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She waved her hand in a sort of 'give-me-a-break' manner. Her nose wrinkled in a way that suggested there was a bad smell which had just wafted across our table.

"If I say harsh things about economists, all that may happen is the feelings of a few professionals might get hurt. When economists say something, thousands of people may lose jobs, money, homes, health, and, sometimes, even life itself.

"Economists do not even have the decency to come to our doors and say they understand how such pronouncements are negatively affecting our lives in fundamental ways despite the fact we economists don't necessarily know what we are talking about. Like the pilots who drop bombs on people whom the former never have to see, care for, or bury, economists release their destruction from afar in the pristine, technologically advanced surroundings of boardrooms, government offices and academia.

"Many economists claim free markets provide an efficient feedback mechanism for assessing the value of one's decisions involving either supply or demand. Supposedly, this cybernetic dimension of the market offers an opportunity to correct whatever aspects of our decisions may have been mistaken.

"Yet, the whole idea of free markets is warped by a wealth of underlying philosophical, psychological, religious, sociological and political assumptions about the nature, purpose, meaning, and significance of human existence, in particular, and universal existence, in general. Unfortunately, many economists are reluctant to examine, in any detailed or rigorous fashion, the nature of these assumptions or how they adversely affect our lives in so many different ways.

"Many economists don't seem to understand that one is not even in a position to talk about efficiency or the value of one's decisions until one has a reliable ontological baseline against which to measure one's efforts. And, since economics cannot provide such a baseline in any non-arbitrary and unbiased fashion, one is really beginning at no reliable beginning and working toward no reliable end when one resorts to economics as one's tool-kit for evaluating the efficiency or value of various dimensions of human interaction and decision-making.

"Economists want to say: given such and such an assumption, then certain things follow. There may be validity to this way of thinking, but there need not be any truth involved, either before, or after, the stating of such assumptions.

"Globalizing free trade will accomplish certain things, none of them very desirable. For one thing, the maquiladora model will become a major growth industry, with the same pattern being exported to all corners of the world - low, or no, corporate taxes; lower and lower wages for the vast majority of people; few, or no, benefits provided to most workers; an increasing disregard for the health and safety of personnel; a continued tendency to deregulate, water-down, and not enforce environmental standards; a clamp-down on, as well as an undermining and marginalization of union activity; and, finally, the firing, elimination or oppression of anyone who resists submitting to the maquiladora paradigm.

"A second ramification of the globalization of free trade, especially in the context of growth economics, is the depletion of the world's resources - sooner rather than later. Even if the world's population were to achieve zero growth right this very moment, an increasing number of organizations, think tanks, academics, scientists, and researchers have indicated that everything from wood, to drinkable water, to metals, to minerals, to oil, to coal to natural gas and other kinds of non-renewable resources will begin to become endangered species toward the middle of the twenty-second century.

"Unfortunately, the world's population has not stabilized and continues to increase. If one projects a continuously growing economy onto the entire world, and if one projects a continuous growth in consumption of resources - on both the demand and supply side - in order to fuel a world-wide growing economy due to the globalization of free trade practices, then the resources of the Earth will become endangered, if not extinct, long before the middle of the next century.

"A third ramification of globalizing free trade in the context of growth economics is likely to be the complete ecological collapse of all the eco-systems of Earth. We already are losing the pollution battles in the air, on the seas, and across the lands with our current population and economic growth.

"When one adds the increased pollution of the projected 2 - 5 billion new producers/consumers who will be born in the next sixty years or so, to the activities of the present 5 billion human pollution factories already in existence, the biosphere likely will be pushed into cardiac arrest. Anyone who doubts this or wishes to argue against such a scenario doesn't have, or doesn't use, the intelligence that God gave a gnat."

"For instance, consider the following. From 1950 to the present time, the number of automobiles in the world has grown from approximately 50 million to about a half a billion. Although, to a large extent, the market for automobiles may have been saturated in North America, Japan and western Europe, there are billions of potential customers in Asia, China, Latin America, Africa and many parts of the former Soviet Union.

