A SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY
CHANGE IS COMING
There cannot be business as usual on a planet under stress. We are now so many, and our impacts so intense, that ecosystems are degrading not only locally, but on a global scale. The inevitable feedback from ecosystem failure will intensify until we fully understand our interdependence and begin to act on this knowledge of interconnection with the natural world. We can choose to dismiss or ignore this fact, but the feedback will continue unabated. Major change is coming whether we adapt or not.
No doubt some corporate and political leaders will attempt to publicly down-play increasingly severe environmental and social conditions in order to maintain short-term profits and power. (We are already seeing this with the issue of rapid climate change). Despite such confusing and delaying tactics, public awareness will continue to grow and it will transform the way we produce and the nature of what we consume.
The real question is how much degradation to the natural world and social stability will have occurred before a turning point is reached? At that turning point, our economy will function off the interest of the world's natural capital, leaving the remaining principal intact for future generations. It is how a good business operates and it is what an economy for life really looks like. Let's leave the best possible world to our children and grand-children and achieve Sustainability sooner rather than later.
NEEDED: ACCURATE ECONOMIC INDICATORS
Current economic indicators such as the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) distract voters and politicians from making the necessary political changes. The tragic flaw in the GDP as an indicator is that it doesn't consider the whole economic picture. While GDP measures such activities as increased industrial production and higher wages, it doesn't factor in losses, such as depleted fisheries, clear-cut forests, polluted air and water, increased cancer rates, and growing homelessness. Even worse, GDP counts as positive economic activity resulting from crime and oil spills, for example. The GDP only knows how to add, it doesn't know when to subtract.
This overuse of the GDP reflects an obsession with material growth at all cost, whether such growth detracts from quality-of-life is immaterial to the GDP. We need a more balanced and sustainable approach which recognizes that while some economic activities should grow (e.g. renewable technology sector, services, etc.) others need to shrink (e.g. polluting technologies, disposable gadgets, etc.) if we want to increase quality-of-life. Since the GDP doesn't tell the full economic truth, it's a poor measure of overall economic health.
Green economics uses more broadly based economic
indicators, such as the GPI (Genuine Progress Indicator), to assess the health
of our entire economy - social and the environmental, as well financial. Over-exploitation
of natural and human resources to fuel short-term financial gain is quickly
detected with this type of measure. Applied green economics does not weaken
our social structures, degrade our environment, or mortgage our future. It
also further serves to moderate the boom-and-bust cycle of the economy by
directing political and social priorities to quality-of-life issues and Sustainability,
rather than “infectious greed” and conspicuous consumption.