Open Future New Zealand

About the End of Economic Growth

The Economy is 100% Dependent on the Environment

The Future is Unstable: The Cause is Human Activity

I've become convinced that the way we measure economic growth sends us all the wrong signals and bamboozles our thinking.  We are committed to economic growth, but that commitment is killing the planet.  It's simple: population growth cannot continue. It's nothing to do with being able to feed all the people, we could do that, at least for a while. It's the destruction of the natural world that is destroying our options for building a better future.

Economic growth, as currently defined, cannot continue either.  Environmental destruction to enable economic growth eventually destroys the resources needed to keep the rivers, oceans and the atmosphere healthy.  There are LIMITS, and we are reluctantly discovering what those limits are.  Even in the face of all this bad news our politicians still believe that an expanding population and never-ending prosperity is possible. I believe the world is already "full."  Too many people, too much production, and far too much pollution and environmental degradation.

This is scary territory, and most people don't want to think about it, they dismiss the notion; try to avoid the problem.  We self-censor, in an effort to protect ourselves.  That's a well established characteristic of how people behave.  It will kill us, there is no escape.

Any possible solution begins with each of us having the courage to try and understand the problem.  Out there on the "Useful Common", is all the information we need.  But until we understand it and integrate it with our thinking and decision making, we can't make good use of it.  Those seeking to increase their personal wealth, or their political power and influence, will refuse to accept any restriction on their "rights".  That desire for wealth and power sustains a system that is at the same time eating or consuming itself.  We deny what's happening when our ambitions clash with cultural and ecological limitations.

At a personal level, most of us also play the denial game regarding our health. That's what the companion site  Open Future Health is about. The sickness we all face is in our society, and so each of us is vulnerable. Fake news is problem enough. When you add fake food and fake exercise and fake information, life becomes confusing.  When you can't see what you've done to yourself, it's hard to fix the problem. There is no medical solution to most of the "health problems" you and I are likely to have. There is a reason why "going to the doctor" doesn't help.

Learning, understanding and integrating new uncomfortable knowledge takes time, about 10 years, of your life.  Have you started yet?  There are some rather brutal social, economic and environmental shocks coming, rising fuel costs and climate change are only the beginning.  I expect hunger and poverty to increase.  That means economic decline, resource wars and population decline.  What date? 

Precise knowledge about the future isn't available to us. We can be sure that business as usual destroys the ability of the Earth to supply a stable climate, fish in the ocean, a supply of fresh clean water.  We are eliminating an environment that makes family and village life possible. Already we can see humanity pressing against the resource limits of the Earth. We are already in overshoot, our efforts to be "productive" use too much of the Earth, and nature itself dies. The Earth will survive, business as usual will stop. How that happens, and how much pain that causes society is yet to be decided.

What can we do now, to reduce the excessive impact of human life on Earth?  We need to decrease our impact and then reverse it.  But in every country on Earth, people are trying to increase resource extraction, increasing production, improving incomes, seeking wealth and influence.  That will continue until for some reason it's no longer possible.  That event can come very quickly, an earthquake, a wildfire, a storm, a sickness, a war, the financial collapse of others. 

It's too late already to stop significant sea level rise.  There will be substantial negative effects on the climate and the economy because of increasing global temperatures.  We are already seeing the loss of human life, and the loss of wildlife.  We see wildfires, storms, both flooding and drought, landslides, and ocean erosion of the coastline.  Expect the eventual result of climate change to significantly reduce the human population on Earth.  Does that also lead to the extinction of homo sapiens?  It's a real question. 

We have about 30 million refugees today.  Expect that number to be more than 100 million before the end of this century.  There will be resource wars, they are already happening.  Expect cities to run out of drinkable water.  Expect the collapse of more ocean fisheries.  Expect people to die of heat stroke in large numbers, whenever air conditioning fails.  The news isn't good, but it's better to face it, than to close your eyes. 

It doesn't matter, that is not a situation we control. You can control what you know, and what you choose to do. If it takes you 10 years to adapt to new unpleasant realities, it's best to start now.  Don't wait for the crisis to come.  Build a foundation for personal sustainability, give yourself a chance to build an Open Future.  There are business opportunities, and survival opportunities for those who best understand what's happening.

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