Question: Hello Lyn, you've proposed large-scale development projects across the world, such as the maglev train, in order to increase economic development throughout the world. And these projects are going to take a lot of resources and a lot of energies. And, what I want to know is, what your policy is on sustainable development technologies; technologies that work with the environment and even mimic the environment, in order to--as we produce and become more technology [sic], is that technology going to work with and allow us to sustain our living conditions.

And I've talked to people here about this, and they've talked to me about this policy of limited resources, and the resources that we humans can make, from resources we didn't know exist before. But, I want to know what happens, if our current set-up runs out, and we destroy our atmosphere before we can think of those new resources?

LaRouche: Well, the problem is this: If we have a policy of sustainable development, the environment's going to die. Because, just by trying to function on the basis of sustainable development, you're going to kill the environment. So "sustainable development" is a contradiction in terms. It is neither development, nor sustainable.

So, the idea of sustainable development, which was developed by the neo-Malthusians, who were genocidal artists, was developed with malice aforethought. They knew, that if we could induce people to accept the idea of sustainable development, they would destroy themselves; which is what they wanted to do. And, the idea has become popularized on that basis.

The difference is this: Mankind is superior to the Biosphere, as a quality of existence, hmm? So now, what's our responsibility? Let's take the question-- there is no such thing as sustainable development; it doesn't exist. It doesn't exist at all.

What you have is, you have the development of the Biosphere, as against the background of an abiotic, or presumably abiotic process, and this development transforms the Earth, hmm?--in an irreversible way. Most of the minerals we extract, we extract from the fossil areas of the Biosphere, not from a pre-biotic Earth. What happens is, living processes have assimilated these chemicals, these mineral chemicals, and the action of living processes has deposited these chemicals in the sedimentary fossil areas, in a way which they're now accessible to us. This includes radioactive material, like uranium. It's concentrated. It's universal, but it's concentrated. And who concentrated it? Living processes. Fun, huh?

So. Now, we're at a point, that there's no sustainable development, in terms of the Biosphere. Rather, there is a need for a continuing development, of the Biosphere, which must be managed by man.

The problem here, is not one of sustainable development and so forth, the way it's posed. That's all--put that aside; that's not the issue. The issue is this: The issue is thievery. The issue is, that stupid societies, who are based on the idea of private profit-- that is, the individual, or local interest, takes what it wants. It says, [growling] "This is my property! And, I'm going to consume it!" With no sense of responsibility about what the future of mankind is, or the consequences of that kind of practice. That's what's wrong.

Thus, we have to have a policy of society, which is not based on so-called "private enterprise." It can't be based on private enterprise. Private enterprise takes no responsibility for the society as a whole, so don't try to find a policy that you can introduce to private enterprise to solve this problem: You won't find it. There is no such solution.

What you do, is you take the prospect of infrastructure, basic economic infrastructure; which is the responsibility of government, or governments, collectively, for managing the welfare of the entire nation, and all its people; not only for the present, but for posterity. Therefore, what my project is this, which I've called the "Vernadsky Project," is to look at these problems about minerals and other problems of the Biosphere, and we, as man, must, in addition, to developing modes of transportation, and power generation, and water management, and so forth, we must develop other forms of basic economic infrastructure, which is the long-term development of the Biosphere, as such.

In other words, we have to develop and maintain the Biosphere for the future. This is not a matter of sustaining an existing process. This is a matter of defining what is needed, to go forward with a further development of the Biosphere. And man must become the instrument of the development of the Biosphere, to higher states: for example, the deserts; conquering the deserts; global water management, to make sure that we have enough fresh water to meet needs, and to maintain life; that sort of thing. And, we must look at the entire Solar System, eventually, from the same point of view.

So therefore, the responsibility is, we have to understand, that we want private initiative in economy, because we want private initiative; we want the creative powers of the individual, applied with a certain degree of freedom, to make innovations which are beneficial to society, and for people to take the initiative to do things, that society may not think are so urgent; but they think they're urgent, and they help us to get ahead. So, we want to preserve and promote the powers of individual creativity, and related powers of the individual on the one side; therefore we protect the private sector, or what we call the private sector. On the other hand, over 50% of the responsibility for the total economy of the nation and the world, lies with government responsibility in the area of infrastructure.

We simply have to say, "You don't have the right, to use up a natural resource, on your own." The state must intervene. Nations and governments must intervene. We must make sure, that we are generating the replacements for what we're using up, or the equivalent. We are responsible for thinking ahead, three, four, five generations, as to what the effect of what we're doing today, is then. And, it has to be done scientifically, not on the basis of primitive nature-worship.

So therefore, yes: Sustainable development is a bad term, because it talks about sustaining. You want to talk about our responsibility of government, for developing and maintain the total environment of the planet, the total Biosphere--yes, absolutely. That must incorporate, together with transportation, other things of public infrastructure, must represent at least 50% of the total activity of government.

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