"While promising “energy independence,” fracking actually threatens to
destroy our fresh water supplies. Recently, researchers have given
attention to the fact that water might be the limiting resource and end
up more valuable than oil, gas, or gold ... Fracking, like deep sea drilling and all other dangerous exploitations
of nature’s resources, promises large short-run profits for corporations
at the expense of everyone else and the future. The cost of the
polluted water, dead fish, infertile humans and animals, polluted soil
and air, and the increase in diseases are all external costs imposed on
third parties who have no stake in the ill-gotten profits ... Easter Island is a clear example of a civilization that destroyed itself by stripping its environment of its resources ... What, Professor Diamond asks, was the ruler thinking when the last tree was cut down?
The answer perhaps is that the ruler was thinking of his own glory ... [U]nregulated capitalism is one of the greatest forces of destruction of peoples, animal and plant life, and the Earth’s ecology ... We add to GDP the value of the fracked oil and gas, but do not subtract
the value of the ruined water supply of peoples and the life in the
streams ... Economists have responsibility for earthlings’ ignorance about their
environmental dependence. Economics claims that man-made capital is a
substitute for nature’s capital. As nature’s capital is depleted,
reproducible man-made capital will take its place. This assumption is
embodied in the production function that is the basis of modern economic
theory. The assumption is absurd, because it assumes that finite
resources can support infinite growth. Economists should begin their
education with courses in physics ... Will the idiots who rule the earth destroy it before humans can escape to other planets?"
Zum Artikel von Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, erschienen auf PaulCraigRoberts.org (24. Januar 2013) »
