I paused for a while wondering whether a review of a book on sustainable economics had a place in a website devoted to climate change. But only briefly. One can’t worry about climate change for long without considering the economies which have given rise to it and wondering how they will survive under the low-carbon regime which they must now adopt. Anyway carbon emissions figure frequently in the course of Tim Jackson’s book Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet. Published last year it was based on a report he wrote earlier in the year as Economics Commissioner of the Sustainable Development Commission, the UK Government’s independent watchdog. Increasingly climate change has imparted a new urgency to sustainability thinking. It sits as one of many issues, but it underlines the seriousness of the need to come to grips with the finitude of the planet.
The prosperity Jackson writes of is our ability to flourish as human beings. It transcends material concern. It has to do with such matters as physical and mental health, access to education, relationships and sense of community, meaningful employment and the ability to participate in the life of society. He argues that in the developed countries we can (and must) have such prosperity without the economic growth paradigm that currently rules our thinking.
Jackson recognises the difficulties of the situation we have landed ourselves with. On the one hand growth is unsustainable, at least in its current form. The burgeoning consumption of finite resources and the heavy costs being imposed on the environment are accompanied by profound disparities in social well-being. But on the other hand “de-growth’ is unstable, at least under present conditions. Declining consumer demand leads to rising unemployment, falling competitiveness and a spiral of recession. It adds up to a dilemma, but one which we must face and think through.
Some economists place hope in our being able to decouple economic growth from growth in physical inputs and environmental impacts. Capitalism’s propensity for efficiency figures strongly in these scenarios. Jackson doesn’t think either the historical evidence or the basic arithmetic of growth can support the decoupling notion. The deep emission and resource cuts needed can’t be achieved without confronting the structure of market economics.
He takes a closer look at this structure. The engine of growth is driven by the ability of the profit motive to stimulate newer, better or cheaper products and services through a continual process of innovation and ‘creative destruction’. This is matched by expanding consumer demand for these goods. A complex social logic drives this demand. Consumer goods have come to play a symbolic role in our lives. Somehow, beyond the simple material needs they meet, they can become vehicles for our dreams and aspirations, however much they fail in delivering. The economic structure thus combines with our nature to “lock us firmly into the iron cage of consumerism”.
What we need, claims Jackson, is a new ecological macro-economics. It will still include a strong requirement for economic stability, but it will add conditions that provide security for people’s livelihoods, ensure distributional equity, impose sustainable levels of resource throughput and protect natural capital. New variables need to be brought into play to complement and affect those already part of economic thinking. They will reflect the energy and resource dependency of the economy and the limits on carbon. They might also reflect the value of eco-system services or stocks of natural capital. Ecological investment will be important, and will mean revisiting the present concepts of profitability and productivity and harnessing them to longer term social goals. He urges the abandonment of the infatuation with increasing labour productivity in favour of high employment in low-carbon sectors.
We will need to be weaned from our dependence on consumerism, but he provides evidence that a less materialistic society will be a happier one and a more equal society a less anxious one. Greater attention to community and participation in the life of society will reduce the loneliness and unsocial behaviour which has undermined the well-being of the modern economy.
He argues that there is a clear case today for an increased role for government. We have already seen an acceptance of this in relation to the 2008 financial crisis. The principal role of government is to ensure that long-term public goods are not undermined by short-term private interests and to deliver social and environmental goods. This role has been diminished by the need in the growth economy to support the consumerism which keeps the economy afloat.
Jackson is leery of revolution, but he proposes steps through which to build change. They fall under three main categories. First, changing the limits. Here he writes of caps on resources and emission, considers the contraction and convergence model, discusses emissions trading schemes and ecological taxes and emphasises the need for support for ecological transition in developing countries.
The second category of steps for change is fixing the economic model. The ecological macro-economics discussed above will lower expectations for labour and capital productivity and account for the value of natural capital and ecosystem services. Ecological investment in jobs, assets and infrastructure will include retrofitting buildings, advancing renewable energy technologies, redesigning networks such as the electricity grid, building public transport infrastructure, maintaining and protecting ecosystems, developing public spaces. There will be increasing financial and fiscal prudence, including regulation of financial markets. A Tobin tax on international currency transfers may be considered. Banks will be required to hold higher asset reserves. National accounts will be revised to be more robust than the present rough and ready GDP.
The third category is changing the social climate. Working time may be reduced. Systemic inequality will be tackled. Better measurements of prosperity will be found. Social capital will be strengthened. The culture of consumerism will be carefully dismantled.
