Another change of the economical system?

I think the movie of Annie Leonard contains a lot of truth and important points. For me the key point is the currently established economical system, which requires permanent growth.

From my point of view this system is causing most of the currently observed problems. Such a system could only work for a long time in an environment of unlimited resources, otherwise such a system will hit at a certain time borders. And that is what we are currently facing - the system starts obviously hitting it's borders.

Only these days some people start to understand the impact of the changes caused by us since the start of industrialisation, with it's genius idea of mass production, which lead after about 150 years simplified to a list of huge problems:

- overpopulations of humans
- crisis on energy to maintain the system
- severe interference with the biosphere of the planet (changing the climate, extinction of enormous amount of species - plants and animals - and hence reducing the natural bio diversity)
- Prosperity in limited areas of the planet on the cost of other regions

It is extremely remarkable that it took only 150 years to get to this situation! And still only few people would admit that we have to change!

From my point of view it will be required to find a way to have a economy (I assume there will be no system without), which is based on balance instead of growth.

For a very long period in history the human societies lived in balance with their environment (at least on the level of problems they had to face compared to the once we have to face!!). But why? One reason is for sure that consume had a totally different meaning compared to what it means today in our society. In former times things were bought and produced because they were needed and they were used as long as they could be used. Yes, of course the real rich had some luxury but I would assume that is negligible. So "normal" people had their 1 or 2 pairs of shoes, some clothes, and the stuff they needed for there living. Stuff was inherited from parents and was further used! What is happening nowadays? Out of fashion, old, used? Of course we throw the things to the trash. This is luxury! Of course we do not realize anymore what luxury life we actually live. I would assume that Design, latest Fashion and so on were less important then functionality and durability in previous times.

I am pretty sure that we will need to step back, step back to a system, where the individual will have to limit it’s rate of consumption of goods. To a system with the aim to maintain balance not growth.

The first argument against such a system from industry, companies and so on will be that balance will mean stagnancy. I disagree, even if the overall economy for a society would be kept stable on a certain level of energy consumption, of acceptable impacts on the environment would this really imply that no progress is possible anymore? I doubt that! Why should it? Companies could still compete with each other to get a bigger share on the overall economy and new technology will provide advantages against competitors as they do now.

it goes too far…

who needs islamic terrorists, when there are so many already among us?

Stop the clash of civilizations

the pope reads our blog!!

The pope has apparently been reading our manifesto and came up with similar ideas for his new seven deadly sins. Except for genetic modifications and cloning which we have left out, he adopted environment pollution, social injustice, causing poverty and being obscenely wealthy. He also has "taking drugs" as a sin, which we generally addressed as "respect yourself and your body", under the "respect the other" bullet.

Nothing against it, but Ben, you should quote your sources next time!

What I found interesting in this article is the claim that the original sins are currently becoming virtues, and the part on social sins, when a society sins, who should actually pay for it?

The real cost of things

I looked at the movie that Bruno recommended, and it made me think about the real cost of things. Indeed we are nowadays able to buy goods which cost so little, it is hard to imagine that the cost one pays pays indeed for the work and materials that went into the making of the product.
When one thinks of selling the product of the own work, to price the product one considers all the costs: raw materials, time cost - how much time went into the making of the product- , tools cost - which tools are required, how much they cost and last -, premises - rental cost of the premises, including utility bills, even if one is working at home, these are costs that should be taken into consideration.
Now, you can argue that by making products in Asia or low cost countries, that you pay less for work, the raw materials having the same cost you achieve a lower cost product. this product still must be brought into our shops in the west, and that costs energy.

We take energy for granted. We go to the gas station, complain about the prices, fill up, turn our light switches on, and energy is always there. But just like any other product, when pricing energy one should take all factors into consideration.

But...how do you put a price on the production of oil or natural gas?

The price of research to find where the oil field is, the cost of getting a drilling platform to the place, people to drill it, and boats to get it to where it is needed (not mentioning the extra costs due to political situations), but, what about the raw material cost? How much does it cost to really produce the oil that is there under the ground? sometime in the past huge forests had to be grown and huge amounts of time had to be invested - by nature - in order for us to have that oil there. We are consuming the work nature did during millions of years, and we are not paying back the real value that nature deserves.

It is just like if we get someone to make the most elaborate work, takes him, days, moths, years to finish it, and at the end, we pat him on the back, and kick him out of the door with no reward, consuming the work of all that time in one afternoon. The result...not only we did not truly appreciate the result, but after all that time with no proper pay...there is nobody that can do the same work...

Is it fair to abuse nature like this?