[devrandomguy]

When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money.

We don't have to pay as well, someone else will always be willing to ravage their own country to beat us at that game. We just have to not screw up the local society and environment as badly as the superpowers.

[vostok]

Sorry, can you flesh this out a little more? I'm not quite grasping how paying academics high wages is ravaging our country.

[devrandomguy]

What I mean, is that it does not really matter that Canada is not the highest paying country in the world, because money is not the only factor in determining where academics choose to live. If we can offer an environment that is conducive to intellectual work (low financial stress, spiritually uplifting environment, a culture of mutual assistance, minimal neurotoxins in the food, water and air, good schools for their kids, freedom of thought and expression, minimal discrimination, no threat of war, etc) then academics will try to come here despite the fact that they won't be as financially wealthy in the global market.

We can offer many of those features simply by leaving the huge local ecosystems intact and accessible, and by avoiding changes that cause parts of the population to become desperate.