An audience member (Tim Shaw) on a recent edition of the BBC Radio 4 programme Home Planet succinctly asked the question that I have been pondering and worrying about for years. I will use his words as they are far more apposite than mine:
‘A return to growth is the mantra of industrialists, politicians and bankers across the globe. But a return to growth necessarily means increasing consumer and economic activity. We live on a finite planet with finite resources. We are already facing peak oil and this will be followed by peak gas, peak coal, peak energy, peak copper, peak phosphates and peak rare earth metals etc. Is a return to growth incompatible with genuine sustainability and can we consume our way out of a crisis of consumerism or is this the elephant in the room that nobody wants to address’.
I will continue to ponder and worry!
Personally I think the answer to your question is quite simple really - a return to growth IS incompatible with genuine sustainability.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the real question is what are we going to do about changing the 'growth is good' (to paraphrase Gordon Gekko) mantra...