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Why are ecologists and environmentalists so feared and hated? This is because in part what they have to say is new to the general public, and the new is always alarming.

Garrett Hardin

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Garrett Hardin
Age: 88 †
Born: 1915
Born: April 21
Died: 2003
Died: September 14
Biologist
Demographer
Ecologist
Statistician
University Teacher
Dallas
Texas
Garrett James Hardin
Garrett J. Hardin
Environmental
General
Ecologists
Public
Environmentalists
Part
Alarming
Always
Environmentalist
Feared
Hated

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Numeracy: 1. The art of putting numbers to things, that is, assigning amounts to variables in order that practical decisions may be reach. 2. That aspect of education (beyond mere literacy) which takes account of quantitative aspects of reality.
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Value is a relative concept: the value of each action is determined by comparing it with other possible actions.
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In a finite world this means that the per capita share of the world's goods must steadily decrease.
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The greatest folly is to accept expert statements uncritically. At the very least, we should always seek another opinion.
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(Technology reliability) x (Human reliability) = (System reliability)
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However, I think the major opposition to ecology has deeper roots than mere economics ecology threatens widely held values so fundamental that they must be called religious.
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Fundamentalists are panicked by the apparent disintegration of the family, the disappearance of certainty and the decay of morality. Fear leads them to ask, if we cannot trust the Bible, what can we trust?
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But it is no good using the tongs of reason to pull the Fundamentalists' chestnuts out of the fire of contradiction. Their real troubles lie elsewhere.
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In an approximate way, the logic of commons has been understood for a long time, perhaps since the discovery of agriculture or the invention of private property in real estate.
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The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes the family as the natural and fundamental unit of society. It follows that any choice and decision with regard to the size of the family must irrevocably rest with the family itself, and cannot be made by anyone else.
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No one should be able to enter a wilderness by mechanical means.
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Ecology is the overall science of which economics is a minor speciality.
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Religious reasons, which is no reason. I notice Skeptic had a review of Dennett's book, Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Religious reasons amount to what Dennett terms skyhooks. Do you believe in skyhooks? I don't.
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A coldly rationalist individualist can deny that he has any obligation to make sacrifices for the future.
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In a competitive world of limited resources, total freedom of individual action is intolerable
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Education can counteract the natural tendency to do the wrong thing, but the inexorable succession of generations requires that the basis for this knowledge be constantly refreshed.
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Throughout history, human exploitation of the earth has produced this progression: colonize-destroy-move on.
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Using the commons as a cesspool does not harm the general public under frontier conditions, because there is no public, the same behavior in a metropolis is unbearable.
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Of course, a positive growth rate might be taken as evidence that a population is below its optimum.
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We see only what we have names for.
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