Imaginery wealth

Many people in developed countries have seen circumstances make money rapidly for them. They have become wealthy through the creation of fiat money rather than by their know how of physical efforts. Financial commentators argue that the growth of sovereign debt in many countries is a boom that is bound to bust. But the well off in society are living the day with their wealth which, despite the protestations that it is only fiat money, is still able to pay for their desires. It is real wealth as far as they are concerned as they indulge in tours to foreign lands, lapping up the sales that plague TV, live in McMansions, drive SUVs and glorify showing off their high material standard of living. It helps their self esteem to be able to show that they have made it. They do not understand that they are parasites feeding off natural resource
wealth without society paying for it.

Governments do their utmost to foster economic growth as it encourages full employment and their return to lucrative office. Businesses compete in their ability to sell goods and services so as to make money for their managers and shareholders. They build skyscrapers, housing estates, freeways, tunnels and other infrastructure by irrevocably using up limited natural resources.These powerful bodies lead the way in the ravishing of our life support system

Even scientists who strive hard to gain understanding in their particular field are victims of this rapacious disease. Climatologists fly to far off places to make measurements of aspects of climate change they can report on in peer-reviewed papers, so making their own contributions to greenhouse gas emissions! Government specialists fly to conferences so they can convey to like contributors their findings of what is going wrong in their field.

Many informed people know how numerous past civilizations collapsed. The ruins of cities in central America, Asia and the Middle East provide anthropologists with insight into what happened. Some authors have provided sound argument for the demise of our industrialized civilization. But the masses are uninformed and the elite have the irrational belief that the leverage of their money will ease their powering down. So it is still full steam ahead for the vast global population and the operation of the infrastructure it is so dependent on as the cliff gets closer. It is almost as though society is determined to go out with a flourish, the wish of addictives as their demise looms.

The Waste Manifesto

The elite in global society continue to pursue their traditional dominance of the ecosystem  as well as the population at large in order to bolster their self esteem. Their manifesto has not changed in principle but the details have as civilization has developed through industrialization. The masses strive to share in this development of materialism with limited success as only some of the fruits of economic "progress" have trickled down.

This manifesto is based on the false premise that civilization can continue to ravish its life support system, the environment, without paying the ecological cost, the depreciation of natural material wealth and the transformation of natural resources into waste by using them. Natural forces takes no notice of this manifesto of parasitic Homo sapiens. They have been in control of what happens physically, geologically and biologically for eons. They continue to do so now.They will continue to do so into the far future. They will also continue to control how the temporary infrastructure of civilization operates and ages during its life time. Friction plays a major role in this irrevocable aging process.

Society enjoys the goods and services provided by the infrastructure irreversibly using some of the limited natural capital. They would feel lost without cars for transport, electricity for cooking, heating, cooling and for running all their electronic gimmicks. Most would be bewildered without shelter and sanitation. They are prepared to go along with the incredible manifesto of the elite so long as they can enjoy the benefits of industrialization without paying the ecological costs. They enjoy the free lunch that using up limited natural resources makes possible only at this stage. But what a legacy they will be leaving. Future generations will curse them for abiding the consumption manifesto.

It is ironical that society is happy for the operations they are so dependent on to produce vasts amounts of waste so long as most of it can be deposited in land fills. They have yet to accept that some of these wastes have contributed to the climate change that is becoming very worrisome. The influence of this pollution on human health is causing concern amongst medical profession although the majority of well off people continue to feast on the food that fossil fuels do so much to provide. They are content to work hard so that they can afford to consume the products made from natural wealth. Making intangible money is the driving force of these parasites.