- also play an important role in their incapacity to peacefully collaborate with others.
Given the United States appalling centuries long history of abuse of the vulnerable, at home and abroad, its view of itself as a pure, supremely democratic and exceptional nation (which many in the States undeniably believe) is psychotic, and indicative of the level of risk the world is facing when delusional people hold the reins of power in the worlds’ most militaristic country.
The United States appears ‘hell-bent’ on ensuring that no other country can get in the way of ‘rule-based order’ where the United States can and does whatever it likes, to whomever it likes, to ensure the money keeps rolling into the troughs of its billionaires.
A U.K. February 2021 report by Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, entitled ‘The Economics of Biodiversity’ outlines the ‘extreme risk’ the ‘world’, is being put by not taking into account the ‘rapid depletion of the natural world’.
While the overarching intent of the paper is to be applauded in attempting to reduce species loss, the underlying assumptions outlined in the paper about humans’ relationships to the rest of this living world are, to put it mildly, grotesque.
Prof. Dasgupta’s comment that ‘Truly sustainable economic growth and development means recognising that our long-term prosperity relies on rebalancing our demand of nature’s goods and services with its capacity to supply them’, is truly bizarre.
The natural world (including the human species) does not exist to provide ‘goods and services’. This arrogant and ignorant perspective of the living world around us is the root cause of why the living planet around us, is dying. All living things on this planet exist in their own right and to construct a web of interdependent life around themselves; a web that humans have been unravelling at ever-increasing speed for the past 3000 years.
To view other living organisms as ‘good and services’ for humans, is not only to debase the sanctity of life, but also confirms our fundamental lack of understanding of how life on this planet life continues to maintain itself, and once thrived. The more humans choose some organisms as being ‘worthwhile’ ( for humans), and others not- the more we destroy the web that holds all life on this planet together.
There are many humans on this planet who have never known what it is to be connected with the living world around them – who look out their windows in the morning at the dead concrete jungle surrounding them and think this life. Who truly do think of the living world as a commodity solely for humanities’ use, and who never once consider that the view from their window would have once been a joyous riot of life- of birds, trees insects and many other animals. What humans have not known, we do not miss. The more humans become immersed in an inanimate world of concrete and tar, the more it becomes ‘normal’.
We do not comprehend what we have done to our world, and what awaits us at the end of this journey of ‘commodification’.
What are we to make, from across the sea, of Trump supporters invading the U.S. Capitol building while Congress members were voting to install Joe Biden as the next president of the United States?
Is this ‘insurrection’?- a new civil war? a ‘revolution’?…
In the mind-numbing complexities and anomalies that is American ‘democracy’, this new episode in the rapidly foreclosing Trump era appear as a comedy of errors, by all parties.
A historic opportunity by Joe Biden and the Democrats to bring together the nation after 4 years of Trumpism, has been completely given away- to childish bi-partisanship, which has the potential to further divide a fractured declining nation. Trump’s devotees- many of whom are frightened at their loss of incomes, law and order, their loss of status, the confusing messages of the U.S. ‘Woke’ culture and many more pressures, are not going to go away. If they are now no longer able to attach themselves to a political forum that supposedly supports their frustrations, as Trump pretended to do, they will find other routes to assert their concerns- perhaps in more damaging ways.
The deletion of Trump’s historic postings and the removal of his capacity to post in the future, was a concerted effort by the major social media outlets. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey commented that the ‘ban is a failure of ours to promote healthy conversation’. While I am very clear that I personally find Trump’s rants and raving inappropriate, often judgmental, rascist and dangerous, and that he is guilty of war crimes in Yemen and Syria among other places ( along with numerous other American presidents) , I don’t believe I (or anyone else) has the ability to judge what is ‘healthy conversation’ for all others; assuming that such a thing as a ‘healthy conversation’ could ever be defined. For a social media tycoon to make such a global statement is both dangerous and indicative of the quality of intellect in such ‘high places’.