Utopia? No, he says firmly. A financial and ecological necessity.
In a final chapter he faces the question of whether this spells the end of capitalism. Certainly growth would be slowed – labour-intense activities mean slower productivity growth, and ecological investment means a lower and longer return on capital. There would also be a larger role for the public sector in taking some ownership stake in the longer-term less productive investments. But capitalist economies often have elements of public ownership. There is a wide spectrum of possibilities in a capitalist system. There’s no need to polarize the debate.
I thought the book was splendid. Jackson’s writing is lucid and well organised. He has a gift for the telling sentence. (It was not altogether surprising to discover that in addition to his academic life he is a professional playwright for BBC radio.) He is cautious and sensible, not pretending that the transition to low growth is a doddle. But he holds firmly to the conviction that it can be made and that the society which emerges will be better than the one we currently inhabit.
And that in a nut shell is why there is little chance of anything substantial being done to tackle climate change, at least in the short term.
When you have people like Tim Jackson piggy backing off schemes such as the Cap and Trade as the lauch pad for his socialist utopia you are going to get a rather large blow back in terms of opposition.
His ideas are just the failed ideals of the hippy left of the 1960's and 70's rebranded and repackaged for the 21st Century. There are a number of gross assumptions which underly his main premises such as we are running out of resources.
If you want a broadbased approach to tackling the challenges of Climate change you would be best served to avoid pushing this leftist nonsense as a potential solution. Doing so just makes your job a lot lot harder.
"We will need to be weaned from our dependence on consumerism…"
OMG can these nanny-staters give themselves away any more blatantly if they started putting us all in diapers?
Meanwhile, even Uber green Germany is losing the faith…
You miss the point Steve. Jackson is not being moralistic, but envisioning an economy in which the production and sale of consumer goods is not at the pitch which now obtains. The focus will shift to labour-intensive jobs which protect and improve public assets. A lot of sustained and systematic effort went in to build the culture of consumerism on which the present economic model depends. He proposes a similarly systematic and sustained dismantling through such measures as restricting commercial advertising to children, introducing stronger trading standards which among other things address the durability of consumer products, and so on. He specifically disavows a purely punitive endeavour. Offering viable alternatives to the consumer way of life is vital. "Progress depends on building up capabilities for people to flourish in less materialistic ways."
"…an economy in which the production and sale of consumer goods is not at the pitch which now obtains. "
Please explain how this differs from what the rest of us call "poorer"
"The focus will shift to labour-intensive jobs which protect and improve public assets."
And if people don't voluntarily comply?…Please explain how the necessary measures will differ from those employed by the Khmer Rouge in 1975
You can call it "poorer" if you like. Jackson calls it human flourishing. I've indicated in the post the sort of things he means by that.
So far as Pol Pot is concerned I've indicated above that Jackson is no revolutionary. Indeed he specifically says of any who urge revolution: "The spectre of a new barbarism lurks in the wings." How long could we maintain civil society, he asks, in a world constrained for resources and threatened with climate change if we have already torn down our institutional structures? You're seeing bogeymen where none exist. Jackson is a mildly liberal and democratic thinker trying to further discussion about how we might live prosperously without growth. Differ from him by all means, but discussions work better if they're not punctuated by preposterous accusations.
 IntenseDebate Notification <DIV>Gosman, apart from abusing Jackson for what you regard as his socialism you address only one matter in the substance of what he has to say, and that is the question of whether we are running out of resources. Are we to understand that you don't think this is anything to be concerned about? </DIV> <DIV style=\”FONT: 10pt arial\”>
"OMG can these nanny-staters give themselves away any more blatantly if they started putting us all in diapers? "
actually Steve he articulates a very sensible position very well. are you afraid to reduce your consumption? do you think the human race can carry on with growing consumption of resources indefinitely? tell us why you think the status quo can be maintained indefinitely.
Your ideas are just the failed ideas of the free marketeers of the 80s blah blah blah.
do you think he's wrong to assume natural resources are limited? if so please tell us why. for bonus points, define socialism for us and explain why you think this is socialism.
So you don't think overstocking of animals on marginal lands was an environmental issue?
"do you think he's wrong to assume natural resources are limited? if so please tell us why. for bonus points, define socialism for us and explain why you think this is socialism."
Natural resources are only limited in the sense of how you choose to use them, how much people want to use them at anyone time, and how easy it is to get them to use.
