FAIRBANKS — Scientists, Native elders and religious leaders took part in a four-hour panel discussion on how to become better stewards of the Earth.
“As everyone talks, we have a lot more in common than you thought,” said Larry Merculieff, a Native leader and moderator of Saturday’s “One People, One Earth.”
Dr. Larry Hinzman, director of the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, used the occasion to briefly outline scientific worries about climate change and global warming.
He said these changes are especially noticeable in Alaska and are causing effects that include permafrost warming, glacier melting, wildfires, disappearing lakes, coastal erosion and severe storms.
According to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Muslim Imam Ataur Chowdhury, a UAF physics professor, cited passages from the Quran and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad that mandate Muslims protect the environment.
As a physicist, Chowdhury said it is a fact the world is going in the wrong direction.
“We have become greedy people, and the greed is the root cause of the degradation of the natural world,” he said
Native elder Ole Lake reflected on his childhood in Hooper Bay when most of the food was obtained from the land, rivers and sea.
“We as a society now want to break everything down and build it up again,” Lake said. “Nature is not for us to break down and build up again.”
Terry Chapin, a UAF professor of ecology, said he likes to think science is beginning to grow up and look more at how things are interrelated.
“It is beginning to become really clear to scientists that if we want to understand what is going on in the world, we need to understand relationships that people are involved with,” he said.
Comments (35)
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"The goal of making money, in fair, honest ways that deliver both quality products or service at fair prices is not greedy, it is not bad or evil."
So you retract your point that greed is good?
As for Cortez, we learned that he was a greedy man in grade school. Hop on over to Wikipedia if you want proof that he was greedy--I think demanding gold from the Aztecs as soon as they greeted him on the shore proves that well enough, not to mention his subsequent ransacking of Tenochitlan. For centuries after the discovery of the New World it was rumors of gold that kept people coming. This is entirely off-topic, however.
You each have your own
You each have your own correct definitions of words and the meanings. But your trying to convince the other that theirs is false. The essence of what each has said I find to have truth, not all examples or explanations are correct but the main idea isn't very different at all.
Greed in PPs sense is focusing on that bad that comes from greed. Nothing wrong there, network is focused on the good that can come from greed. Good and bad things come from every action. So one can say greed is bad and I'll agree. Someone can also say greed is good and Ill agree.
The ongoing back and forth trying to disproove or prove one side of a topic while not seeing the other side can be correct as well is kind if boring though :p
If a cure for cancer came up no one would argue that it's a bad thing if the people responsible did it for the money. Cancer cured... good...end of story. When the price for that cure goes public no one will dispute that it's greed that will make it so unaffordable.
Your both wrong. Your both right. Happy?
Basic English
The dictionary contains the standard definition of the word "greed", to whit:
1. excessive consumption of or desire for food; gluttony
2. excessive desire, as for wealth or power
Following the definition, the word "excessive" =
exceeding the normal or permitted extents or limits; immoderate; inordinate
If Brad is making the point that good things can and do arise from self-interest as a motivation, that's perfectly accurate. PP's refinement of "self-interest" is also relevant and appropriate.
BUT - use of the word "greed" to make Brad's point is either:
1. Simple ignorance of the definition of the word;
or
2. A disingenuous attempt to re-define the word in order to allow the more flagrant abuses that fall under the current definition (see "exceeding the the normal or permitted extents") to be classified as worthy of praise or ethically valued. This amounts to nothing more than an Orwellian approach to the manipulation of language to justify actions using a measuring rod whose units have been surreptitiously changed. It's very similar to people who insist on using the word "humble" to describe flagrant environmental destruction because to assume that human beings can affect anything is "arrogant".
Greed is never good.
@AlaskaStu: Greed is never good. Sometimes it can produce a good result (usually in outing the ulterior motives of a villain), but greed is a weakness, a character flaw. Explain to me how an excessive desire for material wealth or status is a good thing--you probably can't, except, as I've stated, in an idealized capitalist system or in Ayn Rand's playground.
Greed is essentially a form of gluttony. And I don't think anyone could successfully argue that gluttony is a good thing.
Where do you draw the line
Where do you draw the line then? If something good comes from a bad act, does that taint the good? I agree honestly that greed is not a good thing, I'm trying to see where 'brad' is coming from though. I do accept that greed has and can produce good outcomes. Moderation is a virtues right? So hypothetical if someone spends they're life working on a cure for cancer, ruins they're family neglects and ignores them, what will that person be known for. Not a 'bad' father or husband but a great person. So it gets grey to me. Basicly I see the place where brads trying to speak from, unfortunately I feel he's missing something. Greed in it's definition and ultimately it's essence is bad, in my eyes. Good back and forth PP! Very impressed with posts on this one.