"Manufactures have come up with the so-called 'Asia car' that is a stripped down version of models sold in more affluent parts of the world. Plants are being set up in Thailand, Indonesia, Brazil and other third world countries in order to meet, and stoke, the growing demand for automobiles in the non-saturated markets of the world.

"For the last seventy years, or so, automobiles have been the single most desirable consumer item in the developed world. This trend is now being exported to the billions of people living in the undeveloped world.

"In India, the production of cars will double by the year 2000. By the year 2020, China is projected to become the third largest car market in the world with demand estimated to be between 5.5 and 6.5 million cars per year. In Brazil, the four largest car makers - GM, Ford, Fiat and Volkswagen - have redoubled their investments in this market, and many other manufactures are trying to get a toe hold in what is projected to be an extremely lucrative and thriving market.

"The Environmental and Forecasting Institute in Heidelberg Germany has conducted an investigation into the projected impact on the environment which the production and operation of a medium-size car - equipped with a catalytic converter and using unleaded fuels - will have over a ten year period. They estimate that during such a time frame, this car will be involved in the generation of 2.04 million cubic meters of air pollution and some 59.7 tons of carbon dioxide. In addition, on average, each of these cars, through one means or another, will leave behind about 26.5 tons of waste materials that will have to be disposed of in some manner.

"Moreover, while the precise figures vary from country to country, for every one thousand cars that are built, there will be an associated fringe benefit of, at a minimum, slightly over 2 deaths, 125 critical injuries, and about 10 forms of disability, of varying severity. All of this will place a further burden on a variety of medical, health-care, legal, economic and social institutions.

"None of this - either the pollution data or the casualty statistics - takes into account how these figures will spiral upwards as a result of poor car maintenance. Furthermore, as far as I can determine, the study doesn't take into consideration such things as the following. Every year, during so-called normal operating procedures involving the loading and unloading of oil, tankers pour four times as much, or more, of this chemical into the ocean as the 37 million liters of crude oil that have been dumped into Alaska's Prince William Sound by the Exxon Valdez.

"In any case, if one multiplies the foregoing data and statistics by another, projected, several billion consumers, then one begins to understand that just from this one single product, we are being confronted by pollution problems of incredible proportions. Especially relevant is the fact that carbon dioxide, which is being pumped into the atmosphere by each of these cars, is one of the primary greenhouse gases.

"On the one hand, an impressive body of growing, scientific evidence is showing how these greenhouse gases are helping to push up the average global temperature. One of the implications of this is that if present trends continue, or are elevated, then within some fifty to seventy years, or less - both through the thermally caused expansion of ocean waters, as well as due to the melting of glacial, arctic and, possibly even, antarctic ice - many of the coastal areas of the world, where some 60-70 percent, or more, of humanity presently resides, could be inundated by varying amounts of water.

"Whether one talks about building some sort of levy system to protect these areas, or one talks about moving people, businesses and so on from these areas, one is talking about a huge set of financial and social problems. Irrespective of whatever may be decided upon as a course of action, we have very little time to decide, plan and implement such a strategy.

"Greenhouse gases also are implicated, rather significantly, in the increasing severity and chaotic character of many large-scale weather patterns that appear to be taking place. This presents its own variety of economic, social, legal and political problems.

"Increases in the rate and severity of coastal flooding, insect infestation, droughts, heat-related deaths, species extinction, the spreading of tropical diseases, melting permafrost, forest fires, crop failure, storm damage to property, and last, but not least, skyrocketing insurance costs across the board, are being bequeathed to us as greenhouse gases wing their way into the atmosphere. The mentality that is behind the drive toward globalization and its concomitant feeding-frenzy of growth economics is full of false-economies that are leading to ecological, social, political, legal, spiritual and human costs for which no one bargained and for which few, if any of us, are prepared to deal.

