Sustainability Not Growth
It's Time To Transition To A Whole New Model.
I have had a sleepless night, I have woken up quite literally to what I need to be talking to you about, now, today, not tomorrow, NOW!! What really gets under my skin, what I really want the leaders of my community, the ceo's of large corporations, owners and managers of local companies, you and I to be talking about, or rather to stop talking about is.... GROWTH!!! Noooooooooooooo!!! Don't you get it yet..... in the 21st century the word is not growth it is SUSTAINABILITY!! It riles me how many times people use the word growth and don't truly know the implications of that word. "We want our town or its economy to grow by X% over the next Y years, Britain and its economy even!!" Noooooooooo... weeeeeee don't!!! In 1850 right at the start of the industrial revolution we had barely 1 Biliion people on this planet, now just over 160 years on we have 6.89 Billion and still rising. That population has been built on OIL, and financed by BANKS, in a perpetual growth model that only continues to work if everything continues to grow and expand exponentially, where the music continues to play and we are prepared to dance to its tune, which we simply can't do in a very finite world. Our pensions, our savings schemes, property prices all depend on an ever growing, ever demanding society. Wanting more, more, more rather than truly understanding what we ultimately need. Quite worryingly Oil is a resource that is reaching the peak of its production, a resource that together with other fossil fuels is contributing greatly to climate change, it keeps our population healthy with its use in the medical industry, it helps intensively feed and then grow our population, it helps escort us and our food, around the planet in plane, train or automobile. Our economy is being stretched to snapping point by our greed, wanting bigger, better, larger houses and more of everything. Financiers have been willing to lend money into existence at simply a key stroke at 5, 6 times salary with interest (more growth), with no value backing behind it, purely an IOU, where no one truly picks up the tab, bar NATURE!! Because everything is so intricately entwined, without us truly knowing (or the large majority of us) any increase in interest rates, oil price and consequent fuel and food price, puts more and more pressure on us to find resources from somewhere to cover it, more natural resources. Or the music stops and it all comes crashing down (as it has done already), and will do so again and again, until we find another solution that is more sustainable. In our recent way of living we have forgotten about out triple bottom line, we have concentrated solely on profit and forgotten about our people and our planet and how they need to be accounted for too. This is bringing with it the economic, environmental and social crisis we are faced with today. We need to readdress this balance, and fast. This takes brave choices and decisions, that aren't solely about money and profit. It means new thinking, within banks, within financing, the legal system, accountancy, our manufacturing, utilities market, housing, fuel supply, government, every business, household, within every one of us. Albert Einstein would say 'You can't solve problems with the same kind of thinking that created them.' Tweaking the system won't work, it's time for a whole new model to be thought about and brought into existence a more SUSTAINABLE one. Together though we can do it, we can create the change needed to create the world we want to live in. So lets start doing it today! To find out more on how you can help the transition needed click here. |
