by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Considering that the Earth is finite, it can't grow, and so are all of her mineral resources, which don't regrow either, talking about sustainable and growth in the same breath is an oxymoron and a fallacy.
Sustainable economic growth is not possible as more and more growth is NOT sustainable regardless of what the powers that be try to claim.
With an ever growing population the Earth has a problem maintaining even the status quo. And we are to blame for the growth in population in that we almost permanently interfere in Nature's self-regulation mechanism.
Famines and natural disasters are a way of how the Planet self-regulates the population, human, other animals, etc., and we interfere at our peril.
But each and every time famine strikes in Africa or elsewhere the like of Oxfam beat the drum and rattle the tin for funds to help the poor starving people. I am sorry but that is Mother Nature's way of regulating life, and has done though the ages.
When it comes to economic growth it is a fact that more, more and ever more cannot work with our finite Planet and its resources.
We have already overfished the seas, created deserts of what once was farmland by overuse of chemicals, and ravaged the Earth for coal, oil, natural gas, metals, etc., and believe we can carry on doing that in a sustainable way.
Those that do believe that do not seem to understand the very world “sustainable” and live in cloud cuckoo land.
We must get back to a slower kind of life; a life with less rather than looking to continue with business as usual and call it then, because we do a little “carbon trading” (another con) sustainable.
How stupid are we, or better, our leaders, actually?
A finite Planet means that sustainable economic growth cannot be. Either we begin to really live and work sustainably, which means changing our ways in a multitude of aspects and live, or we continue with economic growth, growth for the very sake of it, and in the end completely destroy the Earth, the only Planet that we have that will support (human) life. The choice is ours!
© 2012
