If, as a society, we hope to transition towards a sustainable future we will need to insert the concept of
“enough” into our economic equation.
It is quite understandable that as our numbers increase we might need to increase goods and services in
order to get by. Recently my son and his wife gave birth to twins, which means that their household now
is consuming more than it did before. And in situations where people are experiencing abject poverty –
not having access to basic human needs - it will of course be necessary to ramp up consumption in order to
live in a sustainable manner.
But it is a troubling fact that large segments of our population are presently gobbling up more goods and
services than our planet can afford to deliver. And the problem is compounded by the fact that masses of
poor people around the world aspire to a lifestyle equivalent to ours. Where might such resources come
from?
A case in point is the growing concern world-wide about our use of fossil fuels. While the Covid
pandemic has decreased fossil fuel use temporarily, demand will surge quickly as the pandemic recedes.
Indeed, if the whole world would be using fossil fuels at the rate we normally do in North America, it
would take four or five planets our size to even approach any degree of sustainability.
The problem is that our economic system apparently requires growth in order to survive, let alone thrive.
If our gross domestic product (GDP) is not growing year over year, we are told that we are headed for
trouble. So the standard remedy prescribed for a failing economy is to get people to buy more stuff they
don’t really need. If it were not so sad it would be funny!
In his book, A High Price for Abundant Living, economist Henry Rempel states,
Our present economic system, “…is like a massive eighteen-wheel truck barreling through history. It has
an excessively powerful motor driven by the sum of all human selfishness. It has no brakes. The steering
mechanism is clearly faulty. As a passenger on this truck, are you inclined to ask where we are going? Are
you worried about arriving there safely?”
Taking this problem into the context of our personal lives, it is imperative that we at least begin asking the
question of when “enough is enough.” How big does my house really need to be? How much stuff do I
need to fill it? How much energy can I consume without jeopardizing the welfare of others? Hard questions,
to be sure, but questions we need to ask.
Looking for a way forward, Rempel states, “To change our mad pursuit of ‘progress,’ we will require a
new driver for our economic system, a driver that will use the gifts of nature in such a way that
nonrenewable resources are conserved and the environment is sustained.”
It is encouraging to know that increasingly more global citizens agree with Rempel – our own, home-
grown Manitoba economist.
Jack Heppner
Comments
Post a Comment