Everything Must Go
By George Monbiot, Everyone wants everything – how is that going to work? The promise of economic growth is that the poor can live like the rich and the rich can live like the oligarchs.
But already we are bursting through the physical limits of the planet that sustains us. Climate breakdown, soil loss, the collapse of habitats and species, the sea of plastic, insectageddon: all are driven by rising consumption.
The promise of private luxury for everyone cannot be met: neither the physical nor the ecological space exists.
But growth must go on: this is everywhere the political imperative.
And we must adjust our tastes accordingly. In the name of autonomy and choice, marketing uses the latest findings in neuroscience to break down our defences.
Research by Oxfam suggests that the world’s richest 1% (if your household has an income of £70,000 or more (78,000 euros), this means you) produce around 175 times as much carbon as the poorest 10%.
Those who seek to resist must, like the Simple Lifers in Brave New World, be silenced – in this case by the media. With every generation, the baseline of normalised consumption shifts. Thirty years ago, it was ridiculous to buy bottled water, where tap water is clean and abundant.
Today, worldwide, we use a million plastic bottles a minute. Continue reading “Economic ‘Growth’ will destroy everything. Greening it won`t work – We Need a New System.”
The Free 