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Economists (and others) who are satisfied with nature-free equations develop a dangerous hubris about the potency of our species

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
Others
Economists
Nature
Equations
Economist
Satisfied
Develop
Species
Dangerous
Potency
Free
Hubris

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Moreover, the practical recommendations deduced from ecological principles threaten the vested interests of commerce it is hardly surprising that the financial and political power created by these investments should be used sometimes to suppress environmental impact studies.
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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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The social arrangements that produce responsibility are arrangements that create coercion, of some sort.
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The only kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected.
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To say that we mutually agree to coercion is not to say that we are required to enjoy it, or even to pretend we enjoy it.
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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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The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things.
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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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The god who is reputed to have created fleas to keep dogs from moping over their situation must also have created fundamentalists to keep rationalists from getting flabby. Let us be duly thankful for out blessings.
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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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A coldly rationalist individualist can deny that he has any obligation to make sacrifices for the future.
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People are the quintessential element in all technology... Once we recognize the inescapable human nexus of all technology our attitude toward the reliability problem is fundamentally changed.
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Thou shalt not transgress the carrying capacity
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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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No one should be able to enter a wilderness by mechanical means.
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A finite world can support only a finite population therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero.
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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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Of course, a positive growth rate might be taken as evidence that a population is below its optimum.
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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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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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