although misguided counterproductive values are now threatening the planet, their existence is nothing new. Throughout history, wise insightful individuals recognized these harmful values and tried to alert the rest of us.

Here is what Galileo said:

What greater stupidity can be imagined than that of calling jewels, silver, and gold “precious” and soil “base?” People who do this ought to remember that if there were as great a scarcity of soil as of jewels and precious metals, there would not be a prince who would not spend a bushel of diamonds and rubies and a cartload of gold just to have enough earth to plant a jasmine in a little pot, or to sow an orange seed and watch it sprout, grow, and produce its handsome leaves, its fragrant flowers, and fine fruit. It is scarcity and plenty that make the vulgar take things to be precious of worthless.

Galileo Galilei, dialogue

from Galileo’s daughter by dava Sobel, Penguin books, @2000