Counsel for Getting There - Economics and Ecology: United for a Sustainable World - page 174

Summing Up
This has been a very quick and incomplete listing of conditions in a variety
of areas, as they exist in a world dominated by the Growth Ethic—all evalu-
ated from the platform of a worldview emphasizing social-environmental-
economic sustainability. Remember, these conditions are viewed from our
vantage point with the goal of attempting to avert a growing and irreparable
crisis we see looming into the future for all generations. You must, however,
make up your own mind and choose your own path. You must go into the
world and create the future that you want; if your actions are the product of
a growing knowledge of cause and effect based on the biophysical principles
outlined in this topic, you have more power than you realize to shape a posi-
tive contribution for your having been here.
Whatever set of beliefs and paths you choose, always remember the legacy
that we all owe to future generations. This is to say, you must understand
the environmental and economic circumstances to which you are commit-
ting the future, because if your choices create a deficit in terms of either a
child's future options or the ecosystem's productive capacity, it is analogous
to “taxation without representation,” and that goes against everything a true
democracy stands for. The choice is yours. How will you choose?
Endnotes
1. Aldemaro Romero. Death and taxes: the case of the depletion of pearl oyster
beds in sixteenth-century Venezuela. Conservation Biology 17 (2003):1013-1023.
2. Shi & Provincial Forestry Bureau for Endangered Species, Import and Export
Management Office of China, July 2007, unpublished data.
3. Norman Myers. The extinction spasm impending: synergisms at work.
Conservation Biology 1 (1987):14-21.
4. The preceding discussion of the trade in turtles and tortoises is based on: M.
D. Jenkins. Tortoises and Freshwater Turtles: The Trade in Southeast Asia. TRAFFIC
International, Cambridge, UK. 1995; Le Dien Duc and S. Broad. Investigations
into Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Trade in Vietnam. Gland, Switzerland, and
Cambridge, UK; Species Survival Commission, International Union for the
Conservation of Nature, 1995; M. Lau, B. Chan, P. Crow, and G. Ades. Trade and
Conservation of Turtles and Tortoises in the Hong Kong Special Administrative
Region, People's Republic of China. In: Asian Turtle Trade: Proceedings of a Workshop
on Conservation and Trade of Freshwater Turtles and Tortoises in Asia , P. P. Van Dijk,
B. L. Stuart, and A.G.J. Rhodin (eds.), Chelonian Research Monographs, no. 2,
39-44 (Lunenburg, MA: Chelonian Research Foundation, 2000); P. P. Van Dijk, B.
L. Stuart, and A. G. J. Rhodin (eds.). Asian Turtle Trade: Proceedings of a Workshop
on Conservation and Trade of Freshwater Turtles and Tortoises in Asia . Chelonian