In a dialog between blogger Marcelino Fuentes and myself, sparked by a recent post on NAFTA, I have found myself to be in complete disagreement with Marcelino’s conclusions. He argues that cheap, imported corn is a boon to Mexican consumers, and that our grandchildren should be willing to pay for our some of our transgressions because of the benefits they will receive from our hard work and innovation.

While I agree that it is reasonable to expect future generations to pay the price for some our shortcomings, just as we have had to do with those of our predecessors, I’m not at all convinced that this time the price is worth paying.

If cheap corn, abundant oil, hyper-inflated economic growth, and wholesale privatization are such a recipe for success, why are the consequences so utterly demoralizing?

I don’t have to look far for examples of the scientifically verifiable state of the biosphere. Currently we are on the verge of a human-induced mass extinction of the world’s biodiversity, at a scale and a rate that has never been measured in the history of the planet. Global warming will most certainly accelerate the loss of the world’s biodiversity.

While unclassified fungi and obscure varieties of maize and rainforest-dwelling apes may seem unimportant to the health and survival of the human species, the connectedness of life’s tangled web means that their fate shall be our own; their extinction will unravel the complex biotic systems upon which the social and economic structures of our civilization are built.

When I take a hard look at the balance sheet of our legacy, the liability column looks heavy indeed.