Too many people have looked at our broken planetary systems and concluded that our problem is *growth.* And that our entire economy is unworkable without growth, and therefore its all a big Ponzi scheme. Wrong. Yes, we must eventually go through the demographic transition and stabilize population. However nothing will stop the degeneration of our ecosystem if we dont move away from a once-through and dispose resource model. Even if our population were to remain perfectly static. Becoming sustainable doesnt mean a halt to economic growth! Far from it. It means growth will come through better ideas, through efficiency improvements, through using the resources we have much more effectively. And of course, we can also grow through the use of extraterrestrial resources such as metals from asteroids. But methodological improvements on Earth are orders of magnitude cheaper than bringing new materials in from space. Think of this: Every scrap of material humans have ever pulled out of the ground since the industrial revolution--practically every molecule--is still here on Earth. With the exception of consumables such as fossil fuels, its all still available for reuse. With solar energy, even the atmospheric CO2 could be reconverted into fuel. The degrowth idea, the idea that we must somehow move to steady-state economics is completely, wildly, and preposterously wrong. It is an admission of grand failure. Of both imagination and politics. Of course if we continue wasting all our resources and polluting the planet and change nothing, we will fail. But why do people continually pretend its preferable to lose all of human civilization rather than make the necessary adjustments to it? Chalk it up to a combination of lock-in of existing methods and paid propaganda. Earth-plundering extractive industries have made it a cornerstone of their business model to convince everyone theres no better way of doing things. And too many of us have believed them. Give up on those bastards, not human civilization!!
Posted on: Thu, 15 May 2014 18:27:35 +0000