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U.S. Sugar

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softwareNerd

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U.S. Sugar was founded in 1931. Today, it employs 1,700 employees, is the largest U.S. producer of cane sugar (700,000 tons of raw sugar annually) and one of the country’s largest orange juice producers (more than 120 million gallons of orange juice annually).

They are far from a dying firm. In 1998, they commissioned a new sugar refinery that they claim is newest in the U.S. They own a railroad and track to transport their goods, and in 1994 they bought new rail capacity. Traffic increased from 41,000 carloads in 1994 to more than 73,000 in 2003. In short, this company is worth a lot of money.

There is one catch: location. Since they own huge tracts of land in the everglades, environmentalists do not like them. Now, the State of Florida has acted. The state will buy U.S. sugar $1.3 billion. The state of Florida (complete with Republican Governor) will let the operations wind down over the next 6 years, and will then shut it down.

From the New York Times report:

Environmental groups hailed the undertaking. “This is putting it back the way it was in 1890,” said David Guest, a lawyer with Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund. “When you come back in 20 years, it will look indistinguishable from the way it looked before the white man.”

These people are dangerous.

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Why are so many people obsessed with getting things to look the same way they were years ago? I can look at a sugar refinery, a railroad, or whatever, and see a testament to humanity. They're far more impressive than an empty area of land. Why do so many want to take us back to the stone age?

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What are the environmental concerns that prompted this action in the first place?

“When you come back in 20 years, it will look indistinguishable from the way it looked before the white man.”

Your clue is right there, it's hatred of man, especially "white man", and industrialization. The same old saws they've been pushing forever.

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Your clue is right there, it's hatred of man, especially "white man", and industrialization.
And this is not a 20th century ideology either. The artistic/intellectual movement that dubbed itself as "Romanticism" denigrated rationality. The themes from William Wordsworth's "Daffodils" and Keat's "Ode to a Nightingale", can be read in Bradbury's "Martian Chronicles" and the same themes are echoed by modern day environmentalists: technology and rationality are unnatural, we should get in touch with nature, etc. Edited by softwareNerd
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What are the environmental concerns that prompted this action in the first place?

The cited motivation is to preserve the Florida Everglades. I have never heard a satisfying distinction between "everglades" and "swamps". I would not even be surprised if this land acquisition increases the mosquito population in Florida.

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Your clue is right there, it's hatred of man, especially "white man", and industrialization.
I believe this now, because I have been able to think of no other ultimate reason, but it has taken some time because I still find it inexplicable. What motivates someone to hate the good life? And such motivation to actually get rid of the good life?
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And this is not a 20th century ideology either. The artistic/intellectual movement that dubbed itself as "Romanticism" denigrated rationality. The themes from William Wordsworth's "Daffodils" and Keat's "Ode to a Nightingale", can be read in Bradbury's "Martian Chronicles" and the same themes are echoed by modern day environmentalists: technology and rationality are unnatural, we should get in touch with nature, etc.

I'd always thought "Daffodils" was a nice poem. Does it have some deeper meaning other than being about flowers? You could be right about the connection to earlier anti-industrialization ideas. However, postmodernism has gained a level of ascendancy and power that seems to be greater than those earlier philosophies (except perhaps in Europe).

I believe this now, because I have been able to think of no other ultimate reason, but it has taken some time because I still find it inexplicable. What motivates someone to hate the good life? And such motivation to actually get rid of the good life?

Motivations are not easy to determine. One thing that is true is that bad philosophies provide a vehicle for bad people to rise to power. I can well imagine people with bad motivations utilizing bad philosophy by pushing it to its limits. Good philosophy has the reverse effect, it allows the best to rise to the top.

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I'd always thought "Daffodils" was a nice poem.
I like it well enough too :). Indeed, I think the more explicitly depressing Keats and "Martian Chronicles" are even better as far as execution goes, and I like those too. I'm no expert though, I have read only a smattering of his poems. However, most commentary name Wordsworth as one of the main poets of the "Romantic" school. A quote from one Univ professor: "Wordsworth's "nature" points us away from the closed world of theocentric symbol-making toward the unstable world of postmodern meaning."
Did you see the press release from US Sugar? They seem completely understanding and supportive of this deal, even though they are being forced to go out of business.
It is possible that they think $1.3 billion is a decent price for their business.
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I believe this now, because I have been able to think of no other ultimate reason, but it has taken some time because I still find it inexplicable. What motivates someone to hate the good life? And such motivation to actually get rid of the good life?

I think it's more than just hating man--I think deep down they hate themselves.

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I believe [that serious environmentalists really do hate man] now, because I have been able to think of no other ultimate reason, but it has taken some time because I still find it inexplicable. What motivates someone to hate the good life? And such motivation to actually get rid of the good life?

One of the key insights that moved me towards a similar conclusion is the environmentalist concept of natural. It essentially boils down to anything that is untouched or uncreated by man. Thus, when these environmentalists want to do everything they can to always preserve the natural over the man-made, they are preventing humans from exploiting their environment. Since we must alter our environment to ensure our survival, environmentalists are in essence opposing the very survival of man, even if they fail to consciously realize it.

As always, my usage of environmentalist above goes well beyond the average person on the street who merely opposes pollution when it is clearly harmful to humans.

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