What the United States desperately needs now is a government that understands its role is to support the dispossessed, the poor, the sick and the unemployed, to live a fair and pleasant lifestyle. There is after all, more than enough to go round in the United States- even now. But instead we see the remaining U.S. health and income support infrastructures steadily being whittled away- the rich getting richer, the poor without hope and the U.S. electoral system dominated by what are euphemistically called ‘corporate donations’.. The dichotomy between the empty promises of those in power and those who need a better life there, are growing ever wider. That widening chasm leads to social destruction.
It is baffling why American society is so willing to ascribe to conspiracy theories -whether it be Joseph McCarthy and the internal communist threat, the Russians, the Chinese, or some other nation Americans have been taught to fear, or now, ‘insurrection’ from white supremacists.
Farcical , if it were not deeply disturbing, are Nancy Pelosi (Speaker of the House at Congress) and Hilary Clinton (ex Secretary of State) stating publicly their view that Vladimir Putin orchestrated the Capitol invasion. Either (hopefully) they are simply attempting to manipulate public opinion to think that somehow Putin is behind all of this, or more disturbingly , they actually believe their nonsensical and delusional statements.
While the invasion of the Capital building is certainly to be deplored, the response from Democrat congresspeople and lawyers has been extraordinary and hugely counterproductive to building truth and reconciliation in the United States. It is hoped that the parallels noted by Eric Rasmussen in his article about the Reichstag Fire of 1933 and the Capital building riot will turn out to be simply coincidence, but they are disturbing.
Is it their lack of education about the wider world and American history?; the efficacy of American mainstream media to lie with advertising and political brainwashing?; their centuries long addiction to violence? the insistence on show and appearance as more important than truth and justice?- or perhaps a mix of all those issues….Whatever the primary causes, Americans are in for a rough ride until they come to terms with their country’s contradictions, and learn the truth about what their country really has stood for.
While the NZ Government’s decision to declare a climate emergency in New Zealand is to be applauded- currently there appear few mechanisms to achieve a carbon-neutral government by 2025. Prime Minister Jacinda Adern’s touted response to have all government vehicles electric, is a case in point of the contradictions in environmental policy. There is an urgent need for all citizens to recognise the impact of product and service consumption.
While electric cars will reduce carbon emissions through vehicle exhaust pipes, the production of the required number of electric vehicles will result in further destruction of our environments- lithium mining for batteries , steel production, plastics production. to name just a few. A sleight of hand process that reduces emissions in one area and replaces it with more consumption in another- is simply deceitful and will not improve our environmental impact. Any climate “emergency planning (an ’emergency’ implies a short -term problem- this is not a short-term issue) must also address the collateral bio-diversity loss that is occurring in New Zealand and everywhere in the world.
We are replacing living entities with dead inert matter at a rapidly increasing rate- a recipe not just for an emergency, but a planetary disaster.
While moving to a steady state economy is the only plausible response to the disaster rapidly unfolding on our little plant; current levers of power and influence globally and in New Zealand clearly will not allow that to happen in the short -term.
Consequently , rather than moving gently and steadily to a slow-down and cessation of human ‘growth’ , we are rushing headlong and ever faster towards the precipice of environmental catastrophe, before we fall over…and reach ‘steady-state’ in a way that will cause huge immediate human and other species’ suffering and death.
To hopefully avoid that precipitous fall, I would suggest a measure that will in a relatively short time , allow all members of New Zealand society to appreciate we cannot continue this headlong dash to oblivion.
A requirement that all animate and non-animate goods and services in New Zealand carry a warning label which indicates how much the product has impacted on both climate change ( positive or negative) but also ( and more crucially) biodiversity. The labeling could be something similar to cigarette warning labels and provide an opportunity for purchasers to be aware of the environmental impact of their purchase, to compare goods’ environmental impact and to encourage producers to reduce their environmental footprint..
Over time this labeling would also provide an opportunity for government to additionally tax those products and services that were high in environmental impact, once public support had reached an acceptable level.
From there, the public debate on how to implement a sustainable steady state economy could proceed.
As you will be well aware, as you see the data continue to pile in at an ever increasing rate on global warming and bio-diversity loss , we now have little time and opportunity to change our trajectory.
nga mihi
Footnote
The response to my email from New Zealand’s Ministry of the Environment courteously noted my suggestions, but declined to support it,noting that there were some unnamed private New Zealand companies interested in such an idea.
