Patrick Moore wrote: > > Your signature reads: > > > "We should never forget that > > there will always be more > > profit in exploiting the > > environment than in restoring > > it; and on the day the converse > > becomes true, it will be too > > late." > > If you actually believe this, why are you even bothering to engage in a > discussion? > If, by "exploiting", you mean using natural resources, it is necessary to > do so and it is at our peril that we do so at a net loss of wealth as this > will result in socio-economic decline. "Profit" simply means there is a net > gain in wealth from a given resource extraction or conversion. Now, as to > who gets to keep the profit, there is an eternal debate! > As for restoration, this is often profitable, as in restoring salmon > spawning habitat or as in restoring forest cover. I believe that there is a huge differance between using a resource, and exploiting it. For example, gold mining per se is not environmentally damaging. However placer mining, where high-pressure hoses were used to literally wash away the landscape in order to "economically" get to the gold, had disasterous effects on the watersheds of the western U.S. landscape. Today, mining companies utilize cynanide leach mining wherein deadly cyanide is poured over huge piles of mining ore in the hopes of leaching-out miniscule particles of gold. The mounds of deadly tailings (the 99.9% of the ore piles left over) are left to contaminate groundwater supplies for centuries to come. The same use/exploitation conflict is present in industrial logging. Scientifically and ethically, I don't have a problem with utilizing our forests to provide wood products. I agree that the conversion of some natural forest to mono-crop tree farms is an efficient way to meet the demand for wood products. Where I disagree is in the magnitude that this conversion takes place, and the extent to which economic factors vastly outweigh the social, ethical, ecological, and even spiritual aspects of our relationship to our forests. Call me an extremist, but I think that the destruction of over 95% of our native forests is too much; and that not only do we have a responsibility to protect the last 5% from destruction, but we should also develop policies that will ensure that at least some of our forests will be restored to old-growth status. But sadly this restoration will likely never take place because neither the timber industry nor the government have the money or the patience to make the 400-600 year investment required to restore the old-growth we cut down today. Old-growth is extremely profitable to log, and extremely unprofitable (in terms of the rate and time period of return) to replace. It is this profit-priority attitude that has the timber industry bitterly opposed to 50-100' stream buffers (because they want to cut and sell the trees) and yet they often favor leaving similar strips in areas open to the public view (so-called "view corridors) because the view corridors are considered a good investment in terms of public relations, whereas protecting riparian zones is not economically important to the timber industry. It is my belief that we must begin to better balance our ecological needs aginst our economic desires--thus the quote below. "We should never forget that exploiting the environment will always be more profitable than restoring it--and on the day that the converse becomes true, it will be too late." B.Diamond
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