My focus is more on the environment. In my view, most of what we mindlessly call wealth is being generated from the destruction of the environment. I see that destruction as human-caused cancer, not entropy.
If no costs are externalized, I'm afraid the account books don't support that the conversion of the environment to a wasteland, and the pollution of the atmosphere into a greenhouse, and doing such a fair trade for artificial wealth.
I don't want more, I want less. I don't want to go to live on Mars, either.
I was down at the farm this afternoon working on the greenhouse foundation for our local role in the Conservation Innovation Grant, and two of our LLC's newest members, both naturalists and ornithologists, were doing an annual bird count along the creek that flows through the farm, which they have been doing for twenty years. We are on a neotropical migratory flyway. They reported that they have documented an average 2% reduction annually, with less species diversity. I count species diversity and heathy populations of wildlife as an important form of wealth. We are losing it quickly and dramatically.
The cost of some kinds of wealth is much higher than its value - I think that means it is not actually wealth, but delusion.