Subsequently my daughter has suggested that there would be web companies out there who could develop an app which could provide information online for ‘consumers’ on the relative carbon footprint and impact on biodiversity of products being sold.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is apparently incensed about Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian’s posting of an image of an Australian soldier slitting the throat of a young Afghan boy.
Why such a report about murders and abuse should be a surprise to anyone, is a mystery. Western countries have prided themselves on their superiority to the ‘less than pink’ skinned races of the world in their centuries’ old thrust to control the world’s resources for their exclusive benefit. Such superiority extends to a war culture that dehumanises the ‘enemy’ as ‘gooks’, ‘rag-heads’ and the ‘yellow peril’, among many other perjorative names..
Australia and the Western media at large depict their country as an innocent victim of ‘Chinese bullying’, ‘coercion’ and ‘aggression’, through China’s use of tarriffs, border controls and monitoring of import goods’ quality, to press its argument that Australia needs to learn which side its bread is buttered on.
China is particularly annoyed with Australia foolishly following the Trump propaganda line that COVID19 is a Chinese communist government threat to the world. Startling, when it is China who has done most to show the world how to limit infection spread…
Australia’s former finance minister, Joe Hockey, labeled China’s President Xi’s actions “economic coercion.” As Hockey told Bloomberg in a Nov. 3 interview: “That’s not the China that I knew when I was treasurer” for two years until September 2015. This “immature action,” Hockey says, is “not the behavior of a great power.”.
One might be forgiven for laughing at Joe Hockey’s ‘belief’ that Western ‘great powers’ never use extortion, threat and violence to get their economic way. The creation of economic sanctions and wars of aggression on countries the West does not like, is a time honoured tradition- not the sole prerogative of Donald Trump!
One should therefore not be surprised by a Chinese (and North Korean, Vietnamese, Syrian, Iraqi, Libyan etc etc ) call in the future to demand reparations for all those countries Australia and the other Five Eyes and Fourteen Eyes countries ( In addition to the Anglo-Saxon countries, the group includes Italy, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, France, Sweden and Norway), that have ‘bullied’ with war and sanctions over the past 60 years- the genocidal wars in Korea and Vietnam come to mind; let alone Iraq, Libya or Syria…..and recently American sponsored atrocities have come to light….
That Australia and New Zealand continue to defend their positions as ex-colonial powers allied to racist and war-mongering Western European states and the U.S., is no surprise; but it does give an indication of the intelligence and humanity of their political and ‘intelligence’ communities, and their capacity to grasp where the future lies.
One wonders which of ‘our values’ Joe is referring to. Most probably it is the values of barbarous violence against other less powerful states that characterized U.S. ‘foreign policy in the 20th century.
While continuously espousing the virtues of democracy and freedom, the United States continues to conduct wars of aggression against any country that either can be exploited for its resources, or may pose a threat to its global dominance at some later time.
In the traditional manner of U.S. politics, we are reminded to simply listen to their grand eloquence about human rights and freedoms and ignore the sordid reality of U.S. foreign relations. We are exhorted once again to extol the Nazi-like virtues of American ‘Exceptionalism’ .
No longer will we have to endure the thuggish foreign follies of Mike Pompeo; instead we will be called to embrace freedom and fairness, and bomb the hell out of the next country that doesn’t subscribe to U.S. demands.
We will be encouraged to support the freedom loving rulers of Israel and Saudi Arabia while they brutalize their populations, and encourage them to buy more armaments for their wars in Yemen, or Syria , or anywhere!
We will be delighted to once again support Obama era levels of drone murders of unsuspecting innocents in far away poor (Muslim) countries, with the intelligence aids of our Five Eyes (white) allies in Australia, New Zealand Canada and the U.K.
We will be required to delight in (as the Guardian has done) in the new Secretary of State, Antony Blinken’s statements that “We can’t solve all the world’s problems alone,” he said. (without a trace of humour) And even that “We need to be working with other countries.” and “America, at its best, still has a greater ability than any other country on earth to bring others together to meet the challenges of our time.” This from the man who supported the atrocities and genocide in Iraq and Libya (and supported the use of Al Qaeda to blunt Syrian and Russian successes in Syria), to name just a few of the wars that Blinken has enthusiastically supported. What more delights can we expect from a man with no moral capabilities?
