Our rivers and natural resources are to be valued and commodified, a move that will benefit only the rich, argues George Monbiot. Photograph: Alamy

Click the image to the left to go to the editorial opinion of one of The Guardian‘s environmentally-oriented writers.  It starts with a quotation from Jean Jacques Rousseau; not shabby:

‘The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying ‘This is mine’, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society.

From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not anyone have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows, ‘Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody’.”

This quote, and its quoter, are both offering charismatic ideas about a world very different from the one we live in.  At core, the quoter in particular seems to clearly reject the possibility of entrepreneurial conservation, which depends on valorizing nature.  We have written only briefly in these pages about this idea, but it is fundamental to our goals.  This is a reminder that we need to elaborate further.  Thank you, quoter; and thank you JJR.