Water is an example of this. There is actually more than enough water for every person on the planet it just isn't very easy to get in various places in the form that is very easy to use. Even when it is used all you are doing is temporarily taking it out of the system by moving it from one place (e.g. a river or lake) and depositing it for a short time in another (e.g. your body). When it comes out it is still water but in a slightly different form.
The same goes for pretty much every other natural resource as well. The amount of metal hasn’t really diminished. It is just being used or thrown away. Even Hydrocarbons when used as energy are just transformed into a different form. It might be difficult to reconstitute them but not impossible. Bio-fuels is an example of how to do this.
It is therefore nonsensical to talk about running out of natural resources because they are limited. We have trouble getting them in a useable form but they don't disappear as implied by some.
As for the definition of Socialism, that is a system where the collective feel that it has a better feel for determining the economic value of goods and services than individuals, for whatever reason. The collective, (or more precisely those that control the collective), then take away much of the rights of the individual, (usually by coercion), to both produce and purchase what they want and try to do manage both ends of the market (supply and demand) themselves. All this is done for the 'Good of the collective as a whole' or so says the propaganda. Individual liberty and freedom is subsumed by the expressed desire to please the collective.
Tell me why Tim Jackson's suggestion isn't that.
"It is therefore nonsensical to talk about running out of natural resources because they are limited. We have trouble getting them in a useable form but they don't disappear as implied by some…"
As usual, in a very pedantic sense you're right. If you can find an efficient way to convert Carbon Dioxide back into coal and oil then you will have clearly demonstrated the nonsensicality of such claims. Right now though, while it still takes millions of years to do most natural resources are effectively limited. It may be possible for us to one day extract elements from landfill efficiently but in the current real world we are wasting and dumping millions of tons of plastic and metal daily (and have been doing so for decades). It's a big world but do you really think it's infinite? Your claim relies pretty heavily on efficient recycling processes (which of course require energy). Have you heard of the second law of thermodynamics?
And thanks for that defintion of socialism. I take it then you believe in the individual's right to unlimited consumption regardless of the effects on the collective?
Suppose AGW is happening (just for a minute); are you saying that despite the damage to all humans it is wrong to stop people from emitting ever more because individuals always know what's good for humanity as a whole and do it?
One only needs to read books like Patel's "the Value of Nothing" to assign a value to the idiotic prattlings of Wrathall and his fellow trolls.
What the heck does "are you afraid to reduce your consumption?" actually mean beyond some pointless slogan.
It is kind of like "What will you tell the grandkids?" in terms of how the State tried to encourage people to sign up to fight in various wars in the past (interesting that some people use this same argument in terms of Climate change as well).
Please tell me how I am meant to reduce consumption beyond minimising unnecessary energy consumption. I certainly don't spend money on a huge amounts of luxury items and we have even cut back on buying what we regard as necessities such as clothes. We have a small home garden which we grow a few vegetables.
The reason we live like this is not out of concern for the environment but because we have to for our finances sake. Now we are in the top 5% of income earners in the country so theoretically we should be prime candidates for curbing our lifestyle. So what would this entail for my family and I?
This would be the same Raj Patel who is quoted as stating the following "The question is: why are there markets of food at all?" ?
Hmmmmm…. as a nation whose very economic existence is dependent on the fact there is a market for food I would suggest his ideas are not exactly beneficial to New Zealand.
Ummmm…. how exactly have the ideas of the 1980's failed?
You do remember what sort of part NZ was on in 1984 do you?
How the Government had imposed a wage and Price freeze because inflation was going through the roof.
How unemployment was steadily rising even though we had a massively protected economy.
How you couldn't buy many items because they weren't available, or if they were they were controlled by one or two favoured importers.
How many businesses had their head offices in Wellington because they spent much of their time lobbying the Government for favours rather than conducting business.
How our National Debt was spiralling out of control to the extent that we would have needed a rescue package similar to the one Greece is now having to beg for?
How our Publicly owned companies were so inefficient that it took the old Post Office weeks, if not months to hook up your phone for you and the service on the Railways was simply abyssmal.
How our top rate of tax was 60% yet we still had huge social problems such as a Maori underclass.
Yeah I can see why you think our society was much better back in those days.
How our Publicly owned companies were so inefficient that it took the old Post Office weeks, if not months to hook up your phone for you
Ah, the Telecom/private enterprise/efficiency meme.
When trotted out there's invariably never any mention of the real reason for the quantum leap in services at the time. In mid 1980s telecommunication services was poised on the cusp of a major technological shift as exchanges etc moved from analogue to digital etc.
Most of the improved efficiencies in connection times etc would have happened regardless.
