Marco Visscher | 126 mei 2010 1. You argue that care for the environment is in humanity’s best interest. How is that so? Isn’t environmentalism misanthropic by nature? The idea you refer to stands at the core of the twin dilemma (or disaster) of growing poverty and vanishing diversity. I would even argue that the opinion that “green means nature, not people” is the major obstacle to relief in both areas. The humanist left, even more ferociously than the conservative right wing, advocated technology and growth to ease the workers’ burden. One might find an adequate attitude in the age of Marx: Nature’s limits were not so visible (even if present). Scarcity was on the side of commodities, not of natural services. So until today, many philanthropists decide against nature, but in favor of “employment.” On the other hand, the ecologists had the idea that we must preserve nature and put it away from the destructive influence of man. From there the tendency to create preserves with limited access. All this stems from the failure to conceive of the biosphere as the only household there is on earth. Economists—neoliberals and marxists alike—conceived of the market as something isolated from nature.