In “Oil, gas industries question efforts to save bats” (CDT, Dec. 17), State Rep. Jeff Pyle, in response to the dire threat of white-nose syndrome in bats, said, “I like bats, I just like humans better.”
The white man continues to ignore past lessons on how indigenous peoples lived in harmony with nature. Between A.D. 900 and 1400, the Greenland Vikings shared the land and sea with the Inuits. Jared Diamond claims in his book “Collapse: How Societies Chose to Fail or Succeed” that the Vikings had a chance of surviving if they had learned from and traded with the Inuits, but they didn’t.
Their demise was a legacy of deforestation and sheep grazing.
Infinite, continuous growth within a finite planet is not sustainable. The economy is not an immutable, infallible entity of or above nature. It’s a human invention that must be “harnessed.”
Man is not the center of the universe, where everything is viewed as a resource to be exploited or commodified.
Nature sustains us all. Nature rules and will have the last word.
West Virginia University research (Grist.org) found that coal mining costs the Appalachians five times more in early deaths than the industry provides in jobs, taxes and other economic benefits.
Other studies show that bear watching (tourism) can be more profitable than hunting -- the same for whales.
Ignorance and greed abound in high places, but I’m optimistic -- for the civilization that replaces this one.
Ron Kanagy
Potters Mills