It was fortuitous event for the right wing, still exploited by those shilling for the Chicago school of economics.
Apologies for continuing off topic but I dislike seeing this particular crock pass unchallenged.
Apologies but it should have read
"You do remember what sort of state NZ was in pre 1984 do you? "
"Now we are in the top 5% of income earners in the country so theoretically we should be prime candidates for curbing our lifestyle. So what would this entail for my family and I?"
You don't say what you do spend your money on so I don't know. Clearly if you're in the top 5% of the earners in the country and you're not spending on luxuries then you're either saving or spending on something else? I don't think you'd really care for my home economics advice anyway, but here you go:
I'm not advocating people cut down on their spending just that they spend keeping in mind the externatlities within their purchase. If you have more money try to buy local as much as possible, hand-crafted rather than mass-manufactured and choosing the lowest-emission option practical for whatever purchase there is. And Yes! to home gardening. Everyone should have a garden. It just makes sense and saves $.
I'd also love to see some price incentives brought to bear on the packaging industry to reduce the amount of non-biodegradable plastic being put into disposable goods.
Unlimited growth is indeed the ideology of cancer cells; so above we get to hear the opinions of a couple of rather ominous looking cysts!
I wonder if Steve Wrathalls’ grasp of economics is actually any better than the sweeping grasp of South American geopolitics he stunned us all with beneath the ‘Klein in Bolivia’ post?
And as, for Gosman; yes, here we get the standard continuation of the inflation of the value of ‘Socialism’ to mean any rational intervention in an economy, no matter how cautious. Careful guys; the way you frame it Socialism might end up becoming rather popular…
Perhaps he’d also care to improve on Wrathall and explain how decades of pursuing the very ‘free market’ theories he expounds in regions like South America had produced a markedly more dire situation than NZ’s pre-Lange, and a great deal of civil unrest leading to a mass breakout to what you’d call ‘Socialist’ governments as soon as the Global Invigilator’s attention had been turned to the War on Terror elsewhere?
Finite planet, exponentially growing population and concomitant growth in demand for resources – how could that go wrong? Yeah, the burden of proof’s definitely on the resource-pessimists here!
Do you know what one of the most successful economy in South America is?
To save you the trouble looking it up, it is Chile. Chile essentially followed the same sort of economic policies we did so all your talk about how free-market economics has caused problems in South America is a load of nonsense.
Ummmm…. I'm not saving because I can't afford to. This would also suggest that I am not interested in buying local if it isn't cheaper for us.
You want to know where the majority of our money goes if not on consumption? Quite simple really, the Bank to cover our mortgage and the Tax man. You probably think I should pay more in Tax though as well as more for the basics in life such as food and clothing.
"Quite simple really, the Bank to cover our mortgage and the Tax man."
Are you seriously playing the "oh woe is me I earn too much so I'm poor because the government is stealing my money" tune? If you're in the top 5% with nothing to spare you're presumably on your way to owning a very nice house (if that mortgage is too expensive you could have chosen somewhere less nice) and if you think you're paying too much tax, simple: earn less.
I'm at the other end of the income scale and doing just fine thanks, just covering the bills, growing the garden and enjoying family life. Of course the tax man's not taking as much from me but you still enjoy the same amount of low-tax income as me. I still consume more in a week than the average probably Kenyan does in a year but by the standards of my society our family consumes little, minimises our waste and lives well.
"I'm not saving because I can't afford to."
So you don't see your equity in the house as savings?
I'm not wanting, or even expecting your sympathy. I am highlighting to you how empty and hollow your statement "are you afraid to reduce your consumption?" is when applied to a real world example.
Slogans ability to persuade people are rather limited unless they have substance behind them.
"I am highlighting to you how empty and hollow your statement "are you afraid to reduce your consumption?" is when applied to a real world example. "
You're not highlighting it very well. If I understand you right you're saying your carbon footprint is already pretty low in which case there isn't as much call on you to reduce your consumption. Unless you're more specific about what you consume it's hard to say what you could reduce: do you drive when you could cycle? do you go for joyrides on a motorboat every weekend that burns $100 of fuel an hour? do you fly when you could teleconference? do you have an uninsulated house? (I hope not if your mortgage is so high)…
Reducing consumption is a pretty clear statement and it's only meaningless to those who do not comprehend what it means (like any other set of words).
The greatest environmentalist NZ has ever had is Roger Douglas. Why? Because his removal of farming subsidies reversed the overstocking of marginal, erodable hill country.
That one policy has had a better effect on the environment than any measure since.
