MNN - Mother Nature Network

to do with what is economically expedient and socially suitable {as well as politically convenient, religiously tolerable and culturally prescribed} and nothing to do intellectual honesty, moral courage and an appreciation of the practical requirements of biophysical reality. What is often called socioeconomic reasonng is a kind of ‘reasoning’ that cannot lead the human community to meaningfully embrace sustainable lifestyles, to sensibly protect biodiversity and to recognize the necessity for preserving Earth and its environs. For the past eight dark years economic powerbrokers, their bought-and-paid-for politicians and the absurdly enriched talking heads in the mass media have adamantly insisted that everyone live as they have, without regard either to human limits or Earth’s limitations and in evidently unsustainable ways. Our children will learn {the hard way} from these not-so-great elders the price to be paid for the unadulterated arrogance and unbridled greed of a single generation. The brightest and best, most powerful advocates of socioeconomic reasoning are leading the children down a “primrose path” to some sort of colossal ecologic and/or economic wreckage, I fear, the likes of which only Ozymandias has witnessed.