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Indeed, our particular concept of private property, which deters us from exhausting the positive resources of the earth, favors pollution.

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
Private
Deters
Property
Exhausting
Resources
Positive
Pollution
Particular
Favors
Earth
Concept
Concepts
Indeed

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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.
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A technical solution may be defined as one that requires a change only in the techniques of the natural sciences, demanding little or nothing in the way of change in human values or ideas of morality.
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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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But as population became denser, the natural chemical and biological recycling processes became overloaded, calling for a redefinition of property rights.
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You can never do merely one thing. The law applies to any action that changes something in a complex system. The point is that an action taken to alleviate a problem will trigger several effects, some of which may offset or even negate the one intended.
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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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Continuity is at the heart of conservatism: ecology serves that heart.
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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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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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The social arrangements that produce responsibility are arrangements that create coercion, of some sort.
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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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The greatest folly is to accept expert statements uncritically. At the very least, we should always seek another opinion.
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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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A coldly rationalist individualist can deny that he has any obligation to make sacrifices for the future.
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Every plausible policy must be followed by the question 'And then what?'
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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 competitive world of limited resources, total freedom of individual action is intolerable
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The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things.
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Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons.
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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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