Whats Wrong with Growth - Essay Example

?Introduction to concept The concept where various non government organizations, activists, environmentalist and anti-consumerist people come together to promote downscaling of consumption and production is called Degrowth. Degrowth supporters have an anti capitalist and anti consumption attitude towards the ever growing materialistic world. They believe that resources are limited in this world, and consumerism is the root of long term environmental problems and social inequalities. They don’t say to reduce the use by sacrificing pleasures, instead they urge people and organizations to maximize happiness by non consumptive means like sharing, reusing, reducing waste and devoting more time to art, family and society overall. They believe that human dependence on non renewable sources is way too high right now which will eventually lead humanity to a dead end. They promote sustainable development, use of renewable source of energy and reduce our ecological imprint on Mother Nature. They are also against neocolonialism which leads to exploitation of third world countries by developed countries. Why degrowth? Whats wrong in growth? The meaning of growth in today’s capitalist world mean grow more, produce more, sell more and use more, all in order to make more money which is termed as growth. Countries also do bother about human development index (HDI) but are almost always sidelined when it comes to the focus on GDP and growth. This growth is only increasing the pace of life, and as the Indian revolutionary M K Gandhi said ‘there is more to life than just increasing its speed’ is so relevant now. It seems a simple idea of people working hard, earning money and spending on a good life style. Companies keep on developing new products for those people to better their life style. People work to earn to buy products which are developed by companies where people work. It’s a catch 22 position and an endless cycle. Nowhere in this cycle does environment, non renewable sources or Mother Nature feature in the decision made by majority of people. People who are not able to earn their daily living are caught in poverty and are difficult for them to even think about environment. It is the responsibility of the educated, civilized and knowledgeable people to take charge of the planet. This growth if continued at current rate will exhaust the fossil fuels on the basis of which is thriving so fast. You thought Economic growth is solutions of problems? Is it the problem? Any sane person shall say that solutions to issues like starvation, housing, education, poverty, disease, health care and employment is economic growth. Countries who have achieved economic growth are called developed country and live a comfortable life, those who are struggling are called developing countries. Economic growth in western countries had lead to larger spending powers and hence larger consumption of products. Larger demand for these products leads to mass production of them in third world countries as labor and capital is cheap there. This leads to exploitation of developing countries and creates a divide between rich and poor in the society. Rich becomes richer, poor becomes poorer. Fossil fuels are fast depleting, there are wars between countries for crude oil and nuclear power. Hence fast economic growth in past few decades have increased the speed of the world so much, that growth itself has become the problem and rest of the real issues of education, poverty and food are side tracked. “Questioning growth is deemed to be the act of lunatics, idealists and revolutionaries. But question it we must. The myth of growth has failed us. It has failed the two billion people who still live on less than $2 a day. It has failed the fragile ecological systems on which we depend for survival. It has failed, spectacularly, in its own terms, to provide economic stability and secure people’s livelihoods.” as correctly said by Tim Jackson, Economies commissioner of the sustainable development commission, an independent advisory body to the UK. Issues and warnings Uncontrollable population growth. We were only a couple of billions few decades ago and now we have exponentially reached to cross 6.3 billion. The ever growing population they say is poised to cross 9 billion by 2050. The planet might not be ready to bear the burden of such heavy population. War for fossil fuel: fossil fuel is the single dearest commodity to the world. Everybody is fighting for it directly or indirectly and one nuclear war for the same shall lead to self destruction of humanity Fossil fuel is finite: it took millions of years of incubation for these fossil fuels to become what they are, and the rate at which humans are using it, we are soon going to hit a dead end Slow pace of sustainable technologies: there are still people in this world, who prefer to completely ignore the global warming signals and carry on with its economic activities. Hence the focus and money needed to fund the sustainable technology is difficult and pace is slow. Does economic growth make you happy? People work to earn money, spend money to buy means to happiness and be happy. There are people who have less money and are happy, there are people who are billionaire but deep down inside are unsatisfied with their lives. Money is not a measure of happiness. Humans are happy as long as they get the basic amenities in life, enough security for future and peace of mind. They don’t need the ever increasing fast paced life full of new products and ideas to become happy. He does not need 1000 varieties of fruits available in local market flown from all over the world at the cost of irreplaceable fossil fuel. Depending on money, power or materialistic means beyond a point with not fetch any more happiness. Economic growth is always pushed forward by creative destruction. We always keep looking for newer, cheaper, faster and better products but end up wasting lot of resources and harming the planet. What needs to change? 