Interview: How Our Economy is Killing the Earth

[G_j]

http://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2010/07/interview-how-our-economy-is-killing-the-earth/59440/

Interview: How Our Economy is Killing the Earth

Jul 10 2010, 8:00 AM ET

Times Books

When Bill McKibben first sounded the alarm about global warming 20 years ago, he was something of a voice crying in the wilderness. Now McKibben, author of The End of Nature and Deep Economy, is issuing an even more dire warning. His new book, with the science fiction-y title Eaarth, paints a picture of a depleted, overheated planet no longer suited to its inhabitants. That planet is our own, the time is now, and the book is non-fiction.

Laying the blame for climate change squarely at the feet of the growth economy, McKibben proposes a new, robust, "mature" economic model centered on localized energy, food production, and capital. McKibben, founder of the climate change action group 350.org, spoke to The Atlantic about the way our energy sources dictate our economy—and how we might yet live "lightly, carefully and gracefully" in a hotter and leaner world. You must meet with considerable opposition from policymakers, academics, and press who are invested in economic growth.

Sure. It's very hard for any of us to take on the notion that the thing that's been central though the course of our whole lives, the political idea that whatever kind of ideology we've tended to embrace may no longer be serving us. It's especially hard to take on because it's an idea that, at some point, did serve us well. So yes, there's lots of resistance—an inability, almost, to hear or to understand the basic idea.


Number one, how desperate we are for energy right now, drilling for oil a mile beneath the surface of the earth. It shows we have run out of the last drops of easy oil on this planet.


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[RKP5637]

1. Thanks for posting. IMO this notion of endless growth, endless free markets, deregulation and

a runaway capitalistic economy will take earth under, eventually. I really disagree with our business education and economic models. They are flawed for the 21st century. The paradigm must change for survival. We're a train wreck in slow motion.

This is an excellent article.

[Art_from_Ark]

2. Agreed

Infinite growth is unsustainable. We must focus on sustainability and harmony with nature, if we are to survive.