Growth is death. How our economy is killing the Earth. We must think big to fight environmental disaster.

How our economy is killing the Earth

We must think big to fight environmental disaster

Some interesting pieces of text from New Scientist.

Growth to most economists is as essential as the air we breathe: it is, they claim, the only force capable of lifting the poor out of poverty, feeding the world’s growing population, meeting the costs of rising public spending and stimulating technological development – not to mention funding increasingly expensive lifestyles. They see no limits to that growth, ever.

But there is a long-standing question: how to increase Earth’s finite resources with the fact that as the economy grows, the amount of natural resources needed to sustain that activity must grow too?

The economy expansion is vain as long as our economic system is built on the assumption of growth.

The graphs climbing are a stark reminder of the crisis facing our planet.

Consumption of resources is rising rapidly, biodiversity is plummeting and just about every measure shows humans affecting Earth on a vast scale.

If we are serious about saving Earth, we must reshape our Economy. There is the need for a more sustainable way to live, by reducing carbon emissions, developing renewable technology and increasing energy efficiency.

The Paradox of Capitalism

There is a paradox at the heart of capitalism. It is the result of two contradictory truths.

The first truth is that capitalism is destroying our planet. Through global warming, extinction, impoverishment, racism, sexism, homophobia, propaganda, war, the burgeoning security state, computerized isolation, and more, it is literally killing us.

The second truth is that we are dependent upon capitalism for our immediate survival. Whether through wages, pensions, or social services, our livelihood depends on income provided by the very system which is killing us.

Some among us are facing the first truth and so do whatever they can to escape. They may adopt an ethical diet, curb their consumption, or even attempt to “live off the grid”. Its goal is moral purity, flight from guilt, the individual satisfaction of knowing you’re no longer part of the problem.

Some of us are more concerned with the second truth – the fact that we are trapped in this system as bad as it is, and therefore the best we can do is to improve it or make it fairer. They may fight for policy changes. The aim is to work “within the system,” influence the people in charge. The theory goes that they would be able to steer the ship in a new better direction.

We live in a paradoxical world; the most important truths are the hardest to uncover, and the entire world is drowning in lies. How can we expect any easy answers to our current problem? 

The simpler idea, the emptier it tends to be. Truth lives in complexity and contradiction. 

To liberate the world and ourselves, we must be able to hold these two opposites truths in our minds at the same time, recognizing that neither is sufficient and yet both are necessary.