China bans toxic American computer junk

Quothe Carlos Murillo, from writings of Sun, Jun 09, 2002 at 10:30:20AM -0400: Au contraire. The problem is that the U.S., like many other nations, has a self-destructive economic mindset which believes that constant growth, not stability, is what's important, and, necessary. The problem with this is that we live in a nation, and a world, with a finite amount of resources. Take land for example, and notice how open land, woodlands and farms are disappearing as the population continues to grow. Our politicians tend to think in the following circular, and destructive, manner: we need to give the economy a boost, that requires more jobs to be created, that means that we need businesses to expand and the creation of new businesses, more land is needed for more buildings... now, we've created more jobs. Uh-oh, now we need more people - maybe we need to import some cheap labor and we need more people to have more babies, now we need more houses for these people to live in, and we need more highways (gobble, gobble, there goes more land lost to "development") Now, we've got more people than jobs again, so we need to create more jobs... The vicious cycle continues... Now, toss the environment into the aforementioned mess, and see how more and more people having more and more babies causes more and more harm to Nature. Society turns to pollution control, more efficient cars, houses and appliances, etc. as a solution; however, that only necessitates more manufacturing, more traffic, more pollution, the need for more people, more land, etc. Of course, the aforementioned also results in more profits for some greedy people, and the typically corrupt politicians get to say that they're doing something about the problem while helping special interests, and hence, that route is taken. Most politicians don't like simple solutions which don't please special interest groups and businesses, so, the simple and effective solutions, like stopping the overpopulation problem, are ignored. Let's not also forget that there's that societal nuisance called religious dogma which also deserves some of the credit for the overpopulation problem, which some people deny the existence of because they're brainwashed by such dogma and a desire for economic growth rather than stability - e.g., greed. -- Copyright (C) 2001 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals: All Rights Reserved an unnatural belief that we're above Nature & rdd(a)rddavis.org 410-744-4900 her other creatures, using dogma to justify such http://www.rddavis.org beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.