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--Commercial exchange is the system that we use to look after our environment--

Money money money
Make me make the money
I wanna wanna wanna buy something
I gotta gotta have it

Playing the money game
Is money really the root of all evil or are we the culprits?
Is it worse than any drug?
Is it the only system that we have or want?
Is it all we do in this life?

Commercial exchange is our present system. It is worldwide and those that don’t want to play have no real choice in the matter. Whether you are a small country, a large one or just a bum in the Bronx, all your efforts on a daily basis have to please the bottom line. If that means you pollute to get to work in your old beat up truck then that’s what you do. You can’t phone the boss and make a lame excuse because without that paycheck your lifestyle will disappear. Sadly this is the way we live. Those that rebel like that bum in the Bronx, have a charity system to rely on but even that takes it’s toll on pride. Individual cities and countries have no choice at all. They must survive economically or they will find a different governing body in charge.

On the other side of the coin, we as humans seem to need this system of exchange in order to keep our affairs in order. Barter does not work as well in a complex society simply because you just can’t give all concierge’s an apple or a pie for their troubles, and you can’t spend all day trying to find out what the man would like if he already has too many pies. Tipping him with the appropriate amount of exchange is the best way and he can buy his own apples and pies on the way home. Plus there is no way that you could get him to come to work with a vague promise of pies, apples and the occasional goat. It seems that our interest in occupation causes us to rely on exchange and rightly so but the society has gone so far with this process that all things are decided by the almighty dollar.

Imagine if you can that our medium of exchange became too easy to counterfeit and as such it became unreliable, just for the sake of argument say the system went into a crash and banking instructions became unusable due to electronic hacking. Cocaine, heroin, hash and other drugs being easily transportable, readily appraisable unlike precious gems, and universally in demand might become the new medium of exchange. This has actually happened in other areas of the world and could happen here, as well, but that isn’t my point. You would catch a taxi and spot the driver a quarter of dope for your ride. He would take the taxi back after his shift and split his haul with the owner just as he does now with money. If you worked at a grocery you would tally up the customer’s supplies on the same till used when the money system was in vogue and then give him a choice of say three grams of hash or an 8 ball of coke to pay you with. Governments would be quite upset at having to switch over to drugs as a medium but they are truly without morals anyway since they espouse money over all else so they would have little choice. Governments are at the mercy of big business and it is the corporate moral system or lack thereof that causes governments to do what they do. What I am trying to say with the drug analogy is that if we did fall into a situation where Acapulco Gold was the new gold standard and the average person could plainly see that our environment was controlled by drugs the truly repugnant nature of this system could be realized.

This is plainly the most difficult problem that we face with global warming. People want their fancy cars and the underdeveloped and developing nations of the world want them too. The system of money can supply all these luxuries to all people but as yet has no way of cleaning up the mess that it leaves. Non-theoretical science may be able to solve this complex issue since it can take an overview that is not allowed partisan scientific institutes but even if a solution is found it still must be applied and that may prove to be an even greater challenge.

End of Session One

Question: Propose the most obvious answers to this dilemma. How can we continue to use money as a medium of exchange without it being the only controlling factor on the way we treat our environment?

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