Guest Blogger Chris Warner writes:
It is all well and good to focus an argument on a specific issue. Rupert is a current Darth Vader type.
However, nowhere do either of you mention the big problem of human nature as a subset within the natural environment. In a hot, flat and crowded world of the energy climate era, with one sky and one sea, the natural environment has changed, mostly by human contribution to the problem. Adam Smith and Milton Freidman are old school. Their contributions do not apply to our current dilemma. The rules have changed. Was Adam Smith correct when he said “the more you know, the less you want?” Was Milton Freidman’s edict the Government is required to protect those down stream in the “neighborhood effect” observed in policy creation?
Aldo Leopold clearly states that “a thing is right if it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong if it tends otherwise.” One world is enough for all of us. All economic policy, including, and hopefully in a leading role, the media, must evolve to a position of thinking and acting responsibly, based on an ethic that supports biodiversity. There is no sustainable alternative.
Sustainable business has a triple E bottom line, Ethics, Environment and Economy. A little greed is good for competition. How about a race to see who can sequester the most carbon. All that requires is fundamentally reversing old business models. No big deal, except everybody born in the 20th century will likely have to die first. We just can’t seem to stop taking, warring and burning. Media has an opportunity to play a pivotal and heroic role in fostering such a large movement.
John Lennon, one of the most influential and successful people in the history of media and entertainment, on whose back many have profited, wrote “Imagine.” The message is boring, yet timeless. Is there a profitable place in media for honesty? Can a positive message sell? Or is that the role of government which the Koch brothers want to remove from public service too? Does private have to mean take? Can the private sector act responsibly? What is enough? The future of our species, and most life on Earth as we knew it is in the balance. Where is the love, the urgency, the rage? I don’t hear any loud rallying cries from the media. Survival must not be profitable.
Rupert does not care about my view, since I don’t pay for his opinion.
