2 Replies to “Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill”

  1. To be fair, we’ve yet to find a system that truly ‘works’ from the point of view of environmental protection. It is very clear that the unfettered market will never protect wildlife, clean air and water or soils but the environmental degradation presided over by Soviet Russia and the Chinese governments of Mao and his successors indicate that at least non-democratic forms of socialism are as prone to trashing the environment as naked capitalism.
    I believe that some form of social democracy is the best option with the government taking responsibility for intervening wherever the market fails to protect the environment, the welfare of the weak and so on. The challenge is getting people to vote against their perceived immediate financial advantage in favour of what may often seem to be abstractions (however real the flames in Australia and the incinerated koalas and wallabies – to take but one example – may actually be) or remote issues with little relevance to their lives.

  2. Any political system can destroy the natural world (or not). We need to establish as a principle, as fundamental as gravity, that it’s not just people that matter.
    Even such good things as the declaration on human rights are entirely focused on us. Excessive concern with ourselves seems to be a human blind spot.
    Aldo Leopold quote: “We abuse land because we see it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”

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