Politics in the Zeros. The politics of progress; cleantech, the economy. anti-war

Root cause of global warming

Unplanned economic production which focuses on short-term objectives and profit, rather than the long-term health of the planet, is the root cause of global warming.

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3 Comments

  1. DJ says:

    You really should read Daly. He argues– and quite rightly, I believe– that the problem is essentially one of scale. Throughout most of human history, our impact on the planet as a whole (though not on individual species or bioregions) was negligible, and resources such as clean air, water, and oceans were abundant and could, for purposes of simplification, be treated as infinite. Now our numbers and our individual impact has inreased. But the ECONOMIC THEORY we use still considers such resources as infinite, when they no longer are.

    I would suggest that economic structure is perhaps a symptom of a deeper illness: outdated economic formulas that fail to reflect the current reality. How can you create an economic structure to protect the planet when the findamental mathematical equations that all nations use to measure their economics work against it?

  2. Bob Morris says:

    Who is Daly? Not familiar with him.

  3. DJ says:

    Herman E. Daly, former World Bank economist, wrote the book “Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development,” in which he shows how conventional economics no longer reflects our ecological reality. I consider it a must-read, especially as we confront the econimics of global climate change. Highly recommended.

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