Message-ID: <002f01be110d$07596a20$e745fea9@jay98> Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1998 16:58:39 -1000 From: Jay Hanson <mailto:j@QMAIL.COM> Subject: The "cultural cain toads" are killing us To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/1998/10/100298/killingus.aspStudy: Life on Earth is killing us Friday, October 2, 1998
Life on Earth is killing us concludes a Cornell University study of population trends, climate change, increasing pollution and emerging diseases.
An estimated 40 percent of deaths around the world can now be attributed to various environmental factors, especially organic and chemical pollutants, according to an article published in the October issue of the journal BioScience
I just archived the study itself at http://dieoff.com/page165.htm
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But it's not "life on earth" that is killing us, it's the "cultural cain toads" that are killing us:
"Economists have become a plague as dangerous as rabbits, prickly pear or cane toads. Economists have become the cultural cane toads of Canberra, oozing over the landscape and endangering myriad indigenous species. Not only the economy but also mental health would be greatly improved if we could lift the fog of obfuscation on things economic. The first step is to take economists from their pedestal and to see them as the curiosities they are. The first step to reducing their power is to reduce their legitimacy. How is this to be achieved? First, economists' outpourings should, as a matter of principle, be met with laughter, derision, benign paternalism. They should cease to be employed as media commentators. In the long term they should cease to be hired. Let them be pensioned off and die out. Extinction is a worthy end for a profession whose brief is rotten to the core. (Jones, 1991, 88)"
Quoted in HEALING A WOUNDED WORLD: Economics, Ecology, and Health for a Sustainable Life. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0275956016
I hate to see "healing" in a book title. I expect to find a new-age, self-help book of the "win friends, influence people" variety. But ignore the title, this is a serious work! It's packed with references, scientific studies, sound logic, economic enlightenment, and quotes. This is the ultimate doom and gloom book (I think I have read them all). I highly recommend it.
Jay ------------------------- COMING SOON TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU! http://dieoff.com/page1.htm