>>The american farmer is the most productive and efficient in the world. I don't see you refute that. But then you say they rape the land and make it unusable. How can that be Christine? Being an efficient farmer means doing both. Caring for the land and making it produce as much agriculture as you can.<<
Being "efficient" to you may mean caring for the land. For large agribusiness, long term caring loses out to short term profits, especially when there is a surplus of farm land, which is now disappearing. You can make an athlete more effective and productive in the short term by feeding him steroids, but he will suffer for it later in his life.
Regarding ozone depletion, the Greenhouse Effect, species extinction, etc., I don't think the distinction of optimist vs pessimist captures the differences between you and Christine. Neither she nor I is saying the world is "doomed to extinction." We are trying to argue that these are serious problems and deserve serious attention in order to avoid big trouble in the future. I hear you saying we should dismiss them as the rantings of a few leftists, pessimists, communists, environmentalists.
Yes, there are many things happening on the planet that inspire great optimism and hope. And American business has played an important role in these things. But American business is clearly focused on short term profits. IMO, we need an equal focus on the long term effects of the processes used in producing these profits. Until recently, there was very little concern about this.
And yes, there is a lot of dispute regarding these issues. But that will not make them disappear. They are real. Shall we hide our heads in the sand and ignore them?
I agree God and religion should be left out of this discussion. |
