Somebody's been reading my mind!

(From a comment on Pharyngula, PZ Myers, SciBlogs, Why climatologist used the tree-ring.....):

Posted by: glenister_m | December 17, 2009 6:33 PM

In one of David Suzuki's books he laments that if aliens were observing us they would have to conclude that we were an insane species.

Reasons include:
- if we hunt a food species faster than it can reproduce, it will go extinct and can not be used as food in the future. Yet this is what we are doing to fish and other aquatic species we depend on
- we need clean air and water to survive, yet we contaminate both by dumping our wastes into them (eg. exhaust, sewers, pollution, etc.)
- we are aware of health/environmental problems, (eg. ozone layer, global warming, pollution, smoking, etc.), but will actively resist stopping the causes until we are forced to
- we are aware that exponential growth is unsustainable in any form (eg. population, crops, finances - we live on a finite planet), yet we continue to act as though it can be although that logically leads to our own destruction

Oh, and another thing...

Let us all mourn the passing of the used-to-be-respected Science Blogs....now in bed with PepsiCo, who has established a blog on "nutrition" (can I even say that with a straight face?) to dwell amongst the real questioning and honest science bloggers. Oh, for shame, for shame....apparently in the end, money does buy everything. Is nothing left sacred?

UPDATE: (I am rather late with this) Apparently Seed decided to yank the Pepsico blog after their bloggers started leaving in droves....good call, but the damage was still done. Is this the beginning of a new era of science and reporting? Well, heck, conflict of interest doesn't seem to apply to Wall Street, so why anywhere else:?

Is it okay to be "Just Not Made That Way"?

Just a copy of this comment to one of Sharon's posts ('cause I want to keep this on hand, it expresses my views perfectly):

"Instead I think people just need to suck it up because taking responsibility for supporting the true costs of your lifestyle, whatever that lifestyle is, should not be morally optional. As has been pointed out, this doesn't mean that everyone literally has to garden (that's just an example for the purposes of illustration, like pickles) but that specialization in our economy and our ability to externalize costs has gotten way out of hand. So it's so interesting to read this b/c I've been trying to figure out how to express this idea. It's a really really hard thing to say to someone. It is nearly impossible for people to hear and they react strongly b/c this idea competes directly with the powerful ideologies of capitalism and the American dream."

Sharon's original post can be found here.