Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Nevertheless, even as political events spiral toward (perhaps intended) chaos, I wish once again, as I’ve done countless times before, to point to a lie even bigger than the ones being served up by the new administration…It is the lie that human society can continue growing its population and consumption levels indefinitely on our finite planet, and never suffer consequences.
Not since the Civil War has an American presidential Inauguration Day been so fraught with fear and dread (on February 23, 1861, Abraham Lincoln traveled to his inauguration under military guard, arriving in Washington, D.C., in disguise). The incoming president is the most unpopular of any to assume office since modern polling began.
In the first part of this review, we looked at the climate and energy disruptions that have already begun in the Middle East, as well as the disruptions which we can expect in the next 20 years under a “business as usual” scenario. In this installment we’ll take a closer look at “the perpetual transmission of false and inaccurate knowledge on the origins and dynamics of global crises”.
The island state of Dominica (absolutely NOT the Dominican Republic!) is unique, constantly confounding my expectations. It is a tropical Caribbean island, but not a typical Caribbean island. It is hot and wet, mountainous, with small rocky beaches, few tourists, and a fiercely independent spirit in a part of the world dominated by their powerful neighbour to the North. I was invited by WEF, the Waitukubuli Ecological Foundation, to visit and help them explore Transition as a possible way for this island.
Many of the violent conflicts raging today can only be understood if we look at the interplay between climate change, the shrinking of cheap energy supplies, and a dominant economic model that refuses to acknowledge physical limits.
One of the notable features of Growthism is the way it takes growth to be entirely normal and, at the same time, understands it as the very recent triumph of humanity over the awful conditions it faced for the first two hundred thousand years of its existence as a species.
To put it another way: modern citizens today use more energy and physical resources in a month than our great-grandparents used during their whole lifetime.
A major issue in climate economics is whether it is possible to halt the growth in carbon emissions and to achieve, instead, a rapid reduction.
But what does it mean to say that a society becomes “more complex”?
Economists make forecasts about what is going to happen in the world of that great God – money.
Companies like Twitter can make billions of dollars in revenue while providing a widely used service and still be considered a financial failure.
Every economy, every self-organizing system which is not also self-limiting within the bounds set by its environment, grows until it exceeds the ability of that environment to support and sustain it.
