Thursday, December 21, 2006

"These are a few of my favourite things . . . .

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As development is billed as the dirtiest of words and sustainable its contemporary default l'd like to put the case for development with a capital D. Without wishing to sound alarmist the current environmentalist message is the message of the doomsayer although flies in the face of reality. People have progressed remarkably over time yet current thinking seeks to constrain that. Far worse seems to be the hatred of any solution offered and the preferred choice is to slow down (1). Maybe that suits those who have attained a level of comfort and prefer their experiences authentic but others wanting better creature comforts not so.

Call it what you will, the developing world needs better than to exist at the level of charity handout, subsistence farming, hand pump and smiley photo. Hot and cold running water, abundant electricity, decent housing, hospitals and roads wouldn't be a bad start. And we in the west ought to be able to get on with something a bit more progressive than sifting through our rubbish or living like battery tenants.

What is particularly alarming is the stranglehold that green thinking exerts everywhere. lsn't this tantamount to humanity throwing in the cloth and giving in? We uphold primitive developments such as Stonehenge, the pyramids or Machu Picchu but eschew true development today. Telling that the Incas averaged more roadbuilding than New labour (2).

We get excited when we stumble over the remains of previous human habitation - the broken pots and other earth covered remnants as to how they lived a 1000 years ago but seem to despise the current version.

There are those that say that the planet is changing because of our impact upon it and that the under-developed world suffers disproportionately, yet devastation disproportionately effects those that don't have the benefits of development.

Green thinking seeks an imagined harmony with natural forces that just don't exist in holy equilibrium. lsn't nature just a series of happenstances? Doesn't the march of history tell us we live on a planet that is constantly changing? Without advanced technological solutions we confine ourselves to wishful thinking and an ahistoric view of the world.


'You say Matterhorn, I say materials . . . '

The hills really ought to be alive with the sound of development, as do the valleys, plains and oceans. it'd be good to see a more progressive humanity, one that turns back the tide of ecodoomsayers and offers genuine solutions to what lies ahead. We ought to be gladdened that our endeavours can be seen by satellite - more of it please!


A non exhaustive (and in no particular order) list of my favourite things -

Kirk Leech presents an excellent website concerning the row over true development at Rosia Montana, Romania. It seems that the greens are in full evangelical mode and want nothing but a peasant existence for the locals - how quaint. The bulk of the locals seem to have better ideas. See www.goldenmyths.comIs this worth preserving and for whom?
(A cheap holiday in other people's misery . . . )

Mirna, Siberia.



Building the 3 gorges dam.

They didn't just dig a hole at Kennecott, Utah, they mined away a mountain.



*Female astronaut courtesy of NASA.
(1)Every silver lining has a cloud. Stuart Blackman
(2)Transport innovation: slowing to a standstill. Woudhuysen, Both www.spiked-online.com>Environment
The Incas: The South American empire lasted just 100 years from 1438AD (began 1200?), and built 22,530km of road
New labour averaged 64km a year since 1997.