"Currently, each and every year, 13,000 square kilometers of Amazon rain forests are being cleared. This represents a 34 percent increase since 1990 when there began to be a growing public awareness, however dim, of the importance of the rain forests as a mainstay of many kinds of ecological dynamic.

"If the destruction of the tropical forests continues at current rates, most of these forests will have been destroyed by the year 2040. If this rate of deforestation accelerates, the rain forests will be gone even more quickly.

"One can trace the movement of 'civilization' around the planet by following the path of deforestation that has taken place wherever civilization has taken root. The rain forests and the Pacific Northwest are the only remaining, extensive areas of old growth trees on the face of the Earth, and both of these areas are under heavy assault.

"Ironically, in the rain forests, the preferred method of deforestation is to burn the trees. This produces carbon dioxide which adds to the greenhouse problem, and, although on the one hand, the clearing of forests is a metaphor for humanity's desire for economic growth, nonetheless, at the same time, it is a metaphor for the signing of humanity's death warrant - such is the nature of progress.

"Unfortunately, little of the world's growing concern about the rain forests has much to do with what is happening to the Yanomami or Guarani native peoples who live in these forests. Moreover, few, if any, of our anxieties are directed toward the urban and rural poverty surrounding these forests.

"Instead, our concern is about the way in which the quality of our lives may be threatened by what is going on in, and being done to, the rain forests. Now that many of us have secured our own brand of economic security and have exploited, polluted and destroyed many of the world's eco-systems in the process, we are concerned for ourselves that others are interested in doing what we, much to our discredit, already have done, and that worst of all, we may have to suffer as a series of ecological and social tsunami, resulting from economic growth elsewhere in the world, spreads its destructive consequences across the shores of our existence.

"Whales are washing up on our beaches so saturated with toxic chemicals such, as DDT and various kinds of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, that their bodies constitute hazardous waste material. There are dead zones in the oceans, off our coasts, some as large as 8 thousand square kilometers, that are testimonials to our dumping activities with respect to a variety of contaminants, and the process of eutrophication, or removal of oxygen from water, that frequently ensues from the presence of these contaminants.

"Each year, more than 4.5 billion kilograms of industrial chemicals are being dumped into the waters of America, including more than 1000 varieties of chemical compounds - at least 250 of which are considered to be toxic - found in the Great Lakes that constitutes one-fifth of all the fresh water on Earth, and from which more than forty million people drink each and every day. Even modern sewage treatment facilities are not capable of eliminating or neutralizing many of these chemicals, and in many places existing sewage treatment plants either are inadequate, breaking down, or both. Furthermore, after a storm, as much as ten percent of all sewage passes right through these facilities without any kind of treatment whatsoever.

"Well, Mary, given that you have been so generous in sharing all of these wonderful, upbeat statistics and ideas with me," I said, "what is the solution. Since you seem to have ruled out capitalism, socialism and communism, what are we left with?

"We are left with subsistence economics, David, and two choices. We can either intelligently work our way into this kind of framework as quickly as possible, or we will be forced into it by an escalating cascade of ecological, economic, social and political cataclysms. As far as I can see, there is no third alternative."

"What about some form of steady-state or sustainable economics?" I inquired.

Shrugging her shoulders, Mary replied: "In my opinion, there is no such thing as sustainable economics. These sorts of theory generate the same spectrum of problems involving consumption, resource depletion and pollution that growth economics does. It just accomplishes this only slightly more slowly than does economic growth of between, say, 1 and 3 or 4 % per year."

"When one factors in a doubling of the world's population, along with increases in the length of life and possible declines in rates of infant morality that are likely to be associated, up to a point, with even a limited distribution of the enhanced standards of living which so-called sustainable economics might be able to bring about in the short run, then one still will encounter substantial increases in the levels of resource depletion and concomitant pollution. Under the present circumstances, all sustainable economics offers is a choice in the kind of poison one wants to take in order to commit suicide- it offers a slow-acting one rather than a fast-acting one."

