I do believe a bit of the info you (Orion) gave Benjamin about the current situation of the world and it’s environment. I wish I knew what some of his sources were to lead him in opposition.

If you are interested in learning about our environmental crisis, I suggest looking at the recent Millenial Ecosystem Assessment — the first comprehensive look at the state of our ecosystems. Also, the World Resource Institute has a report called People and Ecosystems: The Fraying Web of Life, that is worth checking out: http://www.wri.org/biodiv/pubs_description.cfm?pid=3027

To learn more about the current rate of mass extinctions, here is a resource from PBS: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/03/2/l_032_04.html

Poverty is complex topic, but there are close to 3 Billion people living on less than $2 a day, that’s half the world’s population. Do they lack freedoms? Absolutely, what is freedom without adequate access to the basic necessities of life?

I am not happy with our present system. It is a socialist disaster already. Our environment is not in crisis and the ecosystems are just fine. Extictions are not above historical averages. Poverty is caused by the lack of personal liberty.

Michael — I’ve been to the Wiser Earth site a few times, it is a growing directory of the hodge-podge of groups out there doing important work, thanks for sharing this resource.

Benjamin — your faith in our current system appears unshakable, I wonder what you make of the immense challenges of climate change, the declining health of all ecosystems and the increasing rate of extinctions, growing inequality and number of people without adequate access to water, health care, or housing…don’t these enormous challenges require us to adapt our system and way of life?

Great to hear from you all,
Orion

If you will look at history, the wages of communism are death, poverty and misery. No matter how you package them, the results will always be the same.

If you guys want to live under totalitarian rule with no rights whatsoever, please relocate to North Korea or Cuba and leave the rest of us to our liberty (what little we have left).

I think one of the most important analogies Paul makes is between this new type of social movement and the immune system. The success of the immune system depends on the quality of its connections and the social movement’s success depends on the same. Connections, rather than the strength of any individual organization or person, will set the stage for our success. And as a result of Paul’s research, his staff created WiserEarth, an online tool to improve the quality of the connections between the millions of organizations and people that work in social justice, the environment and indigenous rights.

“Market Failure” is a term used by economists to describe when free markets, operating without government intervention, fail to deliver an optimal or efficient allocation of resources. This occurs for several well understood reasons: imperfect information, externalities, monopolies, public goods and the free-rider problem, equity concerns, and other reasons.

Imperfect information — this simply refers to the real world situation where a lot of information is unknown by economic actors. The classic “free market” model assumes perfect information, a theoretical situation that is never actually realized.

Externalities refers to the situation where a firms costs can be externalized onto other actors — for example, a factory might dump its waste into the nearby river. The costs of clean-up are paid for by society, i.e., tax-payers — unless there is some form of regulation and legal accountability enforced by the government. There are numerous examples of externalities.

One of the things I liked about the movie SICKO is that it shows private health care companies can be even more bureaucratic than government. In general, bureaucracy is a symptom of size, and many multi-national corporations are gigantic and suffer from incredible inefficiencies.

One man’s social responsibility is another man’s stupid idea. That is the problem with people declaring this or that cause to be overridingly important. Here’s One small example,out of millions.

Before the first Walmart in Vermont was build, there were many protesters. Basically if you listened to them, the world would come to an end if Walmart was built. Well it was build, and none of the things that was claimed would happened did. The vast majority of mom and pop stores did not go out of business. Walmart has never had trouble get either costumers or worker. So both groups must like it, otherwise they would not shop/work there. Who is any protester to say where anyone should shop/work.

One mom and Pop store I know of did go out of business after Walmart moved in. But it deserved to. It was a hardware store. I went in that store once and asked for a hammer. They did not have any, but they would be getting them in the next week. Another time I was looking for a screwdriver. again, not today, try next week. Any hardware store without hammers or screwdrivers deserves to go out of business. If Walmart fills that gap so be it. Not all mom and pop stores are good.

The truth is, that hardware store went out of business because, another mom and pop hardware store opened up.The new store had hammers and screwdrivers. But the antiWalmart crowd tried to blame it on Walmart, not the first store’s lack of inventory. That first store would still be there if it had decided to stock hammers and screwdrivers after the second store opened. The market takes care of stupid business practices, in a way no amount of social activism can.

Harvie — I’ll definitely check out the backbonecampaign. What is Bill Moyers’ involvement? I’d vote for him for President any day.