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Redefining growth in a post oil world The need for a stable state economy Before you read the following and think I am some kind of "hippe madman" I want to tell you that I love computers, iPods, and especially modern medicine which saved my boy Harry from Leukemia in 2004. The problem is that we live in a finite world, and yet have an economic system that depends on:- 1/ Growth in resource consumption 2/ Growth in populations We need to redefine 'growth', maybe into areas of personal development, growth in knowledge and technology, and other pursuits. Economic growth cannot be defined by the ever increasing consumption of resources and ever growing populations on a finite planet.
Many authors have put this down to the burden of debt. Interest based mortgages create an increasing cycle of mortgagees, with the whole banking system dependent on growth, both in finding more customers and in those customers working harder, producing more, using more resources to earn more money to pay back an increasing debt cycle and around we go again! Whatever it looks like, our economic system must change so that it reflects the scientific realities that we live on a finite planet, wtih a finite amount of metals, fresh water, soil, and fossil fuels. We need to redefine growth, so that economic systems somehow account for and encourage sustainable use of resources, a stable state economic system (not ever expanding and consuming ever more resources), and even — dare I say it at this juncture — a stable population! CSIRO Sustainability Network Dr John Hermann is a physicist and mathematician with a long-standing interest in economic issues, particularly those relating to the failure of neoclassical economics to improve the quality of life of the overwhelming majority of people alive today. He long ago became aware of the inability of prominent economists to understand the significance and power of the exponential function. This persuaded him to reject the current orthodoxy and to investigate the claims of various heterodox schools of economic thought, most of whom have useful things to say about what's wrong with the world and what can be done to rectify it. In this context, he has recently developed a new mathematical model of debt growth and has been busily testing its predictions against available economic data. John was one of the founders of Economic Reform Australia (ERA), which came into existence in 1993 and has since been responsible for organising or co-organising a host of conferences, workshops and public meetings on important economic issues. Free online book, "The Ecology of money".
Earth assets and eco-asset policies Natural Capitalism Small is profitable book www.communitycurrency.org/resources.html Steady State Economics: The Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE) promote alternatives to the ecological insanity of growth based economics. Have a look around, and keep an eye out for their position paper. For a shorter introduction to a REVERSING economy, please try A prosperous way down by Howard T. Odum, University of Florida and Elisabeth C. Odum, Santa Fe Community College - it is rather technical and also looks at ecological energy flows. http://www.unicamp.br/fea/ortega/htodum/prosperous.htm Local economy Then of course there is Access Foundation which looks at negative interest money models. Negative interest encourages people to invest it in more solid, real, long term and sustainable structures, rather than playing "funny money" games with imaginary money on the growth dependent stock market. It is an attempt to make the money represent something real, rather than just interest on other people's money! http://www.accessfoundation.org/index.html I’ve mentioned them before, and here they are again, the one stop shop for all your Peak Oil & sustainability questions — DIEOFF.COM. If you get through this list of articles you will be well and truly versed in sustainable economic systems! |
