We conspire against ourselves in all sorts of ways, most of which are so familiar that they seem almost like common sense. The root problem is that all of our decisions go into a rational machinery, a social calculus of "benefit." Thus, the infamous "cost-benefit analysis." So we think, "If I clear-cut this forest I can sell the timber and plant soybeans for export to China, a very profitable move. But if I cut down the forest we may not have air to breathe or a stable climate in the future. Animals will be deprived of habitat. Species may go extinct. Oh, fuck it, why should my forest be responsible for the future when it can be profitable now?"

This is not the exclusive logic of corporate capitalists, although it was certainly the logic of factory trawlers when they stripped the Atlantic of cod from Nova Scotia to the Chesapeake, a grave crime against the cod (but who the hell ever thinks about what the ugly-mug cod need?), humanity, and the future. This is also the logic of Brazil's left-wing government led by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Brazil's deforestation of the Amazon increased by 40 percent last year alone. To be sure, President da Silva's rationale involved the importance of a cash crop to feed the urban poor. "The Amazon is not untouchable," da Silva told The New York Times. This, obviously, places the burden of feeding the poor squarely on the backs of parrots and leopards. Meanwhile, Brazilian agribusiness kings like Blairo Maggi make conflict of interest a virtual requirement for governance. Not only is Maggi owner of one of the largest soybean production and export companies in Brazil, he is also the governor of the state of Mato Grosso ("dense jungle"). Thanks to the "prosperity" he brings, the Amazon will soon be just another fantastical postmodern location, so familiar to North Americans, where the names of places no longer have any relationship to what's actually in them. Mato Grosso will refer to a place that is no more than a factory for exchange value in a soybean monoculture, just as Illinois is a "prairie state" with 1/10 of 1 percent of its original prairie remaining. Of course, once the original plant/animal/human inhabitants are gone, we wax sentimental. The things we slaughter become our heritage. We wear feathers in our hair and go to summer powwows.