Une autre raison qui explique l'absence de perception d'un problème une fois qu'il se pose, c'est la distance des gestionnaires, le problème est potentiel dans toute société ou entreprise importante. Par exemple, la plus grande firme propriétaire terrienne et d'exploitation forestière au Montana aujourd'hui n'est pas basée dans l'État, mais à quatre cents kilomètres, à Seattle, dans
l'État de Washington. Faute de proximité géographique, les cadres de l'entreprise peuvent ignorer un problème à ses commencements sur leurs propriétés forestières. Les entreprises bien gérées évitent de telles surprises en envoyant périodiquement des responsables « sur le terrain » pour y observer ce qui s'y passe réellement.
Comme tous les Américains ruraux de l'Ouest, les habitants de l'État sont plutôt conservateurs et se méfient de la législation gouvernementale. Cette attitude s'est imposée au cours de l'histoire : les pionniers vivaient dans des régions de faible densité de population, sur une frontière éloignée des centres gouvernementaux; ils étaient contraints à l'autosuffisance et ne pouvaient se
tourner vers le gouvernement pour que celui-ci résolve leurs problèmes. Les habitants en particulier se hérissent lorsque le gouvernement fédéral de Washington, D. C., éloigné d'eux géographiquement et psychologiquement, tente de leur imposer ses vues. Mais ils ne se hérissent pas à la vue de l'argent du gouvernement fédéral, dont le Montana reçoit et accepte environ un dollar et demi
pour chaque dollar envoyé par le Montana à Washington. À leurs yeux, la majorité d'urbains qui dirigent le gouvernement fédéral n'a aucune idée de ce qu'est réellement le Montana. Cependant que, pour les dirigeants du gouvernement fédéral, l'environnement du Montana est un trésor qui appartient à tous les Américains et ne doit pas profiter aux seuls habitants de l'État.
Perhaps our greatest distinction as a species is our capacity, unique among animals, to make counter-evolutionary choices.
[.. ] the values to which people cling most stubbornly under inappropriate conditions are those values that were previously the source of their greatest triumphs.
[W]hat makes patriotic and religious fanatics such dangerous opponents is not the deaths of the fanatics themselves, but their willingness to accept the deaths of a fraction of their number in order to annihilate or crush their infidel enemy.
With the rise of chiefdoms around 7,500 years ago, people had to learn, for the first time in history, how to encounter strangers regularly without attempting to kill them.
My views may seem to ignore a moral imperative that businesses should follow virtuous principles, whether or not it is most profitable for them to do so. Instead I prefer to recognize that, throughout human history, […] government regulation has arisen precisely because it was found to be necessary for the enforcement of moral principles. Invocation of moral principles is a necessary first step
for eliciting virtuous behavior, but that alone is not a sufficient step.
Remember that impact is the product of two factors: population multiplied times impact per person.
"The environment has to be balanced against the economy." This quote portrays environmental concerns as a luxury, views measures to solve environmental problems as incurring a net cost, and considers leaving environmental problems unsolved to be a money-saving device. This one-liner puts the truth exactly backwards. Environmental messes cost us huge sums of money both in the short run and in the
long run; cleaning up or preventing those messes saves us huge sums in the long run, and often in the short run as well. In caring for the health of our surroundings, just as of our bodies, it is cheaper and preferable to avoid getting sick than to try to cure illnesses after they have developed.
What are the choices that we must make if we are now to succeed, and not to fail? […] Two types of choices seem to me to have been crucial to tipping their outcomes towards success or failure: long-term planning, and willingness to reconsider core values. On reflection, we can also recognize the crucial role of these same two choices for the outcomes of our individual lives. One of those choices
has depended on the courage to practice long-term thinking, and to make bold, courageous, anticipatory decisions at a time when problems have become perceptible but before they have reached crisis proportions. […] The other crucial choice illuminated by the past involves the courage to make painful decisions about values. Which of the values that formerly served a society well can continue to be
maintained under new changed circumstances? Which of these treasured values must instead be jettisoned and replaced with different approaches?
Technological advances seem to come disproportionately from a few very rare geniuses, such as Johannes Gutenberg, James Watt, Thomas Edison, and the Wright brothers. They were Europeans, or descendants of European emigrants to America. So were Archimedes and other rare geniuses of ancient times. Could such geniuses have equally well been born in Tasmania or Namibia? Does the history of technology
depend on nothing more than accidents of the birthplaces of a few inventors?
The societies to which most readers of this book belong represent a narrow slice of human cultural diversity. Societies from that slice achieved world dominance not because of a general superiority, but for specific reasons: their technological, political, and military advantages derived from their early origins of agriculture, due in turn to their productive local wild domesticable plant and
animal species. Despite those particular advantages, modern industrial societies didn’t also develop superior approaches to raising children, treating the elderly, settling disputes, avoiding non-communicable diseases, and other societal problems. Thousands of traditional societies developed a wide array of different approaches to those problems.
Because we are the cause of our environmental problems, we are the ones in control of them, and we can choose or not choose to stop causing them and start solving them. The future is up for grabs, lying in our own hands. We don’t need new technologies to solve our problems; while new technologies can make some contribution, for the most part we "just" need the political will to apply solutions
already available.
History, as well as life itself, is complicated; neither life nor history is an enterprise for those who seek simplicity and consistency.