Growth, Development and Sustainability

"One thing is clear to me now, ...... our values must be compatible with the exigencies of the natural world we live in and depend upon. They must implicitly recognise the laws of thermodynamics, energy’s role in our survival, the dangers of certain kinds of connectivity, and the nonlinear behaviour of natural systems like the climate. The endless material growth of our economies is fundamentally inconsistent with these physical facts of life. Period. End of story. And a value system that makes endless growth the primary source of our social stability and spiritual well-being will destroy us."

Thomas Homer-Dixon

I couldn’t agree more with this quotation, at the very root of the problems we are creating, is our seemingly insatiable appetite for all kinds of growth, the most damaging of which is economic. I feel it important to declare here that I believe that money is nothing more than a human construction, used as a token for the exercise of control over others and as such, can and should be repositioned to facilitate the changes necessary for the survival of our species. Money can attribute value but it is not a value in and of itself yet it can and should be used to do valuable things. The problem is not money but the economic system it enables. Beneath the economics lies the radical issue; that of human greed and the desire for power and prestige, whether this is a natural phenomenon or simply learnt behaviour is becoming irrelevant since our survival instinct trumps status every time. My question as to whether or not we are writing our epitaph or that we are indeed awakening, arises from the doubt I have about our willingness to put collective and generational survival above our individual short term desire for personal gratification.

WIn addition to economic growth other types of growth are cause for concern. Growth seems to be the watchword of our global community, when we speak of development it is invariably linked with growth, it's about becoming bigger, more influential, having more, all quantitative rather than qualitative terms. We seem to relate our very identities to how much we have compared to others, this leads to a deep splitting between individuals, communities, nations and most importantly from the rest of the ecosystem and biosphere. We seem to see ourselves apart, as the consumer of all things, here to have our needs met at the expenses of everything and everyone else. It resembles an addiction, the more you have, the more you want but the more you get the more fearful of loss you become, leading to an absolute need to continue to get more. This makes for deeply unhappy people who become increasingly unable to relate appropriately, this then leads to truly dysfunctional thinking and behaviour, in fact, one becomes deluded. I believe that collectively we have become deluded and have lost our true identities and our ability to relate appropriately to the world around us. If one looks back at some of the aboriginal cultures, irrespective of their origin, there is much to be learnt about how we might once again connect to the greater whole. I shudder every time I hear about the so called progress and aspirations of the developing nations and am reminded of the old adage; beware of what you wish for, you might actually get it.

Development of a different kind will be crucial to our future, we must use our innate ability as a problem solving animal to develop solutions to the problems we have created. These problems must include the point issues of dealing with today’s burning platforms such as climate change, environmental degradation and the population explosion but it has to be recognised that these are symptomatic of a much greater malaise which is rooted in our social and political structures, simply put we care about the wrong things and unless this changes we will continue to self destruct as any reformed addict will attest to. To achieve true sustainability Man must once again become a complimentary participant in the web of life and value the good of the whole above simply his own. If we were to achieve this we might actually begin to develop as a species rather than developing ‘stuff’ at the expenses of all around us. Sustainability is not simply about finding carbon neutral ways of continuing to do what we do, it is about becoming something that is not only sustained by but is sustaining of, the larger field of which we are a part.