At 11:09 AM 8/24/2006, Jim Devine wrote:
so is the message of this article that we don't have to worry about environmental destruction? or is it simply that the real story is more complex? most would agree with the latter.
I am not sure whether it is possible to extrapolate "lessons" about environmental destruction from aeons past as Diamond does, especially when it involves remote islands in the South Pacific or North Atlantic. I have been especially troubled not just by Diamond's tendency to do this, but references to the Mayan collapse--for example--in James O'Connor's journal a while back. The big problem with Diamond's book is that he does not have a critique of capitalism. We have no way of going back in a time machine to resolve the problems of Easter Island, but we should be able to deal with the problems of today. With that in mind, writing apologetics for Chevron does not make very much sense. -- www.marxmail.org
