Green Capitalism - Waves of the Future
Climate Change, Non-Renewable Resources, Energy, Contaminants, Carbon Pricing...Green Economy, Sustainable Development, Degrowth (De-growth), Population Growth
Are we heading for an economic crisis or collapse?
Environmentalist are increasingly divided on whether any form of economic growth can continue. The degrowth advocates are now saying that sustainable development is itself unsustainable as it would imply continued growth. What is the answer?
See also Book I of the Waves of the Future Series
The Green Economy: Growth & Degrowth, Non-Renewable Natural Resources, the Population Bomb
Is the green economy a utopia? The environmental movement is increasingly divided on the issue. Degrowth advocates now oppose green growth/sustainable development on the grounds that any growth is unsustainable.
Population growth, although a concern raised by many, does not seem to have much political weight. Yet, given that mineral reserves are running surprising low, it may become an overriding issue, making both green growth and degrowth unsustainable, i.e. not enough to deal with the impending shortages of non-renewable metallic resources.
Increasingly, we are seeing people on the same side fighting each other. As a result, little progress is achieved for the environment. The Depopulation-GEE Strategy offers Greens a solution and has the potential to unite the environmental movement. It combines both green growth and degrowth, making it twice as effective as either of them alone, and greatly increases the sustainability of the system.
The depopulation aspect addresses the issue of unemployment and lower incomes that may result from degrowth. If both global production and population decrease at the same time, the income per capita remains the same. 10 divided by 10 equals 1, but so does 5 divided by 5. It is the per capita revenue that determines personal incomes, not total production.
If population decreases faster, incomes can even rise at the same time as world production decreases. As an added benefit, unemployment would actually go down (lowering costs to society and perhaps income tax) instead increasing as under a degrowth system.