RE: NANFA-- Eco-nomics

Jay DeLong (thirdwind_at_att.net)
Tue, 14 Aug 2001 12:19:28 -0700

> Economics and ecology are related- made obvious by the shared prefix.

They share the same prefix because they're both systems. "Eco" come from
the Greek word, oikos, which refers to the household. That's why it was
popular in school to say the ecosystem is the house and niches are the rooms
:-) "Economics" would probably be defined as "running the house" and
"economy" the system of money, trade, production, etc.

Your analogies like "Markets are interconnected entities like ecosystems"
are interesting, but ecomomics are human-created entities based on human
values, choices and priorities. Well, I guess natural systems were the
original free-market system!

> I love fishes, herps, plants and nature in general but I cannot condemn
> those farmers in the Kalamath Basin for being angry. They are not the
> epitomy of greed and selfishness. They are decent, hardworking people
> trying to make a living like most everyone else.

I think we're all in agreement here. Why wouldn't we be? Who ever called
those folks greedy or selfish?

> Their ability to
> survive is being undercut and a whole way of life is being destroyed for
> the sake of a fish that is probably easy to propagate in a hatchery. I
> know is not the same as perserving the population in situ but is it
> really feasable or morally right to force people off the land just
> because special interests who reside elsewhere want to turn it into a
> wildlife refuge?

No comment on the morality thing, but your ideas on what is feasible and
what isn't is puzzling. However, I think we can all see your viewpoint as
pretty well defining one shared by a lot of people and "special interests".

> Of course environmentalists have argued

I don't know what an environmentalist is; what they look like or stand for
or where their positions and viewpoints are compiled or distributed and who
represents them and who keeps their records and sets their rules. Maybe
one day I'll be invited to one of their meetings, but in the meanwhile I'll
try to remain objective and not be inclined to think we humans are the
center of the Universe, and try to save some of the natural world we've
inherited for future Jeffs and Jays. This discussion is off topic anyway
and if you want the "last word" go ahead, cause I'm done :-)

--
Jay DeLong
Olympia, WA
"Human consciousness arose but a minute before midnight on the geological
clock.  Yet we mayflies try to bend an ancient world to our purposes,
ignorant perhaps of the messages buried in its long history.  Let us hope
that we are still in the early morning of our April day."
  ~Stephen Jay Gould, "Our Allotted Lifetimes," The Panda's Thumb, 1980

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