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The Wall Street Crisis and the Coming Ecological Disaster: Nachrichten of Switzerland

October 21st, 2008
By WILLIAM KERN

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Is the global economic disaster we are living through today just a harbinger of a much more dramatic global ecological collapse to come?

According to Patrik Etschmayer of the Swiss newspaper Nachrichten - the same people that got the world into the present crisis - and that favor John McCain - are driving the world over an ecological cliff.

Etschmayer writes in part:

“What if this crisis was just a prelude - a precursor to a much greater threat - one that could possibly cost millions of lives? The current economic crises was based on the idea that we can live and consume based on credit - and the belief that we can continue to do so unabated as long as we steadfastly ignore the facts and spread the risks widely enough. That idea didn’t fly. Yet its seems that humanity still seems to believe that the things that have failed in the monetary economy, will, in the long run, still apply to the material reality of our world. Quite simply, because nature will not present us with a bill for the resources upon which we depend for our very survival.”

And who are the chief culprits? Etschmayer continues:

“The fact that during the current U.S. election campaign, this insane exploitation of nature has been combined with the dim-witted rejection of scientific evidence being propagated by promoters of one side (of course, by the “Christian” Republican side) is actually quite logical. It’s no coincidence that it is precisely those people who have paved the way for the economic collapse that are still of the opinion that as long as we pray hard enough, everything is possible. But no prayer or contingency plan will contain an ecological collapse once it begins.”

By Patrik Etschmayer

Translated By Ulf Behncke

October 13, 2008

Switzerland - Nachrichten - Original Article (German)

Have you had enough yet of the economic crash? Enough of banks going bust, insurance crisis and widespread economic paranoia? Then you probably feel like most of the rest of us. And even if you feel that the crash is somewhat surreal - you can’t dismiss it out of hand. The extent of the crash and the values that have been wiped out were of preposterous proportions, not least because they were based upon inordinate excess.

But what if this crisis was just a prelude - a precursor to a much greater threat - one that could possibly cost millions of lives? The current economic crises was based on the idea that we can live and consume based on credit - and the belief that we can continue to do so unabated as long as we steadfastly ignore the facts and spread the risks widely enough.

That idea didn’t fly. Yet its seems that humanity still seems to believe that those things that have failed in the monetary economy, will, in the long run, still apply to the material reality of our world. Quite simply, because nature will not present us with a bill for the resources upon which we depend for our very survival.

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated and English-language foreign press coverage of the U.S. election and the unfolding economic crisis.



This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 at 10:04 pm and is filed under Moral Values, Environmental Issues, Foreign Policy, Nature, Creationism, Wall Street, Cartoons, Christian Conservatives, Political Philosophy, Newspapers, Natural Disasters, Federal Reserve, Food Prices, Food Shortages, Political Christianity, Pope, Newsweek Blogitics, Hypocrisy, Consumerism, Republican Party, Columnists, Foreign Politics, Foreign Affairs, Political Cartoons, Religion, Science, Math, Technology, Europe, Environment, 2008 Elections, Abortion, Economy, Energy, Technology, Christianity, Evangelicals, Islam, Social Commentary, Corporations, Evolution, Republicans, Cartoon Commentary, Global Warming, Business. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 3 Comments

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    Unchecked reproduction, mindless consumption, and worse yet, a stupid faith on the part of many that this is a peachy way to "live" - this is all ruining a once glittering jewel of a planet, and trashing the potential humans may once have had for learning the importance of living in harmony rather than insisting on being idiot gods. Humans are enormously clever, but not very intelligent as a species. The dinosaurs will have had a much longer reign here than we will have at the rate we're going. I guess that's obvious enough... except to those who find their comfort in ignorance - willful or otherwise. Too bad for the minority who have a clue but are so vastly outnumbered. Frankly the whole thing sucks. If I didn't have people who still depended on me I'd go off and live in some remote area where I could spend my remaining years pretending the insensible, exploiting tide of humanity didn't exist. Apologies to all for my misanthropic moment.
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    Of course dinosaurs are an entire clade of animals containing many species so the comparison on evolutionary time scales is inaccurate. Most species only last a few million years, humans have been around about 200,000 years, but the genus Homo has been around for well over 2 million, so actually we are doing pretty good. Better than Tyrannosaurus ever did.
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    APR, I should have been more specific, my rant had to do with homo sapiens. Even then, it's only been during the last 10K years we've moved away from hunter-gathering - and considerably more recently than that we've become a serious threat to the health of the planet. No, I'm not suggesting we should go back to hunter-gathering, only that we should have been using our brains for more than short-sighted goals. What's the point of having all this fancy sentience if we don't use it?
 
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