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"Many of the patrons, they say, are ignoring basic research - the kind that investigates the riddles of nature and has produced centuries of breakthroughs, even whole industries - for a jumble of popular, feel-good fields like environmental studies and space exploration." [One might ask analogously what military funding of science has done over the decades since WW2]

"The consensus on how destructive this system is to our planet's carrying-capacity is now clear. Yet the fact that consumerism answers our deep human needs for novelty and status - however inadequately - is rarely acknowledged. Can any appeal to transform our lifestyle priorities in a sustainable direction really ignore how radical we are as animals? How does it properly reckon with the irrepressible faculties of cognition and imagination that humans deploy to make our world anew?"