1. First and fore most the mind set of people who are in position of decision making and who has necessary powers to make the world a better place needs to change. This change when coming from top down shall have a trickling effect on all others under them and lead to faster change. Fossil fuels are inevitable for current way of life, but their misuse and overuse can be avoided. A shift away from these non renewable sources of energy with a speedy shift in investments and savings in other sources of energy can help. 2. The mind set of an individual has to change. An individual has the choice of brushing his teeth or shaving with the tap of water open or closed intermittently. This might be a trivial thing when we are talking about global crisis, but when 6 billion people save a bucket of sweet water, you can imagine yourself how many gallons of difference we have made together in the first 15 minutes of morning. It has to come from within, or through correct communication from the torch bears of global warming and degrowth concept. 3. The world is designed in such a way that even if one wants to lead a simple, non consumptive life he cannot. The incentives of getting into the heard mentality of faster economic growth outweighs the benefits of simple living. One needs to think of how to dismantle the perverse incentives for unproductive status competition. 4. To establish new structures, new concepts, new organization which provide capabilities for people to flourish and to take part in meaningful and creative way. They should promote to stop surviving as a robot and start living as a human being. Live example of degrowth This concept is spreading in the world from many different pockets. One such pocket is UK where the govt. itself to an extent is supporting less use, reuse and recycle. Mr. Jackson, working for the UK government support capitalism and growth but stresses that the growth must be decoupled with resources. If one achieves better growth by more use of resources it might be harmful in long run. One needs to try to decouple GNP and use of resources to achieve it to lead a better degrowth strategy for the country. Better efficiency in use of resources leads to decoupling. This will lead to growth of economy and reverse the damage to environment too. But in the end he says that decoupling is a myth and any amount of growth will lead to green houses gases and depletion of resources so one must be careful of the pace at which they are growing. If there is better efficiency this leads to more use of resources and more production for profitability instead of less use of resources to maintain the out put level. London is a metro, a global city and centre for all activities relating to business or even environmental protection. This is city where you can see live examples at each level of how people are using degrowth as a means to save the planet from destruction. Following are the different levels at which you see small changes happening which can be termed as degrwoth. People / Individuals: they cycle to office, use recycled bags, carry plastic bag for shopping to avoid taking new ones. They also recycle paper, tin, glass and kitchen waste. Each council in London has its own recycling centre where people go to drop their stuff once in a while. Corporate: Tesco, largest retailer for house hold good and one of the biggest companies of UK has also started its responsibility towards nature. It uses 100% recyclable plastic bags. LIDL, another retain store does not give away plastic bags for free with each product purchase. You have to purchase a bag at a small cost if you need one. This has prompted many people to get their own bags to shopping. NGO: there are innumerable NGOs operating in London who work towards communicating to the people that endless growth will never bring happiness. There are spiritual organizations who teach the same things but at a different level. Government / Councils: use of renewable sources of energy is promoted. Funding for infrastructure projects involving clean technology is promoted. Government consciously makes efforts to decrease their carbon foot print by reuse and recycle. Lately even the Buckingham palace where the queen and the prince resides decided to decrease their carbon foot print by traveling less by air and making necessary changes at home. UK also took part through its scientists and bodies in the degrowth conference in Barcelona in 2010. Government has also given enough powers to the sustainable development commission to take necessary step and recommend the govt. on each step to be eco friendly and decrease the countries carbon footprint. Conclusion This might be a theory so to say as this idea is very naive and not tested as much as anything else. But this is something which has the potential to bring huge change in the way we live. If we take this seriously and work together in order to make minor changes to our style of living, the earth will become much more sustainable. References Foster J., Degrow or Die? www.redpepper.org. Web. Nov 2010. Prosperity without growth? Sustainable development commission. Print. Dec 2010. www.wikipedia.com http://makewealthhistory.org http://www.sustainablemontreal.ca www.degrowth.eu Read More