Travis
James Heartfield wrote:
> Sandwichman writes:
>
> "Almost every thing in you local store has traveled thousands of miles by
> truck, plane and/or container ship. And the fuel to ship it with has
> been massively subsidized."
>
> And that is a good thing, isn't it? Without those subsidies, the 260
> million Americans, and 377 M west Europeans would for the most part,
> starve.
>
> It is just sheer utopianism to think that you could take the internal
> combustion engine out of the food chain without substantially reducing
> its output. (setting aside the coming supercession of the
> gasoline-driven car).
>
> By all means propose a planned population reduction (though I think
> you are in dubious company if you do), but that is at least 70 years
> away.
>
> Until then, people have to eat. Or you could say, like Pol Pot, that
> the overwhelmingly urban (and increasingly suburban) population
> should move out into the countryside and feed themselves, but that
> experiment has been shown to be pretty deadly.
>
> "The agricultural output that sustains us is
> based on the motorized application of increasing quantities of
> petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides because these things lose their
> effectiveness as they come to disrupt the natural systems of soil
> regeneration and pest control."
>
>
> The "natural systems of soil regeneration and pest control" would
> never be able to sustain a human population of more than a few
> million, let alone six billion. Increased agricultural output, and its
> corollary, much more extensive distribution systems come about by
> modifying natural systems for human ends.
>
> "And overwhelminly, you think it's a good thing that the commodity,
> labour power, travels to work by car?"
>
> Well, that's a "when did you stop beating your wife" question, isn't
> it. I would prefer that labour was not alienated. But setting aside
> that possibility, it is preferable to drive twenty miles that you have
> to than to walk them. Why don't you go round some working class
> neighbourhoods and ask people if they are willing to trade their cars
> in for bicycles.
>
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