Nature must be made expensive for technology to thrive
Nature is our ally against the system and thus it is controlled by it
For many people around the world, access to nature is not free. For that matter, it’s often not cheap. If you really want to get away from the sounds of cars and the smell of highways, you have to pay. That was not always the case in the distant past, where human beings lived near nature. Now, the nature most people have access to is limited to carefully-managed green areas that are a faint echo of true wild nature. And some don’t even have that.
And, when I talk about access to nature, I don’t just mean visiting a nice park to watch some animals. I also mean having access large amount of wild areas that nobody owns and potentially even having the ability to live a minimalist life near nature.
Such access to nature would allow people to choose alternative lifestyles away from the growing system of technology. Of course, some people might choose to live in cities or closer to industry, but many would not. And if a significant minority were to choose more minimalist lifestyles away from nature, then they could build an opposing force against an advanced technological lifestyle.
Of course, these days, you do see people go ‘off the grid’. Some buy a small plot of land and build some sort of eco-house, and others attempt to rewild their property with native vegetation. Still, the problem with this scenario is that in almost every case, a person who wishes to live a more minimalist lifestyle must first buy land, which again is expensive. And that money can only be made by helping the system. Therefore, any possible resistance is neutralized by the economic activity generated when people help the system in exchange for the money they require to leave it.
Thus, making nature more expensive is actually a key defense strategy of the advanced technological system. And we can say more: the more crushing and advanced technology grows, the more expensive nature must be made.
We already see this in highly developed nations such as Canada. Getting away to wild areas is expensive. Trying to buy a small piece of land near wild and beautiful areas is almost impossible unless you’re rich. Closer parks are often mainly a site for the rich to park their trailers for a ‘glamping experience’ or for the obnoxious to ride on their gas-powered motorboats. None of that would be possible if there weren’t at least some people who could accumulate a lot of surplus wealth, and they accumulate that wealth from furthering the system.
In less developed countries, the situation isn’t as dire. Yet. In Brazil, it is the poorer that often go to the countryside. I visited one very beautiful small but wild area in São Paulo, and it was next to a poor favela. And there were still plenty of fairly cheap properties there close to something that could be called wild. But, the situation is getting worse in Brazil, too. As people accumulate more excess wealth, nature becomes more expensive.
For instance, the number of AirBNBs in Brazil has grown immensely. Going out to nature thus becomes more expensive, because properties become more valuable due to the existence of AirBNBs. Of course, the people who benefit most are those who are already rather wealthy and who can maintain an AirBNB. Soon, the prices won’t be far behind the exorbitant prices you see near the Rocky Mountains in Canada. Again, technology finds a way to put a price on nature.
It is often said that putting a price on nature is a good thing, because it preserves nature. Ecolodges in the tropics are a good thing, they say, because the tourism brings in dollars, which means the land will be protected. But we know what this really means. It means that there will be some equilibrium found where the amount of land to be preserved is optimized against all other economic factors. And this land will be just enough so that the wealthy can take their little vacation to see a few wild animals now and then.
Moreover, this economic balance is fragile. If a developer wanted to build a condo in place of an ecolodge, all they would have to do is offer more money than what the ecotourism business brings in, and the ecolodge is no longer protected. Ecotourism raises the price of wild nature, but it does not protect it.
Some say laws are the answer. Yes, governments do have laws to protect wild nature in some cases. But these laws are again insufficient. They are a concession that will never cross the line of hurting the tax income that the government requires. And since tax income comes from the growth of technology, efforts to protect wild nature will always be insufficient. And governments can be bribed, especially in developing countries.
Therefore, for someone who truly loves wild nature, putting a price on nature is unacceptable. It is unacceptable because a price is insufficient to protect nature. It is unacceptable because a price prevents the poor from accessing nature. In turn, the majority of the population stop caring about nature because they’ve never had a connection with it. And, it is unacceptable because it only encourages the development of technology, which in turn will eventually crush wild nature.
Unfortunately, sometimes a price on nature is the only thing that protects it in the immediate future. And that is the underhanded soul of technology: it only protects a thing enough until it can do away with it. And if we want to have any semblance of a biosphere left, we had better do something about technology before it’s too late.