What about mining coal in national parks? that's got to be a winner. getting that dirty coal out of the way…
Ummmmm….. bollocks.
Whether or not the technology shift was responsible for some of the improved services what is undeniable is that it took longer to connect your phone pre 1984 than it did just a few years later
First you dismiss it, then you admit you don't know, and then you take six of one and half dozen of the later.
Not convincing except in sense that you really have little clue about what was going on in the engineering field at the time, there was major overhaul of network switching technology throughout the eighties.
And you ignore the fact that a lot of this investment was made possible because the firms were commercial rather than as part of the public service. Look what happned when TVNZ wanted to go Digital in the 1990's. The Government of the day nixed the idea and that was despite TVNZ being a commercial enterprise.
Ummmmm…. Why would the economy move to more Labour intensive jobs when the trend up to now has been in more capital intensive ones?
The very fact you and I are having a discussion online rather than via a more complex way like via letters or through a newspaper is an example of this.
The only way I can see the economy becoming more labour intensive is if the mechanics of the market are distorted to discourage efficiencies.
Jackson does not suggest that increases in labour productivity are always bad. He says there are clearly places where it makes sense to substitute away from human labour. But he sees work as one of the ways in which people participate meaningfully in society and the kind of jobs he envisages emerging in a low carbon low growth society don't need to have productivity standards relentlessly applied to them.
Tim Jackson's concern is much wider than the collective/individual divide you posit. I reviewed his book here because it seemed to have some relevance to climate change concerns. I consider your "rights of the individual to produce and purchase what they want" must take a back seat to the need to confront the climate crisis.
You seem to have some sort of trouble understanding how those sorts of decisions aare currently made in our society.
The market largely determines whether or not it makes sense to substitute away from human labour. There isn't some sort of committee of learned men and women sitting around deciding this for society as a whole.
This sort of thinking is best left to people like Robert Mugabe who actually thought he could set a fair price for goods and services in his country. This was the cost of production plus a margin of ten percent. Do you know how that ended up Bryan when he tried to impose this sort of rule?
So are your stating you want to trash the market mechanism on a belief that it is necessary to save the planet?
Good luck getting all by a small radical minority to support that wrong headed idea Bryan.
You persist in pushing things to the either/or extremes. Governments can regulate in much more sophisticated ways than that. A tax on carbon, for example, whether directly or through an ETS approach, is a far cry from the Mugabe illustration you propose. Human labour is not just a market commodity – it has a right to claim a place in the economy of a society not altogether determined by the operations of market forces. As a teacher I was paid from taxation revenue, and it never occurred to me to doubt I was a useful member of the society.
No, not trash it. Set proper limits to it. And I don't see that as in the slightest bit radical.
I push the argument to extremes because that is what Tim Jackson is suggesting. For example he talks about society becoming more labour intensive. How do you think this is going to be achieved Bryan? By everyone just going 'Oh all right, lets forget economic efficiencies and accept higher costs for everything. So long as I have a job'. It hasn't happened in the past and it is unlikely to happen in the future.
Ummmmm….. bollocks.
Whether or not the technology shift was responsible for some of the improved services what is undeniable is that it took longer to connect your phone pre 1984 than it did just a few years later. On top of that the old Post Office was cross subsidising services and barely, if ever making profits.
The shift to digital technology happened in the 1990's, post the intiail improvements in services and profits. It is also doubtful that the NZ Government would have been willing or able to fund the necessary investment required to move to these ne technologies. Remember what happened when TVNZ requested a move to digital technology back in the early 1990's?
Really?
So how come Chileans are so keen on finding how to introduce an RMA structure into their country? (From personal experience on a monthly if not weekly basis.)
A structure that in essence was designed to provide some of the basis of what is espoused by the book.
It will be achieved by stages and by a whole series of steps.in which sensible government will play its part. So far as extremism is concerned I remind you that this website exists because of science's well-founded warning that business as usual will result in at least a considerably diminished future for humankind, maybe much worse. There has to be change. Jackson suggests a possible way that change may take, in much more reasonable tones than you are using. I note that the political grouping in our country which most heavily espouses an unfettered market has also found it necessary to deny the science of climate change. That's extremism if you're on the watch for it.
First point – I am only scratching surface of Jackson and I am highly ignorant of economics so far so take comments with grain of salt.
