19 October 2008

Our economy is killing the Earth

I had a sense of deja vu when I read this: Special report: How our economy is killing the Earth - opinion - 16 October 2008 - New Scientist: "A growing band of experts are looking at figures like these and arguing that personal carbon virtue and collective environmentalism are futile as long as our economic system is built on the assumption of growth. The science tells us that if we are serious about saving Earth, we must reshape our economy"
Because, this is not new; it was a key plank of environmentalist political thinking in the late 70's and into the 80's. Some of the inflation we are seeing is due to resource-depletion. The question is whether market solutions (ie price rises) can work fast enough to prompt the kind of huge infrastructural changes that are needed to help enough. Many of the contributors to the New Scientist issue on the matter seem to think that they can't.

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"Spend and tax" not "tax and spend"

 I got a response from my MP which got me kind of mad. You'll see why as I reproduce it here. Apologies for the strange changes in types...