Are we actually replacing stuff so many times because we want to stay in touch with modernity, or just for fun, just because out of habit or because we are bored? Is fun shopping a fundamental right on leisure, considering our incredible efforts that we spend on our job, or do we do it just because we are bored? Do we buy pre-packed and pre-cooked food because we have terribly busy life and we can’t spare a minute. Or are we just being lazy, and we don’t care enough about our health? Are we going on holiday so many times by airplane because it is one of the few opportunities to relax from our busy, productive life? Or do we lack the fantasy to amuse ourselves closer to home and without touroperator? Are we going by car to our work because it is the only efficient way, and we need a private moment, and public transport is terrible? Or is our car a status symbol, and we don’t really care about the effect of cars on the environment? Do we have trust in our farmers and science to produce safe food without impact on nature to worry about? Or are we just interested in the price of food, and we don’t really care where food comes from and how it is has been produced? I tend to be more and more dualist in my thinking about sustainable development, although my preference goes out for pluralism. What the hell do I mean? I mean that it seems that two main assumptions are driving people in their consumption behaviour. One is: believing that we can still gain productivity because of still endless possibilities for division of labour and subsequent economies of scale in the production process. Caring for the environment is a luxury that we can pay from our ever growing production (the “productivists”). The other is: we were able to reach our current productivity because of over-exploitation of human and natural resources which is not sustainable in the long run. We need to find satisfaction in a more modest behaviour (the “ecologists”). Purely based on arguments, the productivists are clearly loosing grounds. Fresh water, food, energy, rare metals, phosphor, signs of depletion of resources have been on red the last years, scaring many people. Even the link has been made between the price of oil, reflecting its scarcity, and the economic crisis in which we all are amidst. Now you see the two thought strands radicalising. The productivists are calling on their last trump. There is enough oil in the ground for centuries to go, and in the meantime our scientists will come up with something, like they have always did, to deliver us cheap energy. Like nuclear fusion or something. The ecologists say: we haven’t the time, and we can’t be sure! And here is where it is radicalising. The productivists started to accuse the ecologists of self-fulfilling prophecy. They spread fear that humans are not creative enough to cope with shortages of resources. Instead of stimulating innovation and economic growth, they advocate backwardness and economic stagnation. If the ecologists will gain sufficient power they make their own fear come true. On the other hand, we have the ecologists saying: it is an illusion to think that economic growth will enable us to limit environmental and social degradation sufficiently. We have to limit our greed. And it is greed that is driving economic growth. Anyone that is not respecting the precautionary principle of the UN Rio Treaty of 1992, is performing a criminal act against humanity. Until recently everybody believed in the merits of economic growth, except for a few hippies. It changed very rapidly. Now it has become difficult to take the “nuclear fusion argument” really seriously. On the other hand there is still no serious economic model for “no growth”. Is there a middle way argument? Or will an ideological war begin? RebelFarmer is in a strange position. One the one hand we would like to help ordinary people, that are struggling with their quality in their life, because they lack access to a good environment, nice food and rich nature. On the other hand: we are in the middle of spoiled, fat and bored consumers who are lacking drugs when the economy is in a crisis. Can we clearly recognize our “target group”? No, not really. In fact the ideological war is taking place in ourselves. We all have a bit of both of it in ourselves, and we all doubt. So we will just muddle through. Investing not really enough in our ecosystems and in our social fabric in order to cope with a post-peak resource reality and investing too much in money squandering schemes like CO2 compensation so that the world economy is not able to thrive like it should in order to create pleasures for the working class. It is astonishing to see that the amateuristic capitalism-hippy fights of the 60’s became an ideological conflict on world scale in such a short time. We are forced to choose sides. But it is the dualism in all of us, of all times with which we are kept being confronted: finding resistance to our own gravings for drugs, competition instincts and power abuse. Eco-documentaries for the masses: www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPIY7SrKdsg New ways of measuring gross domestic product (GDP): Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress Comments03/13/2011 19:57:39 This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. Do you agree? Leave a Reply |
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