"Wouldn't switching to things like natural gas, nuclear power, or, fusion energy, if and when a viable means of commercial production is discovered, alter the picture you are painting in a rather dramatic manner?" I asked.

"Not necessarily," Mary responded. "The construction of facilities and support systems for any of these forms of energy production are, themselves, energy intensive and would generate a lot of pollution, as well, as a by-product of that construction process.

"The transportation of natural gas is also energy intensive. Furthermore, there are on-going, unresolved problems surrounding the disposal of radioactive wastes, not to mention a constant worry about containment problems should there be more incidents like Chernobyl or Three Mile Island - and you can be sure there will be, especially if we began to build more of these facilities under the rushed conditions of political, social, ecological and economic crisis.

"In addition, even if a viable commercial means of harnessing fusion energy came some time in the next five or ten years, and fusion scientists are pessimistic about this at the present time, it takes anywhere from 10 to 20 years for a new technology to be integrated into the economic, legal, political, and educational fabric of society. Fifteen to thirty years is too long a period to have to wait to resolve the problems with which we are currently being confronted.

"Besides, neither natural gas, nuclear reactors nor fusion energy is going to have much impact on all of the other kinds of energy consumption, resource depletion and toxic pollution that is taking place at current and projected rates. North America could become a perfect, ecologically aware society by the first thing tomorrow morning, but what would this mean, or accomplish, in the context of a world where we presently constitute only one-fifteenth of the world's population, and, by the middle of the next century, we will represent just one-thirtieth of that population?

"As I previously indicated, the toxic cycle carries pollutants by air, ocean, land and biological life to every corner of the Earth. How do you propose we escape the depletion of resources and pollution of our small world that is coming our way from the rest of humanity, irrespective of what we do in our own backyard?

"All of this is academic, however. We will not become perfect, ecologically aware, and dutiful citizens of the planet Earth by tomorrow morning."

"In fact, precisely the opposite is true. Despite forming only one-fifteenth of the world's population, we are contributing in a highly disproportionate way to the rates at which the resources of this planet are being depleted and the eco-systems of Earth are being undermined, compromised, and destroyed through the pollutants that we are pumping into the environment in ever-increasing amounts, varieties and toxicities.

"No, David, we really have done it to ourselves this time. The wheels of Divine justice may grind slowly sometimes, but irrespective of the rate at which they move, they grind exceedingly fine, as, I believe, we are about to find out in the blink of an eye on the cosmic scale of things."

"Isn't it possible," I replied, "that various kinds of technological or scientific breakthrough could save the day?"

Mary's head shook in a negative fashion. "I have no doubt, David, that new, exiting developments will continue to take place in these areas. You are forgetting, however, about Streeter's Law - namely, for every advance in science and technology that is applied to the human condition, at least 4.78 additional social, political and/or environmental problems will be created in the process.

"As a result, we cannot keep pace with the problematic series of bifurcations being generated by our technological and scientific cleverness. We are creating difficulties at a rate which is faster than our capacity to resolve them.

"Furthermore, in our frenzied rush to solve these problems, we are making decisions about our future while operating under conditions of constant stress and conflict, as well as while working with a woeful lack of information, understanding and wisdom concerning the significance and ramifications of our decisions. The result of all of this is that an array of new, more complex problems are inherent in the solutions being forced on us with increasing rapidity in such an atmosphere of crisis."

Mary looked at her wrist watch. "Time to go," she said. "Us working people don't have the luxury of several months off during the summer like you academic types."

As originally requested by Mary, when I phoned her from Chicago, her price for meeting with me was that I pay for the lunch. However, after listening to her, and as I handed over money to the cashier, I felt like a condemned man who has had to spring for his own last meal - no doubt, part of the fine mesh gauge of the wheels grinding my way ... and toward the rest of humanity ... with relentless determination.

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