David Suzuki - Economics Is A Form Of Brain Damage

The economists say: If you clear-cut the forest, take the money and put it in the bank, you can make 6 or 7%. If you clear-cut the forest, put it into Malaysia or Papua New Guiena, you can make 30 or 40%! So who cares whether you keep the forest? Cut it down, put the money somewhere else. When those forests are gone put it in fish. When the fish are gone, put it in computers. Money doesn't stand for anything and money now grows faster than the real world. Conventional economics is a form of brain damage. David Suzuki geneticist/activist Economics is so fundamentally disconnected from the real world, it is destructive. If you take an introductory course in economics, the professor in the first lecture will show a slide of the economy. And it looks very impressive, you know - raw materials, extraction process, manufacturer, wholesale, retail, with arrows going back and forth. And they try to impress you because they think (they know damn well economics is NOT a science) but they're trying to FOOL us into thinking that it's a real science. It’s not. Economics is a set of values that they then try to use mathematical equations and all that stuff and pretend that it's a science. But if you ask the economist: “In that equation, where do you put the ozone layer? Where do you put the deep underground aquifers of fossil water? Where do you put topsoil or biodiversity?” Their answer is “Oh, those are externalities!” Well then you might as well be on Mars. That economy's not based in anything like the real world. It’s life, the web of life, that filters water in the hydrologic cycle. It's microorganisms in the soil that create the soil that we can grow our food in. Nature performs all kinds of services. Insects fertilize all of the flowering plants. These services are vital to the health of the planet. Economists call these "externalities." That's nuts! [♪ Airy music ♫]