However, I would like to see thoughts on why a pretty naturally enforced sustainability isnt going to work.
ie. you are making some resources off-limit because ecological values are too high for destruction by extraction. On top of that, depleted resource will send cost sky high. If material cost is thus high, then doesnt mean economics for much longer product life and ongoing repair begin to dominate (as they did and do in other examples of tight resource)? Ditto, if sections for building are forced into scarcity by higher valuing of arable land etc. then cities will start to densify also. (Higher transportation cost will help too).
Enforcing full life-cycle costs and things like carbon tax would perhaps hasten this process. At the moment, it is very hard to get costs associated with disposal factored into price.
But beyond those interventions, do you need anything else?? This is a question, not rhetoric. I am interested in people's opinion.
????
I presume you mean a Resource Management Act?
What does a RMA have to do with whether or not free market economics have been successful?
In case you forgot we have a RMA as well. Does this mean we aren't a free market economy?
Once again you fail to explain exactly how Jackson's vision for a more labour intensive economy will actually be brought about and seemingly ignore the fact that his vission is at odds with economic trends over the past few centuries.
Just saying there has to be a change for our own good is not an answer Bryan no matter how many times you repeat the mantra.
My best friend was a NZ Post lineman at the time (1980s) and over a few beers he tried to explain how the new digital exchanges that were being installed worked. In the end we agreed it was done all with mirrors.
…and compare New Zealand's telecommunications now with other countries in the developed world – we pay more for slower services and most of the profit disappears overseas.
the post is really about the future now that we're discovering as a species that there are limitations to our ecological situation (some members of the species being slower on the uptake, but you'll get there I'm sure). relitigating the 80s is fun for awhile but is really not relevant to the current world in any way.
according to Wikipedia, "Economists prefer Pigovian taxes and subsidies as being the least intrusive and most efficient method to resolve [negative] externalities." but when it comes to actually implementing them it seems that vested interests raise their hackles, fight tooth and nail, and argue black is white rather than accept them…
I'm not ignoring anything, I'm merely objecting to use of the "look at the reduction in waiting times brought about by take over of private ownership" fallacy.
The statement is simply untrue. You might argue that line in postal services and elsewhere, but not in NZ's telecommunication industry of the period.
Above Bryan writes: The prosperity Jackson writes of is our ability to flourish as human beings. It transcends material concern.
Very good. In NZ, too. So, okay, the author isn’t talking enzed and books being books from or about elsewhere, there’ll be an element of readers’ decision.
Here’s mine. Be practical. That is to say be more than an efficient paper-or-price-pusher. Flourish with what you’ve already got, and transcend materiality’s desire.
For instance, in the local recycling place and for a couple of bucks I can get a whole 100metres 8-gauge wire coil. Galvanised. Leftover from some fencing contract. But utterly ideal for turning into a lifelong implement in the garden. Driveways, berms, roadsides, that kind of thing. Piling and clearing leaves after Fall’s winds and rain. Bagging them and mulching or composting..
Which is not hard work with the correct tool/s used properly.
Do I feel better, am I flourishing?—you bet I am!
All of the ‘efficient’ and cheap plastic leaf rakes I ever owned have gotten turned into wire jobs. Yep, there was enough over to reinvent all those saved wooden handles into good use again.
You want one—talk nice to me 🙂 Flourish, too.
Better still, how about getting youth onto producing these things. For themselves. Mums, dads, families. They’ll all feel better. After all, some exercise is good for you.
Steve @ 1.24am
The greatest environmentalist NZ has ever had is Roger Douglas. Why? Because his removal of farming subsidies reversed..
Classic Sting methodology, old chap.
Did he not also put this in some footnote of his “Better Way” pamphleteering. Or didn’t his sources admit same lest it return to bite their butts!
As for resource scarcity, Ive been enjoying the Archdruid's blog and he has recently been discussing the shift to labour-intensive technologies that peak oil will bring. He updates weekly and is well worth subscribing to…
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/
The answer to your expostulation lies in the reliable energy that I presume you think only fossil fuels can deliver. Think again.
You mean the following shopping list?:
"It has to do with such matters as physical and mental health,
access to education, relationships and sense of community, meaningful employment and the ability to participate in the life of society. "
There is not one goddam thing in this motherhood & apple pie roster that is not enhanced by the choices that access to reliable energy confers. e.g. Health. Without our technological energy hungry hospitals what will the lo-carb Aotearoa offer the unfortunate? A bags of lemons and harden the fuck up.
excellent link, nommopilot, thank you.
not the purview here but Greer certainly holds a ‘fisheye’ pov. For instance, his take on Goldman Sachs behavior in the 1930s and similar through the noughties makes for more than plain interest..