Following the Miliband "Clone" Ed's announcement yesterday* (see below) - in his new role as UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change - I've decided to quote in full the following Editorial from this week's New Scientist magazine, from which this post also takes its title :
"IMAGINE an industry that runs out of raw materials. Companies go bust, workers are laid off, families suffer and associated organisations are thrown into turmoil. Eventually governments are forced to take drastic action. Welcome to global banking, brought to its knees by the interruption of its lifeblood - the flow of cash.
In this case we seem to have been fortunate. In the nick of time, governments released reserves that should with luck get cash circulating again. But what if they hadn't been there? There are no reserves of fish, tropical hardwoods, fresh water or metals such as indium, so what are we going to do when supplies of these vital materials dry up? We live on a planet with finite resources - that's no surprise to anyone - so why do we have an economic system in which all that matters is growth (see "Why our economy is killing the planet and what we can do about it")? More growth means using more resources.
When the human population was counted in millions and resources were sparse, people could simply move to pastures new. But with 9 billion people expected around 2050, moving on is not an option. As politicians reconstruct the global economy, they should take heed. If we are to leave any kind of planet to our children we need an economic system that lets us live within our means."
* New UK targets have been set for green house gas emissions.
1 comment:
'We thus have any interesting problem, economic growth is unsustainable for a variety of reasons, however it is inherent in a modern capitalist economy. Providing alternatives to capitalism is no easy task but it is necessary. I suspect that ultimately it is easier to change the economic system than basic ecological realities, however most commentators reverse my approach'
http://another-green-world.blogspot.com/2008/10/why-system-requires-economic-growth.html is my analysis that went towards the Sustainable Development Commission discussion on growth, that is in turn debated in New Scientist.
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