And then there is Avril Haines; Biden’s director of national intelligence; who Antiwar.com describe as serving ‘ both the deputy director of the CIA and the deputy national security advisor under Obama. Haines has a history of running cover for CIA torture programs and served under former CIA chief John Brennan when the Obama administration dramatically increased drone strikes.
And as Caitlin Johnstone so acerbically states, ‘There’s never been a better time to be a woman, minority or member of the LGBT community who works in the DC establishment and enjoys dropping cluster munitions on children”
To say nothing of John Kerry, former secretary of State to Obama and who is to be Biden’s ‘Climate Envoy” a completely meaningless role, other than to continue the Obama policy of signing climate treaties with absolutely no intention of acting on them. (like the rest of our “world leaders”.)
One can only assume that American politicians live in an alternate reality- where they genuinely believe the lies that spout spontaneously from their mouths, while they commit evil.
With the U.S. presidential election ( as of 6th November 2020) , hanging in the balance, we are reminded of the extraordinary and bizarre process this purportedly ‘exceptional nation’ has to find its new exceptional ‘president of the free world’.
Not only does the U.S. Electoral College process mean that the majority of voters may or may not have the president of their very limited choice ( No Green candidates, no left-wing candidates – only the candidates of the monied), but each state’s electoral process for counting and accepting votes is different and open to manipulation from both major party supporters (and legal challenge). It is extraordinary that the federal election of the U.S. president and Congress does not have one national federal electoral process that everyone can understand.
Democrat Governor Kristi Noem
Democrat Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota tweets (11/06/20) ‘South Dakota requires voter ID (even for early voting.) Ballots must be received on or by Election Day. All paper ballots, which are easy to verify. Counting is bipartisan and open to the public. We have an EXCELLENT system. Every Democrat-run state should imitate it’
What is truly bizarre from this tweet, is not only that its seems to be surprising to Americans to have ballot papers being ‘easy to verify’; that votes are counted by ‘bi-partisan’ vote -counters-(not independent vote counters), that each state clearly has its own system for verifying the validity of voters, and that the type of electoral processing system will depend on which party is in control of the state legislature.
Even more amazingly, the process by which each state has a declared winner for president is determined, not by a federal national election office, but by private national media outlets like Fox News, or AP. Hence, as of 6th November, we have different national figures reported of Electoral Office delegate totals for Trump or Biden depending on which media outlet is making the call. IN addition the complexities of the Electoral College process mean more opportunities for confusion and leverage.
Jo Biden however can assure us though (6th November 2020) that the American voting system is ‘the envy of the world’. ‘Democracy is sometimes messy. It sometimes requires a little patience as well. But that patience has been rewarded now for more than 240 years with a system of governance that has been the envy of the world.’ !!!
As a country which purports to be the model of democracy for the rest of the world, and which continually makes calls about other countries ‘lack of democracy’, it is time to consider whether future US presidential elections require independent foreign observers to ensure their fairness and accuracy.
Combine this bizarre electoral process with extraordinary levels of ignorance and a consequent monochrome view of their own U.S. world, let alone the outside world; by both candidates and electors, and you have a recipe for disaster.
The level of systemic incompetence demonstrated by this electoral system to elect the “leader of the free world” is a salutary lesson to us all.
And lastly; a sobering outline of America’s future, from Jonathan Cook.
My definition of of ‘baseless’ in this instance, is that there is no basis for claim election fraud took place- and yet media outlets across the Western world are using this word to describe Trump and the Republicans’ allegations of voter fraud. Now unless the media has got total access to all the votes and each state’s practices on election night- which seems a little unlikely- they have no means of knowing whether the allegations are ‘baseless” or not, till courts make a ruling.
As noted in my post above- there is certainly plenty of opportunity for fraud and errors in polling practice in the U.S. Whether the fraud and errors this time are sufficient to overturn the current presumed Biden presidency, is currently unknown.
So why would mainstream media , with one voice, be saying the allegations are “baseless” at this point? I’ll leave you to figure that one out….
The decision by regional delegates of the New Zealand Green Party to endorse a coalition with the New Zealand Labour Party after the recent New Zealand elections, has resulted in the two co-leaders of the Green Party once again acquiring ministerial portfolios outside of Cabinet. Co-leader James Shaw is now ‘Minister of Climate’ and ‘Associate Minister for the Environment’, while Marama Davidson is now Minister for the ‘Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence’ and ‘Homelessness’.
In exchange for these small shiny baubles of power in a Labour dominated Parliament, the NZ Greens have sadly irrefutably demonstrated that they are more interested in holding on to ‘power’ rather than having a mission to save our environment.
The Greens would have been able to play a far stronger advocacy role for the natural world and a future for humanity if they had stayed out of Labour’s centrist and growth oriented government.
Labour’s election byline says it all- “Let’s Keep Moving”. One might be tempted to ask ‘what for?’ and ‘where to?” : and what happens when we , in the not so distant future, run out of those natural resources we have been so relentlessly exploiting in New Zealand for the past 200 years to ‘keep us moving’?
A Greens/Labour coalition is therefore an abomination for the natural world and for our futures in New Zealand. The coalition agreement puts a green-wash over the strategies and actions of this new government to ‘expand’ the economy, which will inevitably destroy more of our living world- more roads, more concrete, more houses, more agro-business …
It is not too late to construct a New Zealand political party that truly upholds sustainable environmental principles: a no-growth steady-state party. A party that acknowledges the realities of the limits to growth and the importance of restoring much of our living world.
It is simply not possible for N.Z. to continue to pursue a “growth” strategy for the human economy- for money. We urgently need a government that places a priority on protecting and expanding the living world, and which acknowledges the reality that humans are an intrinsic part of Nature- not something separate. Without a vibrant living world around us, we humans will inevitably perish.
I am a New Zealander- a ‘kiwi’ , a pakeha, a white male.
In 1200 AD these island lands had never seen a human, the land was almost completely covered in dense forest (what we call ‘the bush”) . Only one mammal lived here- the bat- perhaps blown by storms from Australia over 4000 kilometres away: – a few lizards, the seas teemed with fish and the remainder teeming wildlife were birds. When the white man (pakeha) came in the 1800s they reported that the sound of those birds’ dawn chorus was deafening- but no more.
We now live in a land where we have a few refuges of remainder bush where tourists can walk and believe they are once more in a primeval forest, but where the sounds of the dawn chorus is no longer deafening; where the pigs, possums and rats we introduced have played their part in the destruction of the bush , but where man has been the ultimate destroyer. Where the living world is silent, but the sound of man and his inanimate machines is everywhere.
We live in a land where introduced grassland ( where once was dense bush) feeds countless sheep and cows whose effluent pollutes our streams and rivers and the farmers’ fertilizers and pesticides destroy the living soil. We live in a land where humans do not care to notice the ongoing destruction of our natural world in the name of ‘progress’ or even more benightedly, “growth”. It is a tragedy that we use the word ‘growth” which talks to the living world , to greenery, and to life, to describe the destruction of our living world into a world of concrete and tar , electronics, steel and dead trees.
NZ Labour’s “Lets Get Moving” slogan for our upcoming general election, and the National Party’s slogans that everything depends on the economy, all represent a foolish, immoral and an intellectually bankrupt view that we can continue to destroy our natural world with human ‘progress’ and ‘growth’ without any repercussions.
However it is the New Zealand Green Party’s openly stated policy that more jobs and ‘growth’ are compatible with a sustainable future for the planet and New Zealand that really takes the cake. Those are more jobs that result in more of our once-living land sealed over, more trees and other vegetation destroyed, more insect species gone forever , more birds and other species irretrievably lost to the planet . Those more jobs and infrastructure are many more nails in the coffin of a world that sustains us humans and the rest of our precariously living world.
We have to change; right now, to a policy of no-growth; of a steady state economy which values and reveres all the life in our world. We desperately need political and economic polices which understand that the human ‘growth’ we have experienced over the past 100 years has been on the back of environmental destruction. We can no longer afford that trade-off; we have already traded away too much of our living world for cheap baubles.
We need to understand that all life is sacred. Not simply because it is a morally and humanly good thing to do- but because our